I posted lots of stuff on the internet this week.
I read somewhere (in another internet blog about the
internet) that the US Library of Congress stores all tweets.
So, I tweeted: “Dear
US Congress, please take a couple of minutes out of your busy schedule of
arguing about whether gay people should be allowed to have pets or whatever,
and consider spending some money on the ravaged cities of your fading nation.
Just a thought.”
(I didn’t, of course, I was being ironic, ‘cos that’s 250
characters, and Twitter only allows 140. And NOW I KNOW WHY. To SILENCE the Dissenters.)
Anyway, the thought of everything on this particular medium being
archived and readable by anyone in the future reminded me of another medium
where that was the case…
About ten years ago (yes, ten) I worked in a call centre for
a catering supplies company. I took
orders over the phone. It was the kind
of place where all time not logged-in to the phones is noted, as is how long
employees spend on toilet breaks. One
day I arrived two minutes late, and the manager said I’d have to “make up the
time at lunchtime”. I chuckled politely
because I thought she was joking. She
wasn’t joking. What a fucking horrible
place to spend eight hours a day. (I
did write a few songs in that time, mind.)
Every customer had an account to record their orders. If they had a query, I would make a note of
it on the contact log. Customers could
ask to see this log at any time, so we had to be professional and not write
things like “cust is an utter twat.” although we were permitted to use the
shorthand “cust” for customer.
None ever did ask to see their contact log, as far as I know.
In training for the job, I was shown how to set up a new
account and use the contact log to send queries to other departments, like
Returns, Complaints and Specials (not the 80s two-tone band, unfortunately),
who could source large and one-off items like industrial-size deep fat fryers.
These accounts, and the contact logs, would be stored for
all eternity, according to the woman who trained me. Contact logs would be sent to the relevant department anytime a
customer called to enquire, complain or whatever.
In my training session, I set up an account and gave it the
name Chimp & Gibbon, imagining it to be a pleasant country pub serving
traditional food. With a pool table and
a dart board that I would play on all day.
And a world-class jukebox. (I was
a young man of modest ambitions.)
So, when my friend Dan got a job in Specials, we started
sending each other contact logs about customer enquiries. Here are some of the best:
cust needs deep fat fryer to get rid of evidence, any ideas?
cust called to ask if we have a blender strong enough to
turn a fully-grown male bengal tiger into a spicy sauce
cust called to ask why we only use crackhead couriers who
break everything
cust called to complain about “The Socialist takeover of
Kent County Council”, slurring the words. cust seemed to have been drinking
heavily.
cust called to ask if i’d heard the new radiohead album. i
said i had, but felt it wasn’t as good as the rest. cust became angry, shouting
that I “had no fucking idea about rock music”, which I felt was unfair. have
been previously advised to hang up if custs become abusive, so ended call when
he accused me of liking the stereophonics.
cust called to ask if we could supply a shallow fryer which
could also be used as a time machine, then spent several minutes speculating on
which era she would like to go back to. finally settled on pre-revolutionary
france.
cust called with a question: “how come women use sex as a
weapon, then?”
In the end, a couple of others joined in and it provided
light relief for all of us, and the few we told about it.
I hated this job until the Chimp & Gibbon contact log
gave me an opportunity to express myself, and then every day, for a few
minutes, I enjoyed myself.
Although I thought this a completely innocent exercise of my
right to have a laugh at work, when our managers found out they went absolutely
mental, suspending their rational thought processes and throwing all the toys
out of the pram.
Being on a temporary contract, I was completely disposable,
so they sacked me.
Dan and the others got a bollocking, maybe some sort of
disciplinary, I can’t remember.
The best part of the whole thing was when they called us
into the office to shout at us about it.
My personal highlight was a manager reading out the following gem from
the collection:
cust needs olive oil to stop fat legs rubbing together and
chafing
It was very hard not to laugh at that, especially as the
manager reading it was overweight…
The management had two main problems with our jokes: we were
“wasting company time” (ouch), and these contact logs could be seen by
customers and senior management, who would presumably take a dim view of our
lack of professionalism.
If they are right, and their antiquated systems mean that
accounts cannot be deleted (seems unlikely, mind), that account is still
there. In fact, long after I was
invited to leave the company, people were telling me that they still
occasionally went to the Chimp & Gibbon account to cheer themselves
up. This was our gift to our bored, harassed
and under-valued former colleagues: it stayed there forever.
So, I try to use twitter wisely, but when I tweet, I wonder
who might read it in the future – and the workers of that North Bristol call
centre.
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