Call centers and I are actually jinxed. But of late, I have realized that I have turned into some sort of a call center junkie! I really seem to dig calling up all these customer service 'exectives'. No.. No spelling error, this is how they say the word executive!
Now, if you really thought I was some kind of whacko like the kid who made some 25-odd calls to a Mumbai IT firm talking about a terror threat, I AM NOTHING LIKE THAT. Given a choice I'd prefer curling up with a book and a coffee, and maybe put in an occasional piece of writing, but to obtain that kind of an idyllic lifestyle, some basic gnawing issues need to be sorted out. One would have to be completion of pending tasks and the other would have to be smoothing out things that impact our daily life!
As profound as these may sound (I choose to call these 'discoveries' profound, since of late my life has lost all semblance of profundity, as my life now revolves around the mundane. So I wish to extract the most out of whatever it is that presents itself to me!). So, as profound as my discoveries may sound, for me to get to my end goal of an idle lifestyle, I figured I needed to interact with the highly annoying IVR of everyone who has anything to do with my life.
So, it all began with a cellular service provider heretofore referred to as the thought guys. The other day, as I sat cheering Mumbai Indians, I got a message on my cellphone that I had just finished interacting with a certain XYZ. All is ok with that, except that I had no clue who XYZ was. Suddenly the theme music of Karthik calling Karthik came into my head. Was I turning into a schizophrenic? Or was I suffering from Multiple Personality Disorder? Two of me using that one cell phone of mine? Intense! And then I started the hunt for the other me.
As usual, I called our friend 'Customer Service'. As before, several attempts met with the dead end. Multilingual repetitive messages later, all the while wondering who XYZ was, and worse, who XYZ's friend was who managed to talk to XYZ through my number, I hit the dead tone. Again and again and again. The reason behind my paranoia, was the fact that earlier, with the wind guys, I had had an experience ,as you perhaps might remember, with someone else answering when my number was called. So, I persevered. Tried over and over again, till finally, someone answered.
I explained my issue, and the person there said, "Madam, you got that message because you interacted with XYZ".
"But I don't know an XYZ"
"I understand madam, but you interacted with XYZ"
"I was watching the match and taking a nap before that. So how could I have called someone I didn't know?"
"No madam, that message is because you interacted with XYZ"
At this point, I got exasperated and demanded to speak to the floor manager.
"Madam, no use. He will also say the same thing!"
I was sincerely stumped. I was tempted to say, "Let him tell me the same thing himself!!!" But instead, I kept my temper in check and asked again to talk to his manager. The poor chap was pissed, but he put me through nonetheless.
This chap, thankfully knew his stuff and then the mystery was solved. This happened in a characteristic whodunnit manner. The floor manager, after the customary apologies that looked more rehearsed than ever, said that the message had come as a missed call alert. XYZ was the customer care person who had tried calling me a while back to try and disconnect my connection that I had spoken about previously.
At the end of this whole roundabout, convoluted story, though I was nowhere close to disconnecting that connection, I was relieved that I was at least proven to not be schizophrenic!!! See everything has a happy ending!!!!!
Now, if you really thought I was some kind of whacko like the kid who made some 25-odd calls to a Mumbai IT firm talking about a terror threat, I AM NOTHING LIKE THAT. Given a choice I'd prefer curling up with a book and a coffee, and maybe put in an occasional piece of writing, but to obtain that kind of an idyllic lifestyle, some basic gnawing issues need to be sorted out. One would have to be completion of pending tasks and the other would have to be smoothing out things that impact our daily life!
As profound as these may sound (I choose to call these 'discoveries' profound, since of late my life has lost all semblance of profundity, as my life now revolves around the mundane. So I wish to extract the most out of whatever it is that presents itself to me!). So, as profound as my discoveries may sound, for me to get to my end goal of an idle lifestyle, I figured I needed to interact with the highly annoying IVR of everyone who has anything to do with my life.
So, it all began with a cellular service provider heretofore referred to as the thought guys. The other day, as I sat cheering Mumbai Indians, I got a message on my cellphone that I had just finished interacting with a certain XYZ. All is ok with that, except that I had no clue who XYZ was. Suddenly the theme music of Karthik calling Karthik came into my head. Was I turning into a schizophrenic? Or was I suffering from Multiple Personality Disorder? Two of me using that one cell phone of mine? Intense! And then I started the hunt for the other me.
As usual, I called our friend 'Customer Service'. As before, several attempts met with the dead end. Multilingual repetitive messages later, all the while wondering who XYZ was, and worse, who XYZ's friend was who managed to talk to XYZ through my number, I hit the dead tone. Again and again and again. The reason behind my paranoia, was the fact that earlier, with the wind guys, I had had an experience ,as you perhaps might remember, with someone else answering when my number was called. So, I persevered. Tried over and over again, till finally, someone answered.
I explained my issue, and the person there said, "Madam, you got that message because you interacted with XYZ".
"But I don't know an XYZ"
"I understand madam, but you interacted with XYZ"
"I was watching the match and taking a nap before that. So how could I have called someone I didn't know?"
"No madam, that message is because you interacted with XYZ"
At this point, I got exasperated and demanded to speak to the floor manager.
"Madam, no use. He will also say the same thing!"
I was sincerely stumped. I was tempted to say, "Let him tell me the same thing himself!!!" But instead, I kept my temper in check and asked again to talk to his manager. The poor chap was pissed, but he put me through nonetheless.
This chap, thankfully knew his stuff and then the mystery was solved. This happened in a characteristic whodunnit manner. The floor manager, after the customary apologies that looked more rehearsed than ever, said that the message had come as a missed call alert. XYZ was the customer care person who had tried calling me a while back to try and disconnect my connection that I had spoken about previously.
At the end of this whole roundabout, convoluted story, though I was nowhere close to disconnecting that connection, I was relieved that I was at least proven to not be schizophrenic!!! See everything has a happy ending!!!!!
1 comment:
Yes it is. everything has its own happy ending. Good to know that you have resolve that kind of problem or misunderstanding.
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