hannett.net » India

Looks like I picked the right time

james — Sun, 18 Sep 2005 19:50:07 +0000

Visarjan violence in Pune
Tense situation in Pune as mob pelts stones, burns police vans
42 arrested for rioting in Pune

Glad I wasn’t around to be caught in that. I’m back in the UK by the way.

firstandsecond.com in cahoots with phishers?

james — Fri, 16 Sep 2005 15:10:38 +0000

I’ve been getting a number of Pay Pal phishing emails to the email address I used to register with firstandsecond.com. This is an email address I’ve not used anywhere else (I can make up as many as I want, and I do).

Are they in league with the phishers or have they had their database compromised?
Either way I’m not shopping there. It’s not safe.

AirTel Customer Service

james — Thu, 07 Jul 2005 21:10:31 +0000

Just found out that I can get customer service from AirTel via text messaging. What a brilliant idea. Saves holding on the line for ages and ages. With any luck I’ll have GPRS back up soon and I’ll actually be able to upload these posts.

UPDATE: Turns out I just had to wait a while after recharging the credit on my phone. Never did get a reply from AirTel though.

Quick, someone call Homer Simpson

james — Thu, 07 Jul 2005 21:10:05 +0000

I’ve found out where they’ve hidden all the Tang!

So very, very immature

james — Thu, 07 Jul 2005 21:09:50 +0000

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

So, what’s up?

james — Thu, 07 Jul 2005 21:06:35 +0000

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.

This should, if anything, get me to write more here

james — Tue, 05 Jul 2005 23:00:56 +0000

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.

Snippets

james — Wed, 04 May 2005 16:48:13 +0000

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

Indian Time

james — Sat, 23 Apr 2005 14:30:14 +0000

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.

Training Day (One)

james — Sat, 23 Apr 2005 14:29:21 +0000

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.