Friday May 9th, 2014

The exercise:

Write four lines of prose about: the call center.

I spent a good chunk of this rainy, windy morning on the phone in an (eventually successful) attempt to get our new internet service sorted out. We'll be switching over to the new company on the 27th of this month and that should have our connection operating much more reliably and at much faster speeds.

That's what they say, at any rate. We'll see how it actually works out.

Also did a bit of updating on the farm website and printed out a few posters to put up around town advertising our box program. We're already at 9 customers committed to the full season, which is pretty exciting.

Mine:

From the moment I enter my shared office (it's just me and three hundred of my closest pals, you see) I am surrounded by ringing phones. Any time a call is answered its jangle is replaced with a voice oozing with poorly manufactured sincerity. Meanwhile, dozens of calls waiting to be dealt with reverberate around the room.

I hear them in my dreams at night, I... yes sir, this is all vitally important to explaining why I don't care about your mobile phone making odd noises, thank you for asking.

2 comments:

Greg said...

It's quite wet over here as well, but I'm probably enjoying that more than you :) Well done with improving the internet connection though, I hope the company deliver on their promises!
Heh, I like your description of the call-centre, and the punchline in the last line as well. I can almost picture your narrator, and the controlled anger he's managing. Lovely writing!

The call centre
"Good morning madam! Yes, I am aware it's 3am as a matter of fact. Well, we here at the call centre have noticed that you're such a good caller that we felt we'd help you out and call you first to find out what problems you're going to have today! Oh don't worry ma'am, we'll be calling six times a day for you just to make sure you're never out of the loop...."

Marc said...

Greg - thank you!

Ugh, this feels like it must be an explanation for how some companies view their target market. Just keep calling, just keep calling, just keep calling...