Rants of a Telco Worker
I kind have veered away from work ranty posts due to some retard copying some of them, and putting them on another blogsite and distributing it around work. However, I have dealt with that with a trusty block on work’s web proxy. That being said, I need to rant about some really stupid people I deal with.
You may be one of them, if so, take a lesson, the call centre ops are people like yourself, or like me. However after I have taken your call, I feel marginally less intelligent if I have had to explain basic concepts to a customer as to why we can’t cancel your contract free of charge, or why you should pay your goddamn phone/internet bills.
Scenario one: Person calls up, ported* out a couple of weeks ago, phone now mysteriously is blocked. Person calls up screaming, that since he left, we have blocked his phone to “punish” him. We don’t care if you leave. We care if you ring up and hassle us for no reason and think that we can fix up your imei* blocked phone which, by the way, your new telephone provider blocked. Go ring them! “thanks for nothing” the person screams - and I had time to say, “you’re welcome! Anytime, have a great afternoon” Awesome.
Scenario two: to the idiot who rang through, complained loudly, told me that you were a loyal customer and wanted to disconnect free of charge. You aren’t fucking loyal if you are fucking disconnecting you fucking dickhead. Do NOT ever call yourself loyal if you are disconnecting AFTER we fucking gave you what you fucking wanted!
Scenario three: I have avoided returning your call because it’s not our fault your parent company changed providers that our wholesaler doesn’t have an agreement with and think you can disconnect for free.
You’re all MOOCHERS. fuck youse all
*porting = moving from one telco carrier to another
*IMEI = serial number for mobile phone
December 5th, 2006 at 11:02 pm
Argh!
I had something annoying at work for once….
A guy rings up, someone’s rang him, and he missed the call. I say… well, we have 200+ people working here, it could have been anyone calling you…
He says, this has happened like 5 times now (I remember speaking to him once, he must have got the other receptionists other times). I say, I’m sorry, but I can’t know who rang you, but if you leave your name and number, I can send an email around asking if anyone has tried to call you.
Then he starts getting peeved (not to bad, he didn’t swear), about that he already left his number once, and a friend of his told him that he better not give us his number or name again, and that we should be able to see what goes through our call centre, and if it happens again, he’s going to have to take it further…! (he didn’t mention the word police, but was implying it..).
I tried to explain to him again that I wouldn’t be able to find the person who tried to call him without a name or phone number, and then I think he eventually hung up on me…
I think it was quite an elderley gentleman, and doesn’t understand phone systems. And really, I can understand he would be getting frustrated, that he keeps seeing missed calls from our number, and that he keeps missing it. And he didn’t swear at me or anything… Still, I did feel bad, but I just really couldn’t help! Though I did end up sending an email out saying ‘has anyone been trying to call a guy and not getting through lately’ (a few people at work got quite confused by my email, ha ha!)
Anyway… I’ve wasted enough time on this guy as it is… geez I can ramble….!! Must go to bed, dammit!
seeya
Simone
December 6th, 2006 at 12:59 am
I’m typically very friendly to call center folks. I know they’re just doing their jobs, and I know things go more smoothly by being polite than by being rude. But sometimes you get that unique person in a call center that just doesn’t seem to give a damn about what you want, and you have to get their attention by repeating yourself until you get what you want.
For example, after politely explaining that I didn’t want to renew my gym membership, I had to repeat myself 5 times to get them to actually cancel it. Wankers.
December 10th, 2006 at 3:12 am
Hi Lori,
I don’t personally think writing about your work colleagues is such a good idea, especially if they know about your site or can at very least read what you are writing elsewhere. These things have a way of coming back round and biting you on your arse.
Also, is it really THAT professional to talk about people you work with in a public forum such as your blog?
I’m not trying to diss you, you know I love your site, but I just don’t want to see you getting into trouble.
Oh yeah, I’ll be in Perth soon, stuck here in Bangkok for a few hours. Will have to suffer and get a 45 minute shoulder massage now…
We’ll catch up in the next few weeks hun.
December 10th, 2006 at 8:40 am
Dis away. These are the best posts to read. I had trouble with Optus recently as they didn’t issue 300 freetime credits to my wife when she, read I, renewed her credit. So she just burned all her money. After initially telling me that all would be fixed within 24 hours it took three and a half days to clear up. Another nothing going wrong for 6 months then the same thing happened to both of our phones.
One call centre staff member told me that if I wasn’t happy with the level of service I could ask to talk to a TL. She informed me that it doesn’t help to even work for the company as she had had problems the day before. I tried the TL angle a few days later when things hadn’t been cleared up, after being told that they would be, and the latest Indian gentleman that I spoke to refused to honour what was previously promised. It worked a treat.
December 10th, 2006 at 5:30 pm
Dave
I agree ranting about work isn’t the best thing, considering what i have had to deal with in the past. I have avoided talking specifics so I can’t really get into trouble and in a couple of weeks I will lock this post away as pvt only.
we must catch up, yes! looking forward to it.
there’s a nice japanese place in vic park we can go to.