Once you pop

Is there anything on Earth more painful than spicy twiglet-dust in your eyes? It stings like nothing else. Its enough to put you off them – believe me – I almost missed Wizard of Oz this year trying to douse it out.

They should carry a health warning.

I hope that all my readers had a great Christmas.

Apart from Christmas Eve, the customers have not stopped calling. There was a numb silence prior finishing on Friday. The annual twiglets and Pringles party was cut short this year. We all decided to go home and reconnect with our loved ones, as we had not seen them for four weeks.

There’s a silent stare that we exchange. A knowing look that says: “I understand what you’ve been through.”

When we came back this week it was much the same. Customers were holding on for twenty minutes yesterday to complain that their miniature sprinkler for bonsais was bunging up, or that their Singing Ringing Tree had forgotten its words.

Ah well. Happy New Year everyone and normal blogging service will be resumed on Tuesday. 2005 promises to be full of changes.

Christmas Puppies

It was the team Christmas do on Friday. I never enjoy it. Somebody always corners me for a ‘career chat’ and ends up crying in my stella. It was quite good this year as everyone got leathered early doors, during the meal, and cut out the banter.

I love Barney (The Big Gay Bear) when he’s had a drink. He cranks up the campness to such a degree that he can wave his left hand, waft a fag in his right, while wobbling his head and bobbing excitedly in his chair - all at the same time! “I need to unfasten my pants, I’m bustin’ out. I’ve been gobblin’ nuts all day.”

Tizzy was almost wearing an 'Obi Wan Dress' - ("Feel the force - LOOK). Every muscle around my eyeballs was straining to maintain a ‘horizontal hold’ to save embarrassment.

“Look at those love. You could feed a crèche,” Barney said. “You could cure me with those!”

Someone got me a ‘Best Boss In The World’ mug in the secret Santa.

Someone was taking the piss.

Ho Ho Bloody Ho

I know, I know – sorry and all that – but I’ve been busy. Santa’s turned his back on Bangalore and outsourced his work to us in Bolton.

My headset has been out of the velvet-lined box and its muff welded to my ear throughout December. The wallboards have been jingling constantly as the ‘on hold’ Christmas music warped with overuse.

John Three has not had time to breathe, never mind moan, and the inquest about missing stationery has been ‘parked’ (whatever that means) until the tidal wave of customers that crash against our heads ceases.

It must have been bad as Quandix were taken off ‘Hygiene Bin detail’ and redeployed to take inbound calls for The Catalogue That Cannot Be Named (for keeping my job reasons).

I don’t want to spoil the surprise for you, but here are the top 5 gifts for this holiday season:

(1) ‘Ever Hard’ a space age biscuit tin that means your bourbons will never be limp. It’s like Viagra for Rich Tea.

(2) ‘Disco Pen’ re-live Saturday Night Fever next time you write a cheque. Flashes red, yellow, pink and blue – not suitable for people with photo-sensitivity or taste.

(3) Nuts of the World Luxury Hamper – a hamper filled with nuts. Unlike every other hamper in the world, there’s no sign of a ‘pie in a tin’, you’ll need to purchase it separately. May contain nuts.

(4) Singing Ringing Tree – knows over a hundred Christmas tunes, some of them made up, could replace Cliff Richard when he croaks.

(5) Wrapstar’s Lever Arch Files – while stocks last!

too busy to blog - see you in a week - write in for a refund.

A Brief History of Call Centres

Part One: Banishing the Back Office.

A combination of economics and technology has created call centres. The desire to get more for less created the need for companies to centralise; therefore taking their operation out of city centres and into the outskirts, in a bid to transform the country into a car park.

It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy, using technology as an excuse, that has driven the rise of call centres. It’s a logic that says “We need more call centres because our customers want to contact us by telephone” while customers are saying “I need to contact people by telephone, because I don’t have a choice, they’ve moved everything into a call centre.”

Management have been determined to banish ‘back office’ work. The ‘back office’ conjures images of gnarled old men punching holes in strips of paper while Bob Cratchet chucks another log on the fire. Back offices were filled with people who used to ‘do stuff’ and they have been replaced by computers that ‘don’t do stuff’. It was a necessary to make companies profitable.

A hundred people were once employed, on four pounds an hour, to 'do stuff'. Instead, we have Management consultants who are paid four hundred pounds an hour to work out why nothing gets done.

Progress.

The Important Room

Mary had booked the Important Room that we are never allowed to go in, for the meeting about stationery. I was ready to be publicly exposed as the main culprit for the rising costs in the office. I rehearsed my leaving speech in preparation: “I may be going – but at least I discovered what gridding tape is – how many people can say that?”

The Important Room has a long, narrow table down the centre; like a decorating-paste table, and a big plant in the corner. Brenda loves the table because you can’t help but sit really, really close and breathe on the person opposite. “What’s this? A ‘stare-out’ competition.” Martin said as he sat down.

I laughed (with nerves), but everyone else was far too serious.

Everyone in the meeting was clutching a cup with a cardboard jacket from the Death Wagon. Every time Brenda crossed her legs, she kicked me hard in the shin.

Mary led the meeting and after an hour, six sheets of flip chart paper, six different coloured markers, some blue tac and ten copies of a 10 page report, we came up with a cost saving strategy:

“We pledge to use less stationery.”

It’s a simple but effective strategy I feel.

Ouch

I caught my finger in a lever arch file today. It was the shock of being invited to a meeting to discuss ‘stationery consumption’ headed by Mary. It really hurt. Maybe it’s an omen.

I bought a latte from the Death Wagon - two quid! - for a cup of foam that inflated in my stomach. I was farting away all afternoon like a singing ringing tree.

You should hear my ‘Away in A Manager’.

Skinny Latte – to go!

Mary has pointed out that people have been turning in late over the past week. I opened up my in-box to find a stinging memo from Ian complaining about my team’s log on time. Every member of the team has been late every single day for the past three weeks.

Part of the problem has been Mary’s visit and John Three’s scowling, but the real reason is that my watch is on British Summer Time. Call it wishful thinking; call it ‘positive self-talk’; better still, call it laziness - but I haven’t put my watch back in an attempt to avoid winter.

A few pertinent questions here and there and everywhere and … et voila – Bob’s your Auntie’s live-in-lover - my investigations revealed the cause of the tardy behaviour.

It seems that the Death Wagon, parked outside of the Call Centre, is not content with clogging up arteries with fried egg, bacon, steak and mushrooms. It’s gone ‘up market’ and bought a barista. The sound of slamming that accompanies modern coffee making rings through the converted trailer while my team wait for the next fix.

My team are wired on caffine from a gleaming machine… (get Bowie on the line – I have a new lyric.)

Shot in the Dark

John Three’s gripes and groans are still fresh in my mind. Wendy from HR has suggested that I ‘document’ the discussion for future reference.

I’ve considered what he said and can see his point. It’s a pain in the arse working in the Call Centre. I watched a neo-investigative journalist on one of those pre-Eastenders fill-ill documentaries that the BBC is churning out - “Should I be worried about … the bleedin’ obvious?” or something like that. The journo went undercover in a call centre and measured his ‘stress levels’ as he took calls. He was standing in line for a triple by-pass after twenty minutes. He said that it was ‘the fear of the unknown’ and ‘not knowing what query was coming up next’ that sent his heart rate a flutter.

If it’s true that call centres are not for people with a nervous disposition, how come they employ so many people who get stressed at the slightest thing?

Tizzy has the constant jitters and apparently told one of the Quandix temps that working at the Call Centre was like “playing Russian Roulette – you never know if the next call is your last.”

I may suggest a new ad campaign for recruitment: “Call Centre work – at last – a game of Russian Roulette that won’t cure dandruff”

Bull by the Horns

I’ve decided to tackle John Three and his Moomin memoirs in a pre-emptive strike, before Mary hits me with a 40 page report. I decided to take him on and find out, once and for all, what’s bothering him.

I wish I hadn’t bothered.

“The innovation station hasn’t been up dated for months. There are not enough pens, there’s too many files and flip chart paper, but we can’t write. John’s had to use the same piece of paper for the past 4 years …”

“It’s his choice to use the same piece of paper.” I interjected.

“It’s ridiculous. There’s too much noise in the office and the customers are stupid and don’t know what they’re doing. The toilets are never clean. I’m not enjoying my job and no one seems to care.”

I knotted my eyebrows in concern.

“Trouble is,” he continued, snarling now, “If you say anything you are branded as ‘negative’”

Whatever gave him that impression?

Giving Mary the Finger

Mary has been sat with the team. The last time she was here she said that we were “not specific enough about the degree of imitation-ness of the imitation beech effect cd cases”.

She has been hovering over to the Quandix team too, who have been wooing her with their charm and cheap sweets. The chuckle brothers, Mr Outspan and Johnny Knucklehead, have managed to persuade her of the rationale of having a hygiene bin in the middle of the office.

John Three gave her the curly finger – the international symbol for ‘I have something to tell you’ – and she conspiratorially slid over to his desk. She spent half an hour reading through his book.

We are doomed.

It’s going … It’s going … Done for!

“Will we be observing a two minutes silence for him?” Joan asked with her eyebrows knotted in concern.

Bolton has come to a stand still as it buries its ‘favourite son’ Fred Dibnah. It’s not the first time he’s brought the town to gridlock – his bleedin’ traction engine made sure of that – but this time it is for his funeral procession. Shops have closed. People have lined the streets.

Not a bad showing for someone who knocked down chimneys for a living. He was Britain’s first ever ‘reality tv’ star, a pro-type Jade Goody if you will, and was probably the first and last time you’ll ever see the words ‘celebrity’ and ‘steeplejack’ put together.

At school, I was doing Fred impressions while everyone else was still doing Frank Spenser – I still get requests. Although we never met, I like to think I had an impact on his life as I once bumped into his wife Alison at the library. She was looking puzzled so I helped her to find the ‘feminist sociology’ section. Weeks later she divorced him saying he was an out-moded chauvinist who was living in the past. Who knows, if I’d shown her to the ‘canals and waterways’ section, the course of history may have been changed.

Life goes on. “Get back on the phones Joan.”

She tried the same last week for Arafat.

Baubling On

If you “press 1” for the Christmas catalogue, you are fast-forwarded to one of Martin’s team.

Martin and his ‘Youth Camp’ – sorry – ‘Team’ have put up decorations and flashing fairy lights around a ‘Team Score Board’ to get them in the mood.

HONK! Honk! HONK! Honk! Brenda was sat with Martin as they listened to a call together. Apparently a customer was complaining about a ‘Singing, Ringing Christmas Tree’ that was fluffing its lines and she played it down the phone to the adviser.

All the managers crowded around Martin’s desk to hear the tree sing: “Fart. The feral angels sing …”

You should hear its Frosty the Snowman.

English Language … the ultimate sacrifice

Another day. Another meeting.

Mary has summoned the managers together to deliver a presentation entitled “Mail Order and Distance Marketing Regulatory Requirements: New Initiatives for a New Millennium.”

Who could resist such a catchy title?

I could tell it was an important meeting because Bernard had ordered biscuits. He was snatching at them at intervals.

She took us through a whistle stop tour of a power point presentation and summed it up by saying, ”In short, I am adopting a holistic approach to the business synergies to ensure global, joined-up-thinking across the piece.”

We paused for two minutes silence …

Bin and Gone

Mary has descended. She is doing an audit on the office. There’re new regulations that she wants to impose and no doubt she’ll want to commit further crimes against the English language.

“What on earth is that doing in the middle of an office?” She pointed to a ‘Hygiene Bin for Sanitary Products’ that the Quandix team were selling to pubs and clubs up and down the country.

I explained to Mary, “It helps them focus apparently. We have a gnome as our mascot.”

I held up the gnome with blue-tac where its eyes once where.

She wasn’t looking. She wouldn’t take her eyes off the bin.

Perhaps I should hide the files in it?