jennings rampage

I still need to think of some sort of excuse for when the recruiter calls back.

Progressive rock mastermind Alan Parsons also wrote, “Where do we go from here now that all of the children are growing up? And how do we spend our lives if there’s no one to lend us a hand?”

I almost joined the Navy today. It seemed like a good idea at the time, less than twenty-four hours ago: I figured I could enter Officer Candidacy School in Pensacola, remain in Pensacola to study cryptology, and be commissioned as an ensign. The military is often seen as a last resort for those with no other options, so it seemed like the sensible course of action for me. And since I did manage to earn a college degree, there would be no way that I’d just enlist. Besides, I’ve always been a bit fascinated by military culture, despite my now-depreciated claims that I’m a pacifist.

I didn’t go to work yesterday, in part because my throat was feeling a little sore because of the erratic weather in coastal Virginia, but mostly because I really didn’t think I could face that office again today. I don’t like my job. I realize that a whole lot of people don’t like their jobs and still manage to go every day, and I wish I could be one of them. I probably could be if I applied myself to willfully ignoring how terrible the job is, but the criticism that has followed me my entire life is that I’m not especially consistent about applying myself.

I don’t like my job. I want to like it — the people are nice enough, the pay isn’t too horrible considering my modest needs, the hours suit me, I have the very best cubicle in the entire building (tucked out of view and free of distraction) — but damn me if that office doesn’t just sap the life-force from my body.

It’s a customer service job at a 150+ seat call center that handles over 5000 calls each day. Those 5000 are the lucky ones who get through; most callers get a busy signal since the phone line receives about 15000 calls each day. The lucky ones are then treated to a wait of fifteen minutes or more to speak to a representative, who then has the very challenging task of troubleshooting problems with electronics equipment based on the descriptions given by the caller (who usually immediately profess their ignorance and tell you right away that they’ll be little help) and their responses to your questions.

I don’t have a problem with that. I’m patient, I enjoy talking to people, I’m quick on my feet, I give clear directions, and I have a pleasant tone. (Quite pleasant.) What’s driving me to drink (more) is how much I’m being discouraged from exhibiting any of those qualities.

Oh, gentle reader, how I wish I were exaggerating that last paragraph for some literary effect. The management of this call center would insist that I am; the motto of the call center is “Where The Customer Comes First,” and the corporate motto is “Ichigo Ichii,” which translates roughly as some nonsense about how important the first meeting with each customer is, and how we should strive for personal contact with the customer to make them feel important, or some shit like that. These philosophies make for attractive posters in the hallways, but very little else.

Back on planet Earth, all that matters is how many calls you handled on any given day, and how quickly you got that customer off the phone. It costs the company over $1 for each minute each customer is on the line in telecommunication expense alone, and at the peak of the day you’ll have 150 people in the queue waiting fifteen to twenty minutes each. These callers aren’t generating any revenue for the company — we do some sales support, but the bulk of the calls are from people who have already purchased the product and given us their money, and every minute they sit on the phone represents diminished profit.

So the beancounters (and the ratio of people who call themselves managers to those who don’t is roughly 1:3) spend most of their time hunkered over Excel spreadsheets, calculating precisely how many representatives to have on the phones at any given time to meet the needs of the precise percentage of calls that will be allowed through given the average “handle time” (talk time plus idle time used to enter notes on a given call) for the average representative. It’s all very scientific, and makes good sense on its own.

The other piece of the performance puzzle is the average quality score, which are assigned by French figure skating judges. (Oh, that’s a good one, Scott, you’ll have to remember that for your next evaluation.) Each aspect of a given call falls under an established and codified procedure that the representative either passes or fails, and these aspects are weighted and averaged, and a 90% score is considered passing. This seems like a good idea until you realize that the section for whether or not you actually helped the customer and gave them accurate information is awash in a sea of potential deductions for saying “thanks” instead of “thank you” or not using the customer’s name at least once during the call or not offering assistance before collecting data or not doing the goddamned Hokey Pokey at least once during the call.

My supervisor tells me that she’s fairly indifferent towards my handle time and only cares about my quality score, which is a nice little platitude that I’ll grant her for now. And in order to maximize my quality score, I need to work on mastering the “call flow,” which is to sound exactly like this every time:

ME: “Thank you for calling UndisclosedCo, this is Scott, how may I help you?”
CALLER: [a preliminary description of the reason they're calling]
ME: “I can help you with that. Could you give me the model number of the unit?”
CALLER: [sometimes the model number]
ME: “That was the [repeat model number]. And could I have your ZIP code please?”
CALLER: [their ZIP code]
ME: “That was [repeat ZIP code]. And could I have your name please?”
CALLER: [some form of their name]
ME: “All right, Mr. Caller, you say your problem is [paraphrase caller's problem].”
[troubleshooting goes here, filled with its own procedure]
ME: “And is there anything else I can do for you today?”
CALLER: [some form of "no"]
ME: “Thank you for calling UndisclosedCo, Mr. Caller. Have a nice day.”

The theory behind this call flow is sound. Identify the company to build brand identity, state your name to establish a personal accountabilty for the problem, and offer assistance. Listen to the problem, and offer assistance before collecting any data. Repeat all data collected to increase accuracy. Call the caller by their last name, if offered, to show respect and further personalize the call. Follow through on offer to assist caller, and do so in an accurate and systematic manner. Maximize opportunity for customer service by asking if their is anything else to be done. Thank the caller for their business and further establish brand identity.

The practice that results from this call flow is shit. The pressure to adhere to these quality guidelines and personalize each call has exactly the opposite of its intended effect, and the repesentatives become fucking robots to hit every compulsory element to avoid deductions. There’s no room for artistic impression, there’s no extra credit for talking to the caller like a human being, there are no pats on the back for finding a clever way to diagnose or fix a problem. Individuality is to be checked at the door. There doesn’t seem to be a deduction for sounding like an overworked and pissed off robot on the phone.

After a few hours on the phones, I can hear my coworkers start to have the same problems that they have every day. Interrogatives become declaratives — “how can I help you?” becomes “how can I help you.” The meaning behind the words is lost entirely — it’s not long before the offer to assist becomes “Iwouldbehappytoassistyouwiththat,” before the representative jumps right into collecting data so as not to be marked off. Patience is short with a clock ticking every second in your face. There is no following through on assistance — as frequently as possible, a procedure is given and the caller is told to try it and call back if it still doesn’t work. (It’s good for the representative’s bottom line, but horrible for the company’s.) At some point, most representatives were taught to believe that formal and stilted English was preferable to simpler phrases and a more common and accessible tone of voice and word choice.

But what’s most maddening about all of this is how just about every representative accepts this situation as the way it has to be. In training, there was no happier day than the day we first received the call flow and knew for the first time that we wouldn’t be out there without a script. Heaven forbid we act on the job as we do in life, and have actual conversations with people and listen to them and find ways to give them what they’re looking for. (Is this my improvisation training back to give me fits? Perish the thought.) It seems ridiculously counterintuitive to most of my coworkers to actually take our company’s mottos seriously, and it escapes them entirely that if they actually did treat the person on the other end of the phone like a human being and not expect them to be another robot, the job would be ten times easier. There can be no one call flow that will be appropriate for every caller, even if they have identical problems — here comes “mirroring” again — since people respond best when they’re not fighting over the tone of the conversation. Let the caller choose casual or formal, personal or impersonal, economy of language or verbosity of explanation; if the representative makes the proper adjustments, the call goes smoothly. This concept was briefly explored on the second day of training, and then promptly reprogrammed with quantitative expectations.

And what’s most disheartening about all of this is how many of the callers accept this situation as the way it has to be, and do their best to act like good little robots and immediately spit out their name and model number and ZIP code and mother’s maiden name and social security number the moment I come on the line. And then after I do my best to treat them like a real person and take their situation personally and generally provide what’s known as good customer service, I get really uncomfortable hearing about what a great job I did and how helpful I was and how much they wish everyone there could be like me and what a pleasure it was to look at how awesome I am. That just serves to remind me how much I don’t belong here; I know I’m tragically overqualified for this job, there’s no need to rub my face in it.

The bright young star of the call center is a very loudmouthed transsexual named William. In three months, William has managed to master the science of the call center game, and skillfully rushes through each call with a record average handle time. His secret is simple: he bullies the customer, demands that they adhere to his script, doesn’t respond when they don’t, and has a limitless memory to recall any piece of information the caller may need instantly. He’s an evil robot from a bad science fiction movie. The future is here; this is how business is done.

It’s easy to tell when William is on a break: that’s when he starts railing on the callers who had the audacity to expect to be treated like a human, and he’s very loud so it can be heard from far away. Everyone agrees and sympathizes, since we all have stories of the people who threw a fit about giving their name or their ZIP code, or had trouble understanding our mile-a-minute rate of speech. The “hey, you called me, I didn’t call you, pal” attitude drips from the bricks and the mortar of the building. It usually doesn’t take more than a few minutes into any given break to suggest that a book could be written about how stupid all these customers are, but if you ask me, I’d rather read a book about the evil robots from the future who short-circuit their artificial brains trying to interact with humanity. That sounds like a much better book to me.

And so somehow, around 3pm yesterday, the idea of being in the military sounded better than working for this major undisclosed electronics manufacturer. A lot of it was because I’m depressed at the idea of my brother being deployed into a war zone for six or seven months, and how lonely I’m going to be in a half-empty apartment with no friends and a job that makes me want to shoot myself in an uncomfortable place. At least the military would have given me something to look forward to and a bit more of a purpose and structure to my life. But then my brother reminded me that the recruiter would immediately demand that I drop for fifty pushups, and although I’m a bit less fat than I was the last time you saw me, fifty is about forty-nine too many. Also, I remembered that I hate the current war and the current administration, and signing away six years of my life for the immediate security that I’m sure to find well before then would be very shortsighted. But I sure do need a new job, and I wish to hell one of these resumes I’ve floated out would yield me a damn phone call. Until then, I’m going to have to try harder to act like my job isn’t robbing me of my eternal soul. And for now, I think I’m going to start wearing my class ring again to remind me that I’ve done better before and I’ll do better again.