Kurt has a seat saved for me when I get in on Sunday morning. I, as usual, am ten minutes late. We are given fifteen minutes each day before they start to take disciplinary action, so I don’t ever hurry getting to work, usually strolling in after about ten minutes. In the last six months, they have twice threatened to start cracking down, and even abolish the 15-minute rule, but nothing has happened yet. Sometimes, bureaucracies aren’t so bad.
The seat I get is right next to our manager’s desk, but on Sundays, the managers don’t pay attention, and our calls aren’t monitored. This is something that we aren’t told, but it should be obvious to anyone with common sense. It has to be stated that the call may be recorded before we can record it, which we only do on our inbound calls, not the outbound, so therefore, the outbound calls can only be live monitored, with a supervisor listening to the call as it happens. The supervisors who do this monitoring aren’t present on weekends, and since hardly anyone thinks to call and yell at their phone company on a Sunday, we pretty much have free reign to say what we want to the customers.
Kurt is already on the phone while I’m logging onto the system. “Hello, is Lorps there?” he asks. After a brief pause, he continues. “Hi, my name is Kurt, and I’m calling from the financial department of SpectraCom. Our records indicate you are past due on your account in the amount of $103.95, and I was calling to see if you would like to take care of that over the phone by check or credit card today... I’m calling because there is a past due balance on your account... No sir, this bill was not received on time... Oh, it’s already been mailed? All right, I’ll just need to note what day you mailed that to prevent any further calling... Well, if you haven’t mailed it, then your account is past due... Your bill is $103.95, with $45.37 of that being past due... Well, if you knew that portion was past due, I don’t see why you were arguing that you were not actually past due... Yes sir, yes you are... Yes, your account is past due... Sir, just because your new bill is not past due, that doesn’t mean that the old bill, which is two weeks past its due date isn’t past due... What does thirty days have to do with anything, sir? Your account is past due one day past its due date, not thirty.”
The worst part about living in an economically depressed area is that the employers know they can make an employee work the most horrid hours, and there is nothing an employee can do about it, as the next job they manage to find will have the same terrible hours. We are left to believe we should be happy to work a second shift job with hours only 1:00-10:00, because any other place–even all the other departments in this office–will be working from 3:00-12:00, or worse.
Once I’m logged in, I hit ‘ready,’ and am instantly fed an inbound call. “Hi, thank you for calling SpectraCom, my name is Rubin, can I have your ten-digit phone number, please?”
“Oh, Rubin,” says the woman on the other end. “I don’t know if you can help me, I think I need to speak with a supervisor.”
Even though I would be well within my right to hand the call over right now, I’m far too stubborn to give the call up this easy. I know most of the people talking the supervisor calls, and I know I could handle whatever issue she has better than a manager. “Well, ma’am, it doesn’t hurt to let me try now, does it? Can I have your ten digit phone number, please?”
She sighs, registering that she knows I’m just a rapidly widening ass in a seat, not a person of intelligence as she, no doubt, is. “Two one five, five five five, o three four eight,” she snaps.
“Zero three four eight,” I repeat back.
“O three four eight,” she corrects.
“Thank you. Can you hold while I bring up your account?”
“Look, I just need to speak with a supervisor, you’re not going to be able to help me.”
“I’m going to need to review your account and attempt to help you first, anyway, and then if it actually is something I can’t do for you, which doesn’t come along often, then I can get you a supervisor, so let’s just go through the proper channels, okay?”
She sighs. “Fine.”
I access her account, and with much cajoling, get Laquisha Jones to verify her name and address. “All right, Ms. Jones,” I say. “I’m showing a balance of $85.32 on your account, would you like to take care of that today by check or credit card over the phone before I transfer you?”
“I want to pay it all by credit card,” she snaps.
I take her payment, give her a confirmation number, and ask, “Now, so I can attempt to aid you, or at the very least advise the supervisor as to the nature of your call, what is the issue today?”
“That’s it,” she snaps.
“Excuse me?
“I wanted to pay my bill.”
“You were just calling to pay your bill?”
“Yes.”
“And you didn’t think I could handle this?”
“No.”
“And did you realize you were calling the financial department of SpectraCom?”
“Yes.”
“And that our job is to take payments?”
“Yes.”
“And you didn’t think I’d be able to handle the job they hired me to do?”
“No.”
“Well, in the future, you can do this without a supervisor, each and every representative is capable of taking a payment. It’s our job.”
“Whatever.”
“Is there anything else I can do for you?”
“I already paid it, didn’t I?”
“All right, thank you for calling SpectraCom. Have a wonderful day!”
She slams down the phone and I’m switched to outbound calling. The line beeps instantly, and the account pops up on my screen. “Hi, can I speak with Sandra, please?” I ask sweetly. There is a note in the ‘memo’ line that reads, “DON’T CALL SUNDAY.”
“This is Sandra,” answers an elderly, warbling voice.
“Hello, ma’am, my name is Rubin, and I’m calling from SpectraCom in regard to a balance due on your account of $36.42, and I was calling to see if you would like to take care of that over the phone by check or credit card today.”
“Do you realize what day this is?” she snarls.
“The fifth?” I ask, unsure.
“Today is Sunday!”
“Yes it is, and you owe a balance to SpectraCom. Would you like to take care of that today?”
“Isn’t there a note on my account not to call on Sundays?”
“There was, but I’m removing it, because when you owe us money, we call seven days a week.”
“Well don’t do it again!” she screams and hangs up.
I note the account that she wasn’t home, so we’ll call back in two hours when the calls are recycled. I complete the call and am given another immediately. “Hi, can I speak with Penny, please?”
“This is Penny.”
“Hi, my name is Rubin, and I’m calling from SpectraCom about a balance due on your account of $52.37, and I was calling to see if you would like to take care of that over the phone by check or credit card today.”
“Don’t you realize it’s illegal to call on Sundays?”
“That would explain why I’m the only one here.”
“Excuse me?”
“I said, ‘The FCC regulates that we can call seven days a week between 8AM and 9PM if you owe us money. It is illegal for a telemarketer to call on a Sunday. A telemarketer, I am not. If you are going to make statements like that, be sure you know the law a little better,’ that’s what I said.”
“I’m calling the police!” she cries.
I sigh. “That’s fine, ma’am, be sure to point out to them that the reason for our perfectly legal call is because you have a bill past due for services rendered, so you are therefore guilty of theft of services. We are being kind and trying to work something out instead of taking legal action.” The line disconnects while I’m in mid-sentence. “Bitch,” I grumble and note the account that she wasn’t home. “Hi, is Tamika there?” I ask when the line beeps again.
“This is her.”
“Hi, my name is Rubin, and I’m calling from SpectraCom...”
“Don’t you call my house on a Sunday, this is the Lord’s day!”
No comments:
Post a Comment