Never Assume Anything

Originally posted 2020-03-04 20:38:44.

….while working in a call centre, it was easy to make an assumption about the people who were on the other end of the line.

People who sounded like they owned a fortune, crumbled when they heard their actual balance, and had to set up
a monthly payment to pay off the debt.

Others who didn’t seem like they had a two penny’s to rub together, paid £500 – £600 in one go without a single complaint.

But one that was a wake up call for me was, age. People in their 80’s and 90’s had no problem climbing on foot stools, or going into dark cloakrooms to read their electricity meter.

The young on the other hand were a different kettle of fish. On one call I spent five minutes listening to a guy racing back to his house on his quad motorbike, all because he thought it was a great idea to pay his bill in the middle of a field, and realized he hadn’t got his credit card on him.

On another, I spent 40 minutes tracking down a payment for a twenty year old. Everything on the system said we’d send her out a cheque.

“You’re sure you didn’t get it?”

“Yeah, all I have is this letter with a tear off bit at the bottom.”

“Can you describe that tear off bit — does it look like a cheque?”

“Oh yeah…it does”

Grrrr…40 minutes running from one department to another and it was already in her hand.

You know what I also used to assume, that creating memorable characters were hard. You probably do too.

Let’s put that assumption to bed once and for all.

FictionalCharacterBuilding.com

PS – The most interesting call was talking to a guy with tourette syndrome.  That’s  one that’ll stay with me forever.

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