PPI and all that

PPI and all that ©

By Michael Casey

I’ve just had yet another nuisance call, it starts with silence, as the caller is busy chewing gum as he calls you, or looking at the sports pages. I’ve already judged him, zero for customer service and 10/10 for chewing gum. I worked at Front of House in a 4 star deluxe hotel, so I was trained exactly how to do things. Chewing gum was not on the to do list, quite the reverse.

It’s always best to listen and not speak after you pick up the phone, if you speak the automated PPI kicks in, and then you are trapped. It does say on the recording that if you press this number you will NEVER get any more calls, but this is just a LIE.

So I’m weary and wary of phone calls, it’s not as if we are in the phone book. If ever you do an online competition they say they will not share your phone number, but I’m dubious.

So you answer the phone and ask who is calling, but they won’t tell you, are you Michael Casey they ask, but if you ask them who they are it’s a State Secret. So you ask them a 2^nd time, and they ask you if you are Michael Casey, again. So you say you’ve asked THEM who they are twice, but they just say they have asked you who you are twice defiantly. So I hang up. They don’t hang up because they have to PRETEND, they are making a call, from their call centre, so the boss thinks they are so good annoying  potential customers with the benefit of double glazing in Summer.

A friend once said he put somebody on hold for 15minutes, and only then did the nuisance caller hang up. My wife says I should never answer the phone until the answer machine starts, then the automated calls are screened out. Should I miss her call telling me to hang out the washing or put the rubbish out, now that would be another matter entirely.

Perhaps I should never enter any competitions, then our ex-directory number would not be circulated to people who promise never to share it, that’s a Politician’s promise. Though I should thank the man with the Manchester accent, or up North accent, at least he gave me the idea for this piece.

One of my ideas IS to teach Customer Service by using my play Shoplife, by standing it on its head. Never do what the characters in the play do. All the cold calling does at least give me as many ideas as annoyance, so its balance as my Shanghai wife calls it. Though I’d love for the cold callers to catch a cold, and then they wouldn’t be annoying me.

Ring, ring the phone is ringing, I better answer that, no on 2^nd thoughts I’ll leave the answer machine enjoy it.