Call Centre Confidential

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Call Centre Confidential is my diary as a Team Manager. Next stop Bombay.

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Call Centre Confidential

Thursday, March 18, 2004
Homage to Catalogue-ia

Brian has managed to secure his prime piece of real estate with a combination of concealed threats and appealing to my sense of “I-can’t-be arsed”. He has well and truly claimed squatter’s rights by sticking the words “Brian’s Chair – do not move or else!!!!!” on the back using the label machine and lots and lots of sticky tape.

An evening team needs to use the desks. We’ll be sharing. I don’t know how to approach this with the team, given they nearly staged a walk out when I suggested a bit of a move around.

‘Hot Desking’ brings out the worst in the most placid people at the best of times.
I considered playing a video of LAND AND FREEDOM, by Ken Loach, with its twenty-minute debate on the nature of collectivism during the Spanish revolution.

I've changed my mind. Collectivism may make them more willing to lend their chairs but it isn’t going to help my stats if they all hop on the next bus to Spain.

Wednesday, March 17, 2004
Itchy and Scratchy

Thrush has amazing powers of annoyance. People ask what actually makes him such an irritating cunt and I struggle to respond. It’s an x-factor; I don’t know what it is, but I know it when I see it.

I overhear him saying things that I am willing to let go. For example, he sometimes uses some strange turns-of-phrase when speaking to customers that often leaves them puzzled: “Well, I’ll deal with that before you get the jungle-drums drumming.”

Huh?

I made the mistake of trying to tackle him today. He was referring to “a missive from the computer”.

“It doesn’t sound good John. It makes us appear faceless and dehumanised.” I said.

“We are.”

He had a point, but I continued to press on. “I don’t think it helps a customer’s situation when the only comfort you can offer is ‘it was the computer wot done it’” I had a slightly condescending tone in my voice.

He snorted though his nose. Smiled. “It was the computer ‘wot did it’” He used his fingers to create inverted commas.

It was Nietzsche, I think, who said that if you stare at the abyss long enough it starts to stare back at you.

I walked away.

Tuesday, March 16, 2004
Call in Noah

The floodgates have opened. Word has got around the team that I have given in to Brian, and let him stay in his window seat. It has caused a diplomatic situation that has rumbled on all day.

I only wanted to get Thrush out of earshot, and to make room for Fido, who is joining my team next week (along with his meat products).

A delegation from the ‘left bank’ of desks, led by Moomin Papa, asked to speak to me this afternoon. He presented a petition and waffled on about how it will affect the “team spirit” and that desk security was important to them.

I doubt that Martin Luther King could have generated so much passion over the location of a footrest.

Eventually I relented and agreed to reconsider the options.

I’ve spent three hours colouring in that plan. This is the thanks I get.

Monday, March 15, 2004
When the music stops …

On the face of it, I thought I’d made a fairly innocent statement. In the team focus session today I said, “I’ve been thinking about having a swap round. Moving the team around a little bit.”

I’d spent ages drawing a diagram of the new seating plan and colouring it in with hightlighter pens (all those years in primary school education were not wasted after all). I held the plan in the air like Neville Chamberlin.

The team looked at me with a combination of horro and disapointment; as if I’d suggested that we ritualistically stuck cocktail sticks in our eyes and run around the office naked.

After the session ended they drifted back to their desks. Thrush lovingly stroked the veneer of his desk before looking longingly at his screen, as if to say, “good bye old buddy.”

Brian was the first to lobby me. “I need a window seat.” He tapped his baldhead nervously. “Don’t forget I need it as a ‘reasonable adjustment’ to stop me going off sick.”

“Are you threatening to go off sick if you don’t get a window seat Brian?” I asked.

“No. No.” He gave a capped-tooth, crocodile smile, and said, “The draft from the window helps my feet.”

You can’t argue with this level of logic.

Saturday, March 13, 2004
Louis Cypher

It was my six month appraisal on Friday. Bernard has got a new suit and it distracted me during the meeting because it makes him look like a member of Showaddywaddy who has taken up undertaking.

Brenda, the office manager and my self-appointed life coach, was a silent presence at the meeting.

Usually Bernard ignores the standard format of appraisals, as determined by human resources, by following his own train of thought no matter how off the wall, but I think the powers that be have reached him and insisted that he follows the standard agenda. This time he has agreed to play by the rules, after a fashion, and he referred to the ‘Competency Wheel’.

The wheel is designed to invite discussion and a mutual exploration of your skills and knowledge, but Bernard has not quite grasped the concept of ‘dialogue’ and ended each statement with a demand to “prove it”.

I did my best to fend off his questions in the hope that he was ready to give me my button and make me a ‘made’ manager. Sure, I have given up putting in any effort over the past couple of months, but I hoped that I had done enough to get some recognition from the big Boss.

“I liked your memo about the toner cartridges and you have made a contribution to the sales stream.” He paused and grasped his chin. “But I’m not convinced.”

I knew what was coming.

“You need to play the game more. I think you need to work on the two Ps: Politics and profile. You need to lighten up more. Think less. Do more. Do you really want to be the a Call Centre Team Manager?”

No.

“Yes of course I do.” I said.

I handed my soul to him on a platter.

Wednesday, March 10, 2004
Belle de Jour part deux (The Diary of a Call Centre Girl)

Today I had a special treat. The keyboard cleaners were in, dusting the detritus of slowly eroding Call Centre workers from the nooks and crannies in the office.

I love the keyboard girl.

I love the curl that kisses her forehead.

I love her china-white, translucent skin.

I love the way she coyly looks at me as though I am a lecherous fat biffer.

You understand that my appreciation of her beauty is intended in an enlightened and non-threatening manner.

I caught her brown eyes today and politely asked her to visit my desk.

Me: “My ball keeps sticking.”

She: “I’ll sort it out for you.”

She silently popped out the ball of my mouse and digitally explored the rim prior to extracting a tiny clump of fluff.

Is there anything this girl can’t do?

Tuesday, March 09, 2004
Copy Cat

I am a little unfair when I talk about Nigel, aka Sooty, as I paint him as ineffectual, weak and boring, but he does have a special talent.

At lunchtime yesterday I decided to pass on my daily constitutional with Call Centre Tony and decide to visit Office World to buy some stationery. It’s one of those cavernous warehouses stashed, floor to ceiling, with stationery. For someone like me, who is obsessive about stationery, walking down the aisles can induce an organismistic orgasm.

I was on the hunt for a file to present my six-month report to Bernard. I selected one of those robust plastic files that look like they should be used to store radioactive material in rather than my shabby efforts to get a pay rise.

When I got back I decided to copy the report. The Call Centre has invested in a new photocopier that doesn’t look like a photocopier. It is more like R2 D2.

It’s the state of the art. It’s so good that when I fed the report into one end, it came out of the other side a crumpled, origami sculpture.

“Shit!” I exclaimed as it mangled the third sheet of my report.

Nigel calmly approached. Without saying a word he calmly took over. In no time it was colour copied, double-sided and perfectly collated; complete with a copy to give to my mum.

Nigel is a ‘Copier Whisperer’.

Monday, March 08, 2004
The Time Bandits

Nigel was getting excited today. He tried to talk tough to corral us into action. The ‘Time Management Spreadsheet’ needed to be handed in early Friday. Only Janice met the deadline.

“Bernard is not going to be happy and the happiness of Bernardo is what makes us happy Pippin.” He said in his sternest, most whimsical voice, to stir me into action.

He might have done too if he hadn’t insisted on referring to me as ‘Pippin’.

I hurriedly made up some nonsense and submitted it to him.

I consider myself to be someone of integrity and honesty, yet I was willing to lie in this ‘Time Management Spreadsheet’ to a level that would have made Jeffery Archer proud.

Where I went to the coffee machine, I ticked the box that said ‘Team Coaching’.

Where I went for a George the Third, I ticked the box that said ‘HR Matters’.

I asked Tony if he had filled his in honestly, “You could say that it is ‘semi-auto-biographical’.”

It keeps Bernardo happy.

Sunday, March 07, 2004
Pay Back

There’s a theme emerging from the appraisals. Moomin does not want to be here and neither does Barney, but indifferent ways. It’s a combination of “seeing out my life” and “seeking to better my life”. I suppose I should be emboldened by the ambition that is apparent on my team.

Instead, I feel self-pity because I think of all the times that I have shared their ambition. It is coming up to my birthday and the twelfth anniversary of working at the Call Centre and I still can’t shake off the disappointment with my life.

Nevertheless, I have spent some time preparing for my pay appraisal with Bernard. Normally I’d wing it but this time I want to be ready with a quick remark or examples to support my claim for more pay.

Last time it was disastrous, I can still hear his voice; Earnest, precise and cutting: “You may think that you are better than this. You may think that “there must be more to life than this”. If I thought that you had the drive and ability, I would say that you are wasted in the Call Centre. But, you haven’t, so get over it. You’ve got a job. Life ain’t that bad.”

I have a file full of memos, reports and papers that I have been involved with over the past 6 months.

I intend to prove that I deserve some reward for biting my lip and “playing the game” over the past 6 months. There may well be more to life than this, but for now, it’s the best I’ve got and I've the paperwork to prove it.

Cynical? Moi?

Wednesday, March 03, 2004
Teddy Ruxpin on Acid

Tizzy phoned in sick today. She has developed an allergy to the stick insects that she adopted: “I’ve had to take Kerry and Jordan back to the shop because I’ve come out in lumps.”

There’s no answer to that.

During the last appraisals, in August, I indulged in one of my addictions so I could get through them: fizzy sweets in the shape of a dummy. I have managed to resist the temptation this time. Instead, I have still got a job lot of duty-free sweets I bought from the airport (you know the ones, they have different fruits pictured on the wrapper, but they all taste the same) but I haven’t touched them. I’m quite proud of myself.

I’ve almost finished the appraisals. Thrush and Moomin are out of the way for another 6 months.

Barney, The Big Gay Bear, makes it nice and easy by agreeing with everything I say. He has worked hard on the team and he deserves to be rewarded for sitting on my right hand and supporting me through 2003.

Once we got the sordid business of his appraisal out of the way, he started to tell me about his latest money-spinner. He is making screen printed t-shirts featuring teddy bears dressed as gay icons in an Andy Warhol style. “You should see my version of Winnie the Pooh meets Judy Garland – it’s to die for – and it’s selling like hot cakes.”

Finally, a cottage industry he can’t get arrested for …

Tuesday, March 02, 2004
Sofa so good

Moomin Papa stares at me with wild eyes during his appraisal. He obviously does not like me and everything, to his very marrow, exudes his dislike of Team Managers and everything they stand for … which isn’t very much.

Everyone says he’s a Morman, but the subject of religion never comes up in his pay appraisals, as I try and keep it to wrap-time, orders per hour and fiddle with the competency wheel for a bit.

He used to be a bank manager who was made redundant. He is now working for ‘pin money’ and to see his four daughters through college: “I want to keep them in beer and tampax for the next five years.”

Silence. I didn’t know what to say.

“In life, you realise that you amount to nothing.” He said. “You might be some big shot manager at the moment but you’re expendable. If you had your hand in a bucket of water and took it away, there would be no difference …”

“That’s interesting. Can we keep it to the subject in hand … your call to order ratio.”

He ducked it again with some comment about him being a ‘chair leg’ propping up the wannabes.

“John, you’re not a chair.” I paused. “You’re more of a stool.”

Monday, March 01, 2004
The Mask

I need to get through the team’s appraisals this week. This is the most important point of the year for some of my team. They take it too seriously. Once, Moomin brought in a Dictaphone to make sure that the meeting was captured on tape. I’m not sure that it would be admissible in court, but it seemed to make him happy.

I started off easy and did the members of the team that are easy. John Doe is anal, but I quite like him. He has been cock-a-hoop since I came back from Cyprus with a rubber mask of Greek Cypriot President Tassos Papadopoulos. He has been collecting rubber masks of world leaders since he saw POINT BREAK.

On the other hand, Thrush is really difficult. He makes everything so hard because even when he is agreeing with what I say he snorts through his nose in disapproval.

The ‘Performance Wheel’ has been discovered in the corner of the top drawer. I’ve dusted it off and I have set the coordinates for self-destruct.

Friday, February 27, 2004
24

I'm Wrapstar, Team Manager in the Call Centre, and this is going to be the longest day of my life...

10:00

Check the register. Spend 20 minutes trying to find the pen with a really fine point so all the marks are the same.

I discover some mint imperials in my drawer that I'd forgotten about. There's some important documents in there too that I thought I'd sorted out ages ago. I place them, mints and all, in my in-tray, and pledge to work on them later.

10:30

I have the first cup of coffee of the day. I ponder at the machine speculating about Ian's theory: the higher the number, the more disgusting the drink; ox-tail soup is 100 and water is 1.

10:42

Open in-box. Delete all messages from Nigel about Call Performance - if its bad I'll hear about it soon enough - if it's good, it will make no difference.

11:00

First call from Call Centre Tony mithering me about lunch, under the pretext of it being good time-management: "Book it in or book it out, son."

11:10

Another coffee. I can now tackle the issues of the day.

11:30

Call Centre Tony comes to my desk: "Are you ready for a nose-bag?"

12:15

In the Canteen Confessional with Tony for 10 minutes longer than I intended. He is like a snooze-button on my alarm clock: "Just another 5 minutes, then we'll go back."

1:00

Arrange my desk to do some call reviews. I'm way behind my target. I get my head-set out of its velvet-lined box, position my pen with the really fine tip and suck on a slightly fluffy mint as I switch on the system, ready to listen.

1:05

Fag Ash Lil visits. She has a carrier bag filled with patches and gum that she has bought off her friend Kathy, who has given up giving up smoking. Lil isn't quitting; she wants the stash to supplement her habit. She reckons that she can have a 24 hour intake using the patches and gum.

2:00

Shuffle through some paper work.

Barney, the Big Gay Bear, starts a 'between call debate' about Carry On films. The team are surprised when I cite 'Carry On Abroad' as my favourite.

3:00

Call from Sooty - why has my Wrap Time increased in the last hour? I make up something about 'complex queries'. I bring the 'Carry On' debate to a close.

3:15

Another coffee. It starts to taste like hot dog sausage brine.

3:30

Toilet break. I smuggle in a copy of PRIVATE EYE.

4:00

I decide to actually DO a call review.

4:15

The Call Monitoring system is broken. I decide to look up funny names in the customer database instead. I found Ned Flanders the other day.

5:00

Start to wind down by having a hot chocolate 'for a change' (number 15). Meet Ian at the machine and he bores me by talking about football formations.

5:55

Put the important document back in my drawer with a sticky note on it saying 'Important'.

6:00

Leave.

Best thing is ... they pay me for this.

Thursday, February 26, 2004
The Sooty Show

Bernard could barely conceal his boredom as Nigel presented the latest spreadsheet he had created. It has taken two meetings for him to explain what we needed to do. It was turning into a spreadsheet equivalent to a test match.

He held his finger in a the air, “This could be the greatest revolution that the Call Centre has ever seen: a real-time assessment of Team Manager productivity that responds to the skill match on a reactive basis.”

Bernard snatched a biscuit.

“What’s a ‘Cum Time’?” Janice asked.

“I couldn’t fit cumulative in the space.” Nigel said.

Thank goodness he cleared that one up.

Wednesday, February 25, 2004
Tempus Fugit

One of the useless-useful tasks that Bernard has created for Nigel (Sooty) is to provide an assessment of how Team Managers spend their time: “Time is money. How are we using the budget? Are we using the eighty – twenty?”

He tried to explain the spreadsheet that he had created and needed us to complete on a daily basis. Put simply, he wants us to keep a record of what we are doing hour by hour.

He took the best part of an hour to explain it. Not only could he bore the hind legs off a donkey, he could see off the front ones while he was at it and he aw, he aw, he ought to know better (sorry, I couldn’t resist.)

Call Centre Tony was livid. “So you’re telling me I have to fill in a taco-graph to tell you every time I have had a slash in the day – what are you going to do? Fit a cafetière so I don’t need to leave my desk?”

“Catheter.” Sooty said.

“Pardon?” Tony was raging.

“A cafetière makes coffee. A catheter collects urine.”

“And like you Nigel – it takes the piss.” With that, Tony left the room.