29 Jun 2006

Wiginagain agin again

These are the confessions of an unreliable blogger.

Being back at the Call Centre is strange. Its like going to bed with Sharon Osbourne, it seems new and very old at the same time.

There are aspects of the job that never change. The customers still have unrealistic demands of being answered straight away by someone who knows what they’re doing. I mean. Come on.

The staff still are trying their damnedest to get off the phones at whatever cost.

The team managers, sorry, Team Leaders, are still trying their damnedest to keep their team on the phones while hopping from one meaningless meeting to the next.

The Customer Service Manager, Brenda, is still keeping it real by concentrating on the minutiae of every bleeding detail in meaningless meetings that go on for hours.

Thus the cycle continues and the nation is provided with all the novelty spoon holders it can ever want and some attractive love handles thrown in for good measure.

I’m not finding it funny any more.

28 Jun 2006

Wiginagain agin

Now that I’ve been back to work for 6 months, its time to take stock and reflect on what has been an encouraging start: Brenda has not given me real people yet, I’m stuck with temps but they are so embedded that they are going to qualify for a clock, she has, however given me several high profile jobs such as monitoring the complaints and auditing the chairs in the centre.

She has been like a plague of locus throughout the Wigan office and chucked out the chintz, and everything else she could get her hands on, in a bid to make the place ‘her own’. She’s replaced all the chairs with bucket-like banquettes in a range of colours. At the end of each day she has a diagram that she spot checks to make sure that the banquettes do not clash with the pin boards.

I have been put on ‘bucket-bonk’ detail.

It’s a start. I may not be hot on the love handles, but I know that my ‘apple’ fabric shouldn’t be mixed with my ‘damson’ pinboards.

27 Jun 2006

Downtime

Don’t worry. I’m not dead. I’ve been resting due to a malfunction.

It makes me sound like a dodgy cyberman. Let me rephrase; I’ve been off-line due to a computer malfunction. It’s something to do with a firewallbanger burning out, or something like that, thus I’ve been unable to access the internet.

Whatever the reason, I’ve had Slaptop, the IT manager, burrowing under my desk for weeks pulling out wires, staplers and laminated ‘Employee of the month’ certificates like they were rabbits out of a hat.

He mumbled something about thread worms and gave me a long number that I was supposed to remember and an ETA SLA of 28 days.

On the dawn of the 28th day, I saw the light of day, and the BBC homepage.

Slaptop sent me a 40 page feedback form for me to complete. I’m giving myself 28 days prior to sending a ‘holding notice’.

In the meantime it seems that a counterfeit version of the blog has been started: ‘Call Centre Consequential’. If you haven’t seen it, then imagine buying one of those t-shirts off the market ‘Timmy Hillfigure’ or ‘Kevin Klien’ and you’ll get the idea. I guess it is the sincerest form of flattery, but I feel a little soiled. He’s even recycling some of my bad jokes.

I wonder if Slaptop can ‘take him out’.