Life

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The Phone Sex Badass

Posted by Winston on November 8, 2012
Posted in: Perplexed Employees. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , . 3 comments

“Oh yeah, it’s definitely getting hot in here.”

Sometimes employees don’t get mad, they get even. I plot pretty much every single day how I can get even with these idiotic assholes, but so far I’ve come up with nothing. One employee was much better at plotting than me and ended up getting pretty fucking even.

I’m on the phone with some raging bitch who’s pissed about something I don’t give a fuck about. She’s insistent on talking to a previous agent who was working with her the previous week.

Customer: “I need to speak with John, he promised me he would get a technician out here today!”

Winston: “Well let me see if I can track John down then.”

Customer: “No, you get up and you find him right now!”

See the demanding bullshit I deal with on a regular basis? I put the raging bitch on hold and tried to track down John, the poor employee that had to deal with this psycho. I looked him up in our directory, and it turned out he had just quit earlier in the week. Smart bastard. That’s par for the course as the turnover is fucking unreal at Telescreen.

Winston: “I’m sorry ma’am, but it looks like John quit earlier this week. I’m not sure if you had tried calling him…”

Customer: “You’re damn right I have! I’ve been trying to call him all week, why do you think I’m so frustrated? Every time I called that number, you know what I got? A phone sex line. S-E-X! You know, that porno stuff. Can you believe that?”

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The Last Call

Posted by Winston on October 18, 2012
Posted in: Extremely Stupid. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , . 1 comment

Now that’s what I call good customer service.

Your Stories: “The Last Call”

Thanks to oldsalt1942, we have a new and enjoyable addition to ESP via Your Stories. It looks like I’m not the only one that had endure the painful stupidity of a call center. Apparently this was his last call, and I must say, he went out like a boss:

Me: “How can I help you?”

Caller: “I’m a little confused about the instructions on your awning cleaner.”

Me: “What seems to be the problem?”

Caller: “It says mix one part cleaner with three parts water.”

Me: “Yes? What’s the problem with that?”

Caller: “What’s a part?”

Me: “It can be whatever you want it to be.”

Caller: “I still don’t understand…”

Me: “Okay, do you have a shot glass?”

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Winston Teaches A Redneck The Alphabet

Posted by Winston on October 4, 2012
Posted in: Dirty Rednecks, Extremely Stupid. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , . 5 comments

To a third grader, this is the alphabet. To a redneck, these letters might as well be hieroglyphics.

In the initial job description for the call center rep job, it didn’t really elaborate on what “educating customers” meant. I assumed that meant telling people about billing policies, showing them how to use remotes, etc. Only years of hard time at Telescreen would teach me what that really meant:

Winston: “Do you remember the agent’s name you were speaking with yesterday?”

Customer: “Ah heck, Bobby? Barry? Ben?”

Winston: “Was it Bill?”

Customer: “Oh yeah, there it is. Yeah, get me over to Bill.”

Winston: “He’s on a call right now, but I can get you his number.”

Customer: “Okay, hold on now. Let me grab a pen. Alright, Bill. How do you spell that? B…l, right?”

It was then when I muted my phone so he didn’t hear me say, “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.” 

Winston: “No sir, you’re missing a few letters. B…i…l…l.”

Customer: “That looks right, now what’s the number?”

Fortunately he learned how to count to ten, but the alphabet remained a mystery. At least now I know why they sell alphabet soup in Mississippi dollar stores.

Winston Teaches A Customer His Own Name

Posted by Winston on August 28, 2012
Posted in: Extremely Stupid. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , . 3 comments

This gives “buying online” a whole new meaning.

Stupid People Say The Dumbest Fucking Things:

Winston: “I’ll go ahead and take the payment now. What’s the card number?”

Customer: “It’s 4521….”

Winston: “Okay, thank you. And could I get the name on the card please?”

Customer: “Visa.”

Winston: “No, the name as it appears on the card.”

Customer: “Let me see, yeah, it’s definitely a Visa.”

Winston: “Do you see your name on the card?”

Customer: “Well my name’s Bob.”

Winston: “Does it say your name on the card?”

Customer: “Maybe, let me see. Um, it says ‘Bob Dumbass’ right in the middle there. Is that what you mean?”

I’ll let that one speak for itself.

No, I Have Lunch That Day

Posted by Winston on August 8, 2012
Posted in: Clueless & Elderly. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , . 7 comments

“No Grandma, I can’t call you because you don’t know how to use a phone.”

Old people are so fucking difficult to troubleshoot with because they never want to do a thing. You ask them to press the power button on the remote and they act like you asked them for their first born child. This is exactly what happened when I encountered Social Mabel.

The call came in because she was refusing to troubleshoot her TV issue. Once Social Mabel came on the line, she was the typical clueless and elderly customer. She didn’t know her TV remote from a damn pencil sharpener, and the last thing she would be caught dead doing was troubleshooting.

Winston: “The first thing we’re going to need to do is reset the TV receiver.”

Customer: “I can’t do that! I’m an old woman, there’s no way I’m bending over to grab that stupid plug.”

Winston: “Okay, well how about we try pressing the power button on the remote. It’s the little red button on the top.”

Customer: “Are you kidding me? The remote is all the way across the room. I’m not getting up to press some dang whatever.”

All the while, I’m shaking my head, and I know she probably went through this for an hour with at least two other agents. CSR’s aren’t allowed to send technicians until they have followed all of the troubleshooting steps first. As I could see, there was no way anyone was going to get past step one with this old pain in the ass. Social Mabel was stonewalling everyone like a fucking pro.

Winston: “Well we need to try troubleshooting if you want to fix your TV.”

Customer: “I’m not trying a darn thing, you get someone out here to fix this, and you get someone out here right now!”

I argued for another five minutes and decided, fuck this, there was no way she was going to get off her old wrinkly ass to do anything.

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Is That Spanish?

Posted by Winston on July 3, 2012
Posted in: Extremely Stupid, Perplexed Employees. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , . 3 comments

The nerdy version of Fight Club.

I know I mock the Telescreen customers all the time, but shit, the employees are dumbasses too. Here’s an example:

Winston: “Are you looking at the notes on the account?”

CSR: “Yeah, I see a note from a John in your office. It says, ‘Couldn’t call customer back due to queue.’ Is that spanish, you know, like que? Is that a typo?”

Winston: “Um, no. A queue is like a line. A bunch of items waiting to be addressed. We can’t call anyone back when we have a line of customers waiting to be helped.”

What the fuck am I, dictionary.com?

CSR: “No, that doesn’t make sense.”

What doesn’t make sense? I fucking defined the word for you. Are we in 3rd grade English and you’re at the kindergarden level?

Winston: “Again, a queue is kind of like a line. When lots of customers call into Super Department at once, they have to wait in line to speak to someone. The queue is the line. Right now there are 30 people waiting to talk to us, and they’re answered in order, just like a line.”

I couldn’t have explained that any clearer. There’s no way he couldn’t understand that…

CSR: “No, I think it was a typo.”

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I’m Just Not Very Good At Thinking

Posted by Winston on June 18, 2012
Posted in: Extremely Stupid. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , . 1 comment

“I wonder if I can wear this to work. Is this technically business casual?”

Stupid People Say The Dumbest Fucking Things:

Winston: “Do you see the premium channels on your bill?”

Customer: “The what now?”

Winston: “The $15 charge we’ve been talking about on your May bill. Do you see that charge, three lines down from the top?”

Customer: “Okay, hold on now, let me see. No, I still don’t see it.”

Winston: “Do you see anything labeled Premium Channels?”

Customer: “Um, yeah, I see that. Okay then, there it is!”

Winston: “That’s the one.”

Customer: “Sorry I’m not much help here, I’m just not very good at thinking.”

Winston: “That’s okay.”

I figured I’d agree with him on being an idiot, but you’ve got to appreciate an ESP that’s honest. Most think they’re smart for some stupid reason.

Happy Birthday ESP!

Posted by Winston on March 21, 2012
Posted in: Job Security, What The Fuck?. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , . 2 comments

I'm sorry, but the cake is supposed to say, "Fat Bitch."

Hello again, gentle reader! It sure has been awhile since we’ve last talked. I have to admit, the future of ESP was looking grim. This recent hiatus is due to my debates over the future of this blog. With such low readership, it didn’t seem like all the effort was worthwhile. I think some of my reservations were due to the depressing fact that I am still employed at Telescreen after a year. As my faithful ESP copy editor MC W-Slang put it, “You should be proud you’re still alive after a year!” I guess I should be glad I haven’t jumped off a fucking bridge…yet. So I decided to dry my fucking tears and man up. I have made a great deal of effort to covertly draft and log all my encounters with idiots over the phone and the questionable business practices within Telescreen. There’s no way I can go without sharing these stories. People are just too fucking stupid to get away scot-free. So now that I’m done being a lazy son-of-a-bitch, let’s review the last year of ESP, and look ahead to the future. (Cue sci-fi music…)

The last year saw around 2,200 views of the blog. I’m not sure if that’s a lot or not, I really don’t know shit about blogging, I just write stories about stupid fucking people. Most of my visitors were from the great US and A, but apparently I did have quite a few visitors from Indonesia and Brazil. Why the fuck a bunch of people from Indonesia and Brazil enjoy reading ESP is beyond me.

ESP grew from a small contingent of subscribers that I knew personally, to a slightly larger group of 23 subscribers. As any good business operates, I would like to thank my subscribers for their loyalty. Below I have included a printable version of a Little Caesars coupon for a “Crazy Combo,” whatever the fuck that is. Good luck finding a Little Caesars. The last one I saw was in a Kmart, just to show you what quality we’re looking at here. The coupon also expires on 03/31/12, so if you don’t use it within the next 10 days, you may have to barter with the acne-covered high school student behind the counter. You are very welcome!

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The Hot Dog Eating Contest

Posted by Winston on February 21, 2012
Posted in: Job Security, Perplexed Employees. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , . Leave a Comment

Is that giant hot dog flipping me off?

Some companies support a healthy lifestyle by promoting outdoor activities or a discount for a fitness club membership. It’s no surprise that Telescreen doesn’t support a fucking thing that would benefit the employees. Maybe they’re worried that the costs would be too high because an insanely high percentage of the employees are obese. I’m not talking about fat, overweight, or large, I’m talking about obese. Surprisingly, I’m not trying to be an asshole, it’s just a fact. Here are some examples: The common substitute for business casual is sweatpants. Who can tell the difference between nice black pants and well ironed sweatpants? An employee in my department has a bunch of Wendy’s ads displayed in her cubicle. Quite a few of the folks here even have trouble walking and must waddle like penguins. The cafeteria features such delicacies as dirty ass fried…everything.

Someone in HR took notice of this trend and decided it would be far too difficult to help these people, so instead the company would celebrate their large lifestyle. The hot dog eating contest was born.

Emails were sent out inviting participants, warning of the date, and hyping up the excitement. Since I didn’t give two shits, nor should I have given two shits, I completely forgot about the stupid little event. I was eating lunch one day, reveling in the fact that I didn’t have to talk to idiots for 30 minutes, when I noticed some moron attempting to setup speakers. Everyone loves a good DJ, but this guy looked like he belonged in a Star Trek fan club. He got his speakers set up and started playing some crappy Top 40 music. He grabbed the mic and tried to hype up the empty atrium for the hot dog eating contest. Yeah right pal, like you’re gonna tear people away from their chicken fingers to watch some fat assholes eat. Oh how wrong I was.

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Is It Just TV? Um, Yeah

Posted by Winston on February 6, 2012
Posted in: Job Security. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , . Leave a Comment

Bob has to write down what he's saying since no one can understand him

I have special folder on my work computer where I save all of my bullshit emails. Not surprisingly, I’ve amassed quite a few. The most recent one came from a supervisor in an attempt to make us care more about our customers. Let’s establish one already well-known fact: I don’t give a fuck about any of the customers, mainly because they’re all morons. Our bosses must recognize this and want to establish a sense of caring amongst the agents. How exactly are we supposed to care about customers when they’re calling about something as unimportant as TV? I mean really, it’s just fucking TV. Or maybe not. The title of this stupid email was, “Is It Just TV?” Here are the main points outlined in the email:

For the mother who has a child in the Army overseas and it’s her only way to stay informed, is it just TV?

Um, yeah. She’s a dumb redneck that watches Fox News, and anyone who knows anything can tell you that’s not going to inform her about anything worthwhile.

For the sports fanatic that can’t go to the stadium to watch the big game, is it just TV?

Um, yeah. The fact that he’s too poor to make it to the game doesn’t excuse him from calling his TV provider to bitch and moan about signal loss. Not only is it just TV, but it’s just a Nascar race. You can see the same shit staring at the cars on the interstate, dumbass.

For the sweet elderly woman who watches her favorite Soap Opera because she can’t make it out of her home, is it just TV?

Um, yeah. Just because she can’t figure out how to turn on her TV to spend her children’s inheritance on informercials doesn’t mean  I should give two shits. She’s also not sweet, she’s senile. There’s a big difference.

For the dying cancer patient who gets comfort out of his favorite comedy shows, is it just TV?

Um, yeah. Richard Pryor is awesome, but he’s not Jesus, and watching his stand-up won’t cure goddamn cancer.

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