I suppose I should introduce myself. Briefly. My name is Colin Coles and I’m a mid-level manager in a contact centre for a never-to-be- named insurance company. Notice I said contact centre, not call centre. There’s a difference apparently, though no-one outside of the Human Resources Department has adequately explained what it is. After 10 years of fighting the good fight in the always exciting world of insurance motor claims, I felt it was high time to share my experiences with the outside Life in a call centre, sorry contact centre, is never dull. Certainly not at this time of year when plans abound for the office party. Team supervisors develop the uncanny knack of providing ever-creative reasons for not hitting the all-important targets - most of these involve extra long lunch hours to trawl the city streets for a knock-out dress to wow the big boss, David King, on the pretext that the extra show of flesh and unbridled cleavage will score a few free rounds of Gin and Tonic from the boss.
I’ve just come from a meeting now where all talk of monthly customer satisfaction targets was pushed aside for an in-depth discussion on how many free drinks vouchers each member of staff should get. Fellow assistant manager James Lovitt-Thomas is firmly of the view that all drinks should be free. All night! I suspect the fact that his wife of 9 years has recently left him for an orange-skinned midget might be giving him ideas to drown his sorrows in alcohol and any of the five ladies from the post room with enhanced breasts. (I still can’t fathom where they get the money to pay for those sort of operations on their salary).
Stern looks come from the Department manager Rob Dunn, who sees straight through the idea. ‘Come off it John, you know what this lot is like. Last year’s party got us banned from the Hilton because of the sheer volume of vomit alone.’
Shocking I know. Especially when you take into account Rob Dunn was one of the main offenders, though he’d never admit to it.
After a further 45 minutes or so of pontificating, a compromise is agreed. As is the way with Friday morning meetings. [A little trade secret on the timings - Rob likes to start the meeting at 11.30am sharp, fizz through the 12 point agenda (extensively prepared by his personal assistant Maggie) so he can drop one bombshell on an unsuspecting supervisor, watch them squirm in their chair for a while, before declaring an adjournment at 12.15pm to take an extended lunch hour in the pub.] Honestly, Rob can make an absenteeism report look like the Spanish Inquisition.
On this occasion, the arrangement shall be for each member of staff to be issued with 2 drinks vouchers. Each voucher to be for the value of one pint of ordinary strength lager or a glass of wine. This is a sure-fire way to upset the longer-serving members of staff who have after 3 years loyal service developed a need to consume only Stella Artois. (I am reliably informed this does wonders for their nerves. Along with 20 fags a day).
The vouchers will be prepared by Maggie under strict instructions not to divulge the design, text font or paper colour, to avoid last year’s debacle when hundreds of forged vouchers found their way into the tills of the Hilton and blew the quarterly budget. I foresee a problem with this. Maggie, bless her, is an top class typist and can prep a boardroom meeting with style in less than 20 minutes. What she cannot do however is design 800 drinks vouchers with watermarks in an obscure font. For that she needs Carl, resident IT expert. The Company’s very own John Shaft. The problem is that last year, Carl was the man who created the extra 600 vouchers that blew the bank! Everyone in the room knows this except Rob Dunn. I know I should be saying something, planting a seed of enquiry in his mind, but then where would the fun be?
Carl took his instructions with a sincere face, nodding sagely with Rob and Maggie before disappearing off to the Comms Room to continue burning pirate DVDs, which he then sells to the rest of the staff for a fiver each.
Okay, now look, that last part is still just a rumour.
So just 10 days to go before the company gets banned from another hotel for bad behaviour. On a Friday night of course, which will guarantee total disruption to the call teams, anyone that hasn’t been successful in booking the day off is now looking for an excuse to leave at lunch-time. It used to be the case that is was just the women, which I fully understand. One must look ones’ best for at least the first two hours of the evening. However, the Alpha males have seen fit to entertain this preparation time to do a bit of preening followed by the pre-party party. After all, no sense turning up to the party completely sober.
As I’m in my late thirties I consider myself too old to join in such behaviour. I shall do the sensible thing and remain sober-ish. I have found I prefer it that way. You see I get to watch pretty much everything that goes on and have the benefit of being able to remember it all come Monday morning.
Plus, as a manager, albeit a junior one, I have to keep my wits about me. I find that on Christmas party night I am surrounded by people who sidle up to me like I’m their best friend, skin me for round of drinks and then disappear off to the other side of the dance floor. Still, that’s better than the ones who hang around afterwards, slurping on a bottle of something that could well be battery acid whilst telling me how I could do my job better.
After a few hours of fending off amorous advances from some of the older ladies it shall be time to lose all inhibitions and stray on to the dance floor for a lung-bursting, knee-jarring rendition of ’Come on Eileen’ and ’My Way’. After all, this is Christmas. It’s tradition.
