This was going to be about nice things…
I am aware I moan a lot about my job and the idiots I have to deal with as a result of it (and not just the ones that phone up), but today I was planning to write about a few of the things that I appreciate about the fact although my commute effectively wastes four hours a day, it does give me a lot of time to listen to music and read.
I honestly was planning to say some nice things, but then I started working and the morons phoning in soon brought my down from the happy place that listening to Belinda Carlisle’s greatest hits had sent me to.
Now when taking someone’s address the first thing that we do is ask for a postcode and this seems to be a daunting task for some people, after all you only live at the address and recieve pieces of mail with it on every day and probably had to use it when arranging bills, bank accounts, etc…
Now assume that the person knows their postcode (and most people do - today has just been worse than normal) I now have to repeat it back phonetically to confirm it and this is where problems really begin to occur…
They of course will tell me I have repeated it correctly and so I go to search for an address only for the computer to tell me that the postcode doesn’t exist or it’s the postcode for the wrong address - this shouldn’t happen after all I have to listen to the idiots, so they could at least listen to me - I am trying to help them after all.*
Then I will ask for them to reconfirm it saying “so that’s ‘B’ for bravo” and they will invariably reply with, “No it’s b, b, B!” - Which is of course really helpful.
Of course I am aware of how certain sounds sound similar over the phone such as ‘ess’ and ‘eff’ or ‘bee’ and ‘pee’ and I will then ask, “Is that B for bravo or P for papa?” The most common answer to this question (unsurprisingly given the intelligence of callers) is of course, “Yes!”
Finally you get them to tell you which it was and it’s on to the rest of the call which you know is going to be as much fun (and about as painful) as dragging your testicles across a mile of barbed wire as you try and find out why they are actually calling.
*Even if the help I suspect some of them need is far beyond the scope of my job.