Liverpool Revisited

by Michael White

  “PC playing up, Chris.” he said to the manager everyone else referred to as “Dances with fishes” because of his degree in Oceanography (a skill which he found particularly useful in his role of Call Centre Team manager), and of course the large paddling pool of ray fish in his loft. To this day nobody who flat shared with him knew how he had managed to fill the paddling pool up, there being a distinct lack of running water in the loft. Nevertheless, full of both water and fish it was.

  “I’ll move computers, Chris.” continued Pip as made to collect all his bits and bobs together and find another computer that worked. This process Chris and Pip both understood fully would take quite some period of time, and Pip (and probably Chris too) were both also equally aware that the computer he was currently sat at had no issue at all. It was probably working fine, in fact. Adrian laughed to himself and the team of eight slowly joined in as Pip took a good ten minutes to move to a seat that was less than four feet away. This pc of course took quite some time to start up, primarily because just as it was about ready to use Pip would pull the lead out of the back of the base unit and sigh deeply then start all over again. Chris, his manager, was of course used to this. It was like a game that was played out daily, with neither side ever letting on that they knew exactly what the opposite side was up to. As far as Pip was concerned however, it kept him “off the phones” just that little bit longer, and that wasn’t a bad thing at all, because being “on the phone” was exactly what the job entailed, and what he hated most about the job. In short, Pip and the general public just did not get on at all.

  Regulus Telecom provided internet connections to the home. Cabled in, wireless, whichever flavour you wanted, it was the internet, and Pip was just one of approximately three hundred call agents who provided the technical support for it. They were the men and women who would fix it when it stopped working. This wasn’t difficult as it usually hadn’t stopped working in the first place. To say that the customers of Regulus Telecom were by and large technically challenged is a vast understatement. Or perhaps it wasn’t. The customers just wanted it to work, though their perception of just how it worked could be said to be at best incomplete. Of course every single agent there hated the customers who called with a passion that could be at best described as borderline psychopathic. The customers hated the agents too, finding them to be patronising, vague and rude. The managers hated both the customers and the agents. And so the vicious circle of despair and gloom went round and round like a merry go round loaded with leaking tanks of deadly acid.

  The staff that worked at Regulus were also the biggest collection of eccentrics this side of the local mental hospital. One agent was legendary for his homemade fireworks that he “knocked together” in his garden shed out in Knotty Ash in the early hours. He would usually turn up for work most days with a slightly singed beard, and on one memorable occasion with his Parka coat actually giving off small plumes of smoke and the occasional spark.

  Another agent collected spiders and quite often brought them to work with him whilst yet another was an obsessive “Strictly Come Dancing” fan with a very worrying preoccupation with the ladies’ skirts. Another collected buttons. Any button at all. As long as the button in question was green in colour. That they had to be connected to an article of clothing when he “collected” them was neither here nor there to him.

  Although Regulus was of course a studiously equal opportunities employer they weren’t a very conscientious one. Given that ninety per cent of the jobs involved strapping on a headset and talking to the general public, there was really no excuse for employing one agent who was deaf and other who was bipolar, although the latter always provoked a rush from the call monitoring team when they were due to mark him, for his results were either extremely good or terribly, terribly bad. One month they had had to monitor his calls remotely primarily because that at the time of the recording he was standing on the window ledge of the fifth floor threatening to jump.

  To say that Pip hated his job was vastly and dangerously underestimating the hatred he felt for every person and thing in the entire building and company. He was young though and had time on his side so any outsider looking in would wonder why he did not do something about leaving. Finding a new job. Starting a new career. The answer was twofold: first of all he was lazy, and secondly, he gained a kind of perverse pleasure in winding up anyone he could while at work with his usual state of total non-compliance. This was unusual, because every movement, every second of every shift was monitored, filtered, spread sheeted and pored over by more managers than it would be thought to be humanly possible.

  There was for example a code to put into the telephone if you wanted to pee, (Code Three: fifteen minutes in total allowed in one eight-hour shift), a code for breaks, (Code 11: fifteen minutes each, no more no less) and a code for lunch (Code 9: an hour). Woe betide those who didn’t adhere to their scheduled break times as they were pulled off the phone for an arse-kicking meeting: (code 27: length of time at the discretion of the manager) and questioned at great length. Pip of course simply broke the phone: either a lead that suddenly became loose, snapped or just plain stopped working. This usually also involved having to move from one computer to another once it was spotted, though this could take some time if it was not noticed by a manager.

  Sometimes Pip’s weekly recorded work sheet was completely blank for no apparent reason whatsoever, and a cluster of managers could often be seen gathered round a desk on which was placed a single blank piece of paper scratching their heads furiously, while Pip sat off to one side with his particularly unconcerned grin playing across his face. It was a carefully practised look, a combination of sheer devilment and provocation at the same time, and once focused on any manager it was guaranteed to set them running to the company handbook for any references to disciplinary procedures regards smiling. This was of course a complete waste of time and to no avail at all. In fact, the manual usually trumpeted that smiling was a good thing, though the person who had written that had obviously never been subjected to Pip’s particular type of grin.

  It is of course a universally recognised truth that the sickness and absence rates in any call centre were almost as astronomical as the staff turnover figures; sometimes people would go for lunch and never come back. Quite often they just stopped turning up at all. On one memorable occasion one agent had gone for his lunch and the next time Regulus had any contact with him was when they found him on the FBI’s “most wanted” internet website some two years later.

  Pip however had a golden track record of illness, a technically “borrowed” doctors sick note pad and an extremely unlikely history of Irritable bowel syndrome. Putting it simply, some days he just couldn’t be bothered turning up. The odd thing was that he would still get up though. Pip would breakfast, get a shower and then get dressed. Sometimes he would even leave the house. It was before he got in the car that the problem arose. In short, he just couldn’t face turning up at Regulus for work. A hastily concocted excuse would be phoned through to an increasingly incredulous and finally despondent manager as to why he would not be in work today. Pip had by now achieved legendary status amongst the other operators that worked there, for he had not completed a full five-day shift for a carefully spread-sheeted fourteen months.

  There were disciplinary procedures in place of course. The “back to work” forms and meetings: (code 31 on the phone) were a regular occurrence in Pip’s diary, but he always had a good excuse; a doctor’s note, or both. Pip’s reasons for absence were however never terribly serious in nature. He knew better than to create a drama out of a crisis, his most extravagant reason for not turning up for his shift being that he was locked in the house. This had actually been completely true. He just omitted to mention the fact that it was him that had done the locking in. This had involved two days of absence during which he had a couple of the managers visiting his home and pushing sandwiches and food carefully through his letterbox, which at least saved him from having to go to
the shops.

  The golden goal for any agent who worked in Regulus of course was a sick note from the doctor that read the wonderful words, “stress”. Pip didn’t dare use his “borrowed” sick note pad for this because although a golden stress ticket would usually give six months’ sickness on full pay, doctors would be consulted, managers would visit. Yet as long as that sick note read “stress” then everything was above board. It was the call centre agent’s golden daydream throughout the land of course; the nirvana of excuses and many aspired to, but never quite achieved it. Pip daydreamed about it on a regular basis but there was a fly in the ointment which made this wonderful elusive dream a dream only.

  The flaw in the plan of the golden nirvana of six months fully paid absence from work was that although the maximum amount of time you could have off sick in one calendar year before you lost pay was actually six months, this meant logically speaking that if you managed to successfully play the stress card you would have to work for the other six months of the year with no sickness at all, and it was with this that Pip had the problem. He quite simply could not do it. Every January he firmly set his mind on working for a full six months with no absence so he could then have the latter six months of the year off. Invariably he had booked a week’s holiday by the end of the first week of January, and the first sickness period would follow shortly afterwards.

  And so the golden stress ticket eluded him. Things had become particularly unbearable recently too, with Regulus introducing a new call monitoring system for all agents. The name of the new initiative was rather strangely called “Golden Trumpet”, which was apparently a reference to the large brass ear trumpets of Victorian days to indicate (supposedly) that the agents were listening to the customer. Pip immediately renamed it “Spunk Trumpet” and the new name spread unofficially around the building in a shot.

  Any call centre agent that worked for Regulus had of course any idea when they were being call monitored or even when they being listened it to by the Golden Trumpet monitoring team. Annoyingly this team seemed (to Pip’s eyes, at least) to be made up of ex-Nazi concentration camp guards. They also all wore an extremely pathetic red polo shirt on which there was printed a golden hearing trumpet on the lapel pocket.

  The rules were strict. Courtesy and politeness must be paramount at all times. The technical advice should be concise and correct. The customer’s name must be used three times during a call. (The only time Pip had ever used a customer’s name at all had been when he found himself talking to an obviously Asian customer called “Mr. Shita”, and he had used the customer’s name on that particular call a lot more than three times.) The amount of time spent on the call regardless of the nature of the problem was monitored and was to be no more than fifteen minutes. In theory agents who did not pass their call monitoring review: (code 36 on the phone) were liable to a disciplinary review, could lose any potential bonuses, and could eventually lose their job. To Pip “spunk trumpet” was just the latest in a whole line of things he was looking forward to avoiding, and if possible, breaking.

  Carol from the “Golden Trumpet” team pressed stop on the portable mp3 player and the small glass fronted interview room fell into silence as Pip’s voice stopped as the monitored call was disconnected. Pip noticed the annoying trumpet symbol on her t shirt and gave his usual smile that was designed to make its target not only forget what they were doing, but also be vaguely scared for their safety. Carol squirmed slightly in her seat but decided to press on.

  “So what do we think of that call then?” she asked innocently. Pip remembered the call of course but he never took any notice at all of call monitoring. His simple attitude was, “fuck it, I’ll deal with the shit when it hits the fan, and not before”.

  “Well I don’t know what you think of It.” he smiled. “To me it was just a phone call.” Carol looked nonplussed. To Pip there was definitely no “we” in I. Not ever.

  “Well yes,” continued Carol, trying not to sound patronising and failing miserably, “but if we count the omission of the customer name completely, the generally surly manner and the fact that at one point you were definitely swearing not too silently under your breath then the call monitoring score comes out as…” she turned the piece of paper over she was reading from, totting up all the zeroes as she went. “Well, actually about minus thirty really.”

  “Did I fix the customer's Internet connection?” he asked in a fair semblance of the surly manner in which the call they had both just listened to had been conducted.

  “Well yes.” conceded Carol. “But it’s hardly the point is it? Your approach…”

  She got no further. Pip leaned forward in his chair and taking the piece of paper signed it at the bottom, before handing it back to Carol with a flourish.

  “I don’t see the problem.” he said slowly. “The woman’s internet was broken. I fixed it. The customer and I are not shagging. We don’t even know each other. I don’t get a warm rosy glow after or during ANY call otherwise I would have spontaneously combusted years ago. I have absolutely no interest whatsoever in anything you say, or your average spunk trumpet stats and percentages. As far as I’m concerned it’s just an excuse for you lot.” (He pointed at her red polo shirt) “To get a free T shirt. I’ve signed your form. Can I go now?”

  Carol gulped and nodded. Pip uncurled himself from his chair and decided to have a fag outside. No point in wasting his code 32 (meeting), which he could potentially spin out for the foreseeable future. Well, until somebody caught him skiving anyway, which was another weapon in Pip’s seemingly limitless arsenal of total indifference. In short, he didn’t care if he got caught skiving at all. Most people if they got caught having a crafty fag in the car park by a manager would be mortified. Pip simply admitted he was skiving and allowed himself to be led to wherever it was he was actually meant to be. Which was on the phone talking to customers usually.

  Which altogether begged the question of why Pip was still employed with Regulus Telecom in the first place. Pip took great solace in the fact that employment law being what it was these days most employees had to take very drastic action indeed to get sacked outright these days. Yet Pip more or less breezed through his shifts (when he actually managed to turn up) as if he were somewhere else. Which strangely worked. Managers who were new to Regulus often saw Pip as a target to be taken down, but usually backed off more out of curiosity than anything, and this was the secret of his success. Quite simply the managers above Pip were constantly intrigued as to what exactly it was he would do next; what elaborate excuses he would come up with for his absences; why he had been on a three-hour lunch. One manager summed it up pretty accurately when he said that waiting to see what Pip did next was a bit like putting an incontinent puppy on a trampoline; the outcome was obvious but you had to wait for only a little while to see which way the shit was going to fall.

  Pip stood just outside the designated smoking hut (he couldn’t help himself even here) at the back of the car park smoking a fag. It took a while. So long in fact that a casual bystander may just possibly have a better look to makes sure that the cigarette was actually lit. Eventually however he finished and made his way back slowly to the main entrance, swiping his staff card across the door entry system and going inside. The remote access door was logged per card as a matter of security of course, each card being unique to that person, and any manager could pull up a report of how many times Pip (or anyone else) had been in and out of the door. In fact, for a short time in the previous year they had based a weekly sweepstake on the results of such a report. Pip knew the card was logged of course, but basically didn’t care.

  He returned to the call centre floor and almost crawled back towards where his team were seated. He sat at his desk and putting on his headset poked the button that put him into “ready”; ready to accept a call that is. Much to his annoyance the phone binged immediately. There was a call waiting.

  “Thank you for calling Regulus Telecom. My name is Tiberius. How can I help yo
u?”

  (Regulus had 12 months before instigated a policy of all agents using their Christian name when answering calls. This had been met first of all with uproar, then derision and finally acceptance. (The three stages any change pushed upon employees by their employer usually pass through, in fact.) Pip of course was having none of it. He had stated that it was a violation of his human rights and that he was prepared to take it as far as he could to not have to use his real Christian name. In reality he didn’t care less, he was just in to resisting for the sheer mischief he could create. Regulus and Pip had finally settled upon a compromise. Pip would give his customer’s a Christian name; just not his own. The problem was Pip decided that this “pretend name” as he referred to it constantly had to be changed on a regular basis or his human rights were still being violated just as much as if he were using his actual name. In the previous twelve months therefore he had been Dave, Popeye, Chuck, then Dave again, Sally (that one really threw customers) and was currently Tiberius. Next month he was going to be either “Pinocchio” or “Fuckbutt”. He hadn’t decided yet.)