I’ve found out where they’ve hidden all the Tang!
At work they name the meeting and conference rooms after the planets*. So you have Mercury, Venus, Earth and so on. A naming convention that leads inevitably to Uranus. As funny as that already is (did I mention how immature I was?), each room also has a motivational poster with a catchy little phrase about the planet the room is named after.
They could not have picked a more suitable phrase for Uranus if they tried.
Please note that the excessive use of filters was to compensate for the poor quality of my camera phone and to protect the identities of the innocent (i.e. me).
And it looks quite nifty.
*Possibly due to the huge influence that Astrology seems to hold over quite a lot of people over here
I do apologise most sincerely for my absence but it has been somewhat difficult to find the time to post with my current working schedule. Funnily enough, it’s only when I don’t have Internet access that I suddenly can find the time to make these posts. Make of this what you will.
What have I been doing that’s kept me so busy? At first I was trying to make telesales. Really, really trying hard and then failing miserably. I was getting around 0.33 sales per day and the minimum number of sales an agent should be making is around 1-2. I’m awful at making sales and this is because I give up too easily. I find it very difficult to try and convince someone that they need our service when deep down I know that they really don’t. I hope that doesn’t say anything too negative about my attitude towards life.
So where were we? Oh yes; I was doing really badly at telesales. So badly, in fact,that they moved me to another campaign. A campaign with a different objective, one that I could rally to, one that I knew in my heart had a noble and just cause. I was now calling people up and asking them to consider paying by Direct Debit.
As boring as this role was (and it could be terribly dull at times), it was still leagues ahead of normal sales and it even gave me the time to catch up on my reading (I thoroughly recommend Mountains of the Mind by Robert Macfarlane, by the way).
Unfortunately I’m no longer doing this. As of yesterday, our merry bunch of DD Converters was reassigned to the far more ominous sounding Retention Program. The general objective of this program is to make sure that our customers are happy with the service and to answer any queries they might have. I shouldn’t get in to any specifics as it is terribly dull and only really of any use to our competitors. Anyway, a fair proportion of the customers are generally less than happy to be called again (again, for reasons that I won’t go in to) and this makes me sad. This also makes me desperate to stop calling. This look of desperation in my eyes must be quite obvious now because the people I need to talk to about moving out of calls never seem to be around. I think they might be avoiding me. After all, just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not out to get you.
Two articles about my collegue Kenny Rooney.
Daily Record (not a link to the Daily Record, my bad)
BBC News
You can find pictures (both of him and by him) at my image gallery.
I shall endevour to write more here shortly but it’s 4:40am at the moment and I need to be asleep before that cock next door starts crowing. The Bastard.
Various thoughts and ideas that I’ve jotted down on my mobile while bored.
Things That I Have Learnt From My Training
Tele2 is an alternate telecoms service provider with a strong emphasis on customer satisfaction, the Deregulation Act of 1998 allowed ATSPs to enter the market and take over customer’s outgoing calls from BT, Tele2′s rates are much better than BT’s and going out on a Monday night is a fucking awful idea.
On Auto-Rickshaw Drivers
Auto-rickshaw drivers are money-grubbing, cheating, filthy, useless cunts. For all I know this guy is about to lead me to the middle of nowhere, kill/rape me (maybe both and not necessarily in that order), take my money and then dump the body. Well, if that’s how it is, then the joke’s on him ‘cos I’m broke and I’ve got diarrhoea.
I’m Not Feeling Very Well
Sore/burn on tongue, two mouth ulcers, gut upset, enough mosquito bites to make a dot-to-dot Sistine Chapel*.
*Now also includes a bad cold
We’ve now had a fridge, cooker, television and microwave just sat there unconnected for five days now. It’s not that we’re too lazy to set them up. We’re not allowed to touch them. We have to wait for the appropriate people to come round and install them for us. We also don’t have a phone. We’ve been pressuring the company we work for to sort this out for 4 of those 5 days and so far nothing has happened. This is just one frustrating example of how hard is it to get a definite time for things out here. Here is another.
Kenny lost his wallet on Tuesday (it was either pickpocketed or dropped out of his pocket). The only important things in there were his keys. He’d been told to lock his door because some men were coming round to fit the fridge etc. They didn’t turn up (natch) and Kenny was locked out of his room. Locked out of his clothes, money and everything else. He only had what he was wearing and what he had bought from M.G. Road before. It took 3 days before the locksmith arrived.
Needless to say this new timescale will take some getting used to.
Today I recieved an overwhelming amount of information on CRM or Customer Relationship Management. I’d love to tell you more but I seem to have lost my notepad. Start as you mean to go on, James!
Anyway, the gist of this 7 hour training session is that CRM is managing the interactions between customer and service/service provider and making sure the customer is satisfied. It is also very important. No details on how to do this, curiously enough. That’ll have to wait until Monday I guess.
From my limited experience with airline seats I have been able to construct the following chart in order of least to most comfortable;
Bus Seat < Train Seat < Economy 747 Seat < Sofa < Bed
Fascinating I’m sure. You’ll have to forgive me as I’m working with 4 hours of sleep I had the night before yesterday. Why yes! I was unable to find a position comfortable enough to sleep in despite the plane being only half-booked and there being lots of spare seats. How did you guess?
I digress. For a aeroplane virgin such as myself, takeoff was a very exciting event that was marred only by the 45 minute wait behind the other planes waiting to take off. Watching the ground disappear beneath you is an awe inspiring sight when you see it for the first time. I had my nose pressed to the window for the first 10 minutes. After we broke the cloud layer there wasn’t really much to see, so I got bored and stopped looking out of the window. I was getting a crick in my neck anyway. In regards to the food, the flight was very good. They broke out these excellent little packets of snacks to begin with. Like Bombay Mix but with cornflakes and sultanas. It was very nice. The main meal was also pretty good. I had a chicken curry with rice and curried vegetables. Breakfast was not so hot and led me to think what would happen if they did an airline version of Supersize Me. Wouldn’t be pretty, I’m sure.
Inflight entertainment was OK. A Bollywood and a Hollywood. The Bollywood one was about a man with a temper problem vying with a man who often pretends to be blind for the love of a woman who frets too much. The Hollywood one was National Treasure. Nothing special but enjoyable in a corny way. Shame the headphones were so bad. The action sequences were painful because of the distortion.
We arrived at Mumbai at 8am (local time). That place is overwhelming. The heat, the poverty, the roads, the dust. It’s all just a massive shock. It gave me serious doubts about what I was doing. Luckily we were out of the city after about an hour and a half (rush hour) and the countryside was much more pleasant. Still hot though. It wasn’t until we got to the hills that it cooled down a bit. If it were a bit greener the hills would look remarkably like Scotland. At the moment they look sort of like a very uneven savannah.
Pune seems to be a lot more relaxed than Mumbai thankfully. Hopefully I’ll get time to have a good look around.
Oh man!
Where do I even begin?
We’ll start with meeting Tim and the other guys I’d be going out with. We had a nice, general chat in the Heathrow Hilton to break the ice and get to know everyone a little. Then we had a very interesting presentation/discussion about the differences between India and the UK. It covered a wide range of topics from the differences in business practices and management policies to their culture and food. Learnt a lot from that. Too much. It feels like it won’t all sink in. I’m sure, with time, that it will but right now I feel apprehensive about starting work. I will be getting training but I really don’t know if I’ll be any good at this job regardless of training. I’ve never sold anything to anyone before. It doesn’t sound like a job that would suit me. Soon I will know I guess, but that doesn’t stop the butterflys from doing a merry jig in my stomach.
Anyway, carrying on where we left off…
So, after the presentation Tim and our group went our separate ways. He went back to London and we pressed on to check-in. The queue wasn’t too bad and the check-in procedure was straight-forward enough. There was a huge queue at the carry-on luggage checkpoint though. This delayed us considerably and caused the timing to be quite tight. Not too tight that we couldn’t grab some duty-free before boarding though.
I left this house morning to sign-on in Banbury (I am dole-scum no longer though; I completely signed off). As I was leaving the drive one of the local sprogs got off his tricycle and asked me the usual questions.
“Where ya goin’?” he asked.
“I’m going to Banbury,” I reply.
“Whyyyy?” he droned in that annoying tone that kids specialise in.
“I’ve got an interview there. I have to be going now. Bye!”
He then says something but I can’t quite make it out through his mumbling and yokel accent so I simply say goodbye again.
“Oi, stupid-head!” he shouts at me. I turn round, naturally, only to see him giving me the finger. A four-year old boy giving someone the finger. He’ll go far with that attitude.
For lunch I decided to go to KFC. Word of mouth and sumptuous-looking posters meant that I had to try their new Daddy Burger. I ordered the meal without incident and Tristan and I were able to find a seat without too much trouble. The problem came when I opened the burger box. The bun was cold (straight-out-of-the-fridge cold too), but that’s no big deal. No, what I really had a problem with was the cold, slimy, light pink bacon. This just wouldn’t do. I took it back to the counter.
“Hi. This burger you just sold me – the bacon is raw. Look, it’s raw,” I said, pointing to the bacon.
“Is no raw, is bacon”, was the reply I received. Err…
“No, I mean the bacon is raw. It’s not cooked.”
“Oh. OK. I’ll have a look at it.”
She takes it over behind the burger dispenser thing and the three of them gather round and quietly discuss the burger. Then she comes back with a smile on her face.
“Is smoked bacon. We have given you some more”
I just didn’t feel like arguing more. I could be wrong. It could be like Gazpacho soup and I’d look like some uncouth yob demanding my fillet mignon to be cooked extra well-done
“Thank-you,” I said and sat back down with Tristan. I picked the bacon out and ate the burger. It was very nice, though it had no Daddies sauce in it.