Wednesday March 24 2004

They shake their heads, they say I've changed

Let's see. As always, reality is a collage, albeit in my case, a boring one:

At Pridemark, we aren't just customer service agents, we are SALES and customer service agents. This gets stressed. Often. Loudly. Quotas change daily, as does our lead product (last week if we didn't push The Neighborhood on every call, we'd get an automatic fail, this week, it's an AOL bundle that's the hot ticket) but one thing is constant: positive customer feedback is nice (we call them ACE Awards, Active Customer Excellence; they happen when a customer asks to speak to a supervisor to sing our praises), but nothing really matters but sales, sales, SALES.

As Doc has noted previously, it's a notably deranged concept, if one that seems to have caught on like a particularly incurable virus amongst call centers. If customers are making an effort to call in anyway, why not pitch them something they don't have already? (The answer to that question is actually "because people calling in with a problem don't want a sales pitch, YOU wouldn't want a sales pitch if your product wasn't working right and you'd been on hold twenty minutes trying to get to a human voice, and if simple human compassion isn't enough of a reason not to do it... and it never is with corporations... then consider that you're going to alienate many of your customers by doing this". However, demonstrably, you are also going to make some sales, and apparently corporations feel that pissing off some of their customers, and giving them an unpleasant experience with a customer service rep not only solving their issue but shilling them something at the same time, is worth it, if a few more bucks are generated on the way.)

There's no one who isn't an upper level corporate manager who doesn't emotionally understand that it's a BAD IDEA to try and sell something to someone who called in because they have a problem with a product they've already bought. Interview any customer and they'd tell you "No, I don't want a sales pitch from a customer service guy, in fact, I hate it". Interview any of us and we'd happily concur; none of us want to give customers a sales pitch unless during the session we learn that they have a problem that one of our features could solve. The only people who think this is a good idea are the people who aren't involved in the transaction other than at the end, when they put the greater part of the profit involved in the transaction in their pockets, after investing zero... that's zilch, zip, nada, nothing... in the way of effort into that transaction. They didn't sit on the phone for twenty minutes listening to an aggravating series of shill messages and bad muzak. Nor did they have to make a pitch to a customer who clearly didn't want it and resents the crap out of getting it anyway. No, they just put the bucks away in their wallets.

Nice work if you can get it.

Reality, as I've mentioned, is a collage. Last weekend I picked up the second season of The Shield and the first season of Roswell on DVD. Much of rec time over the past many days has thus seen me immersed in a visual/auditory substream comprised of West Coast cop corruption and brutality, and alien teen angst WB histrionics.

Doc often went into analytical details reviewing the shows and movies he liked, but I don't live that deep. On The Shield, I'll just say that watching it is often like being worked over by a particularly skilled bar room brawler. This show is a kick in the testicles followed by a knee in the face. They resolutely refuse to give you anyone you can wholeheartedly like on the program, while, at the same time, refusing to give you anyone you can wholeheartedly hate, too. Every protagonist has their loathsome side; every villain has their human element. I'd imagine that's why I like it so much, but moral fiction this is not... other than in the undeniable morality of honesty.

Many comparisons have been drawn between Smallville and Roswell, and they're apt, as essentially (thematically) they are much the same show. I could wax rhapsodic and make a point by point comparison, but again, I don't live that deep, so I'll sum it up by saying Katherine Heigl makes Kristine Kruek look like a matchstick drawing, and if you expand that comparison, it pretty much says everything about how the two shows contrast with each other at every point and on every level.

One of my ex girlfriends... I have a few more than Doc, most likely because my definition of 'girlfriend' seems to be looser than his... recently got married. I always told her she'd find lifelong monogamy to be a bore and it seems I was right, since our cyber encounters have recently ratcheted up several levels of steaminess, and she's been sending me some photos of herself her new hubby would not approve of at all. (No, you can't see them. I'll talk about them since she isn't aware of this blog, but I certainly won't use Laura's name or publish her pics. Um. No. Not even her code name. So there.)

However, we're having kind of a tiff about it right now, because she promised me a whole set from a photo session she had last Saturday, and just today sent me an email welshing, because she doesn't like how the pics came out.

Her right, of course. But I do not like broken promises. They grate me mightily. If I tell someone I'm gonna do something, I do it. If someone tells me I can expect something from them, then I expect it.

Doc and I seem to be symbiotes, or something. Last week he had a lousy week for sales, while I did well... 10 on Monday, 12 Tuesday, 10 Wednesday, 10 Friday, 7 on Saturday. Saturday proved annoying though. Despite frequent assurances from my team leader (what Doc's call center refers to as an APM) that we could take two minutes between each call specifically to exercise call control (quotas are figured as a percentage of the calls you handle; the more calls you handle, the more sales you have to make to cover quota), I kept getting nasty e-pops after spending thirty seconds in wrap telling me to get out and take a call. Not from my team leader, but from other supervisors taking it on themselves to monitor the whole center and act as a sort of 'wrap time Gestapo', apparently. We had high call volume and I understand they were trying to keep customers from waiting in queue any longer than necessary and that's valid, but, well, I wound up taking 70 some odd calls Saturday and not making my sales quota... something I resent. Had I been able to stay in wrap up for the full two minutes between each call, my volume would have been much more reasonable.

And frankly, if you don't want to be on hold for twenty minutes at a time, here's a fucking clue: don't call customer service on Saturday, bitch. Yes, we're open, but anyone working Saturday wants to be there even less than the rest of the week (which is a significant statement) and frankly, our compassion is thin. You can just SIT on hold as far as we're concerned.

Anyway, Doc had a bad week where I had a good one. So far this week I'm having a shitty week... four sales Monday, one yesterday... and Doc seems to be doing well. Just shows to go ya.

Oh, yeah, I should mention the new blog graphic. I'm just fucking around. Doc helped with the drawing; I can't draw for shit. (Doc insists he can't either but if I'd done that graphic there'd be a stick figure up there.) We're probably going to play around with the blog name and stuff... Doc says there's no reason not to, given that he ain't writing the fucker any more. We've got a few other blog titles we may try out, if we can come up with decent graphics. Doc also says I should change the mission statement paragraphs below this main entry, but that sounds an awful lot like work to me. Anyway, I agree with everything he says... well, mostly. Doc is big on free speech. Me, I'm not sure anyone ever has a 'right' to be rude; politeness is just a word for the rules society generally agrees on to minimize friction, and if you're going to accept the benefits of civilization (and you all do, and certainly every cyber-troll does; without civilization your fucking computers wouldn't work and the Internet would cease to exist) you have to accept the restraints of civilization, too... not just law, but custom, as well. And that includes not being fucking rude or hurtful. So if you post rude or hurtful shit here, I will most likely stomp all over you. Doc has to be pushed hard before he censors and represses, I'm a lot quicker to hit that button.

I think that's about it. Like Doc, I work second shift and can keep my shift regardless of seniority because very few people like the hours, so I'm off to work in just a bit.

What is up with Canadian women, anyway? Do they just ship all their uggos to the border at birth? I mean, we've got some fine women in America, but in Canada the proportions are just way out of balance... babes everywhere, and I'm not talking doable, I mean, MAJOR babes. And most of them sweet about it, too.

I'm rereading some Heinlein now... Time Enough For Love. I was just in the mood for something with a smooth, easy access style to it, and there's nothing easier to read than RAH when he's actually telling a story... well... maybe early Stephen King. King used to have a pretty slick narrative voice, back when he actually worked at his craft. Maybe I'll reread Firestarter after I'm done with Time Enough... I could use a little government conspiracy/psionic runaway action.

Or maybe Dead Zone. The ending always makes me sniffle. I'm a sucker for a good heroic sacrifice.

Gotta rock! Be good to each other. If you see a cyber troll kneeling by the side of the road, help him or her to his or her feet. With your bumper. At 50 miles an hour.

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RULES OF THE ROAD

In one of his many invaluable essays on life in Hollywood, Mark Evanier described his first meeting with legendary TV comic and icon Milton Berle. Upon being introduced to Uncle Miltie and shaking hands with him, Mark, who is a pretty witty guy, blurted out without even thinking about it, “Wow, I didn’t recognize you in men’s clothing”. According to Mark, this soured Uncle Miltie on him from that point forward, because Mark had broken Rule Number One When Hanging With Milton Berle, namely, Never Be Funnier Than Milton Berle.

I’m reminded of that anecdote now.

Recent experiences at Electrolite being pretty much entirely similar if not completely identical to my previous experiences at Uppity-Negro.com and TampaTantrum.com, I thought I’d take the time to extrapolate whatever wisdom there is to find in the whole mess. Here’s The Deal, as far as I can see:

If you want to make friends and influence people when you head out onto the blogging trail, at least, as regards your posting comments on other people’s blogs, you MUST NOT:

(a) seem smarter than the person writing the blog you are posting comments to

(b) be funnier than the person writing the blog you are posting comments to

(c) be a better writer than the person writing the blog you are posting comments to

(d) be correct when you point out some manner in which the person writing the blog you are posting comments to was wrong, and/or

(e) Upset The Wimmenfolk On The Blog.

Rule E comes mostly out of my experiences with Aaron Hawkin’s Uppity-Negro blog. He gets a lot of female posters and like any of us male geeks would be in that admirable position, he is thoroughly whipped by them. If a new reader comes along and does anything whatsoever to offend the babes on Aaron’s blog, that new reader can expect a cold shoulder from Aaron roughly the size of the Greenland glacier. I don’t really blame Aaron for this; for a male geek, positive female attention is a jewel beyond price, and if I ever had any women posting to my blog who weren’t related to me by marriage, I’d most likely dance and sing like a puppet on a string when they cracked the lash, too.

I should add to this that I’ve learned, from Electrolite, that one Must Not Be Whimsical, Oblique, or Overly Geeky When Posting To A Big Important Political Marketplace of Ideas Type Blog, because those guys just have no time for Theodore Marley Brooks or Cornelus van Lunt references, regardless of how amusing or entertaining you and some others may find them.

Now, I am posting this to point out that while these may be the universal Rules of the Road on other blogs (and as far as I can see, they are, indeed, pretty much universal) you can ignore them here. I don’t care if you:

(a) seem smarter than I am, I like people who are smarter than I am, as long as they’re not jerks about it;

(b) are funnier than I am, then I get to laugh at your witty remarks, and hey, that’s all good;

(c) are a better writer than I am. Although I’m in a peculiar place as regards writing skills; good enough to be better than nearly all the amateurs out there, not good or lucky enough to be a professional at it. So if you are a better writer than I am, you are probably a professional writer and therefore do not have time to post comments on other people’s blogs, so this probably doesn’t matter, as relates to this blog;

(d) correct my mistakes; unlike apparently 95% of the remainder of the human race, I am under no illusions as to my own infallibility and simply don’t care if someone points out that I am wrong about something. Being wrong about things does not strike me as either a character flaw or a shameful embarrassment; we are all wrong about a lot of things every day of our lives, and that’s just how that works;

(e) Upset My Wimmenfolk. Well, actually, I shouldn’t say I don’t care if you upset my wimmenfolk, I do, the very thought deeply offends me. However, it’s just that the wimmenfolk at this point on this blog are my mom, my cuz in law, and my sister in law, and if you do something to upset them, I strongly doubt the authorities finding what’s left of you will be able to identify you without a DNA comparison. My mom, and any woman who marries any of the males in this family and stays married to him for any length of time, are perfectly capable of taking care of themselves. So offend them all you want; it’s a self correcting problem.

Oh, and I like geeky references and would just adore whimsical, cleverly elliptical posts to my comment threads, although I suspect I’d get annoyed if someone started posting a whole lot of Harry Potter-speak here, just for one example.

If there is a universal rule on this blog, it is quite simply, Do Not Be A Bigger Asshole Than The Blogger. In fact, if you can avoid it (and most of my small number of regular posters avoid it with style and panache) Don’t Be An Asshole At All. I am quite a big enough asshole myself to supply all the assholiness necessary for any blog, and I will continue to keep this blog well furnished with stupid remarks, doltish mistakes, whiney rationalizations, and defensive recriminations by the ton lot, there can be no doubt. You need bring none of your own asshole nature with you, I have plenty and am always willing to share.

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THE INEVITABLE DISCLAIMER

By generally accepted social standards, I'm not a likable guy. I'm not saying that to get cheap reassurances. It's simply the truth. I regard many social conventions in radically different ways than most people do, I have many many controversial opinions, and I tend to state them pretty forthrightly. This is not a formula for popularity in any social continuum I've ever experienced.

In my prior blogs, I took the fairly standard attitude: if you don't like my opinions or my blog, don't read the fucking thing.

Having given that some more thought, though, I'm not going to say that this time around, because I've realized that what this is basically saying is, 'if you don't like what I have to say, tough, I don't want to hear it, don't even bother to tell me, just go away'.

And that's actually a pretty worthless attitude. It's basically saying, 'I don't want to hear anything except unconditional agreement and approval'. And that's nonsense. This is still a free country... for a little while longer, anyway... and if you really feel you just gotta send me a flame, or post one on my comment threads (assuming they actually work, which I cannot in any way guarantee) then by all means, knock yourself out.

Unless your flame is exceptionally cogent, witty, or stylish, though, I will most likely ignore it. You do have a right to say anything you want (although I'm not sure that's a right when you're doing it in my comment threads, but hey, you can certainly send all the emails you want). However, I have an equal right not to read anything I don't feel like reading... and I'm really quick with the delete key... as various angry folks have found in the past, when they decided they just had to do their absolute level best to make me as miserable as possible.

So, if you don't like my opinions, feel free to say so. However, if I find absolutely nothing worthwhile in your commentary, I will almost certainly not respond to it in any way.

Stupidity, ignorance, intolerance... these things are only worth my time and attention if they're entertaining. So unless you can be stupid, ignorant, and/or intolerant with enough wit, style, and/or panache to amuse me... try to be smart, informed, and broad minded when you write me.

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