Eek-Mail or How the Internet almost got me fired

I always thought it was an urban legend. After all no one really did things like that, no one could really be that stupid.
Of course, I always pride myself on being the exception to any rule.

I had a client who couldn’t get to a phone so we were communicating exclusively by E-mail. This was a definite benefit as I had to turn her claim down and I wouldn’t have to listen to her yell at me.

So in a concise professional email I explained the reasons we were repudiating the claim.

An hour later she replied.

To: Simon@theOffice.biz
From: Client@HerHome.com
Subject: Ref Claim
Dear Simon (Hey! We're on first name terms now. )
i understood that the externals were covered but believed the internals to be covered under accidental damage. Please review and get back to me.

Review and get back to her? What, does she think I’m in customer service or something?

Dutily, I asked my senior to repeat what she had already said and emailed the client back, adding a couple of in-depth explanatory paragraphs and signing off with - ‘I trust this explains our position,’ the polite way office workers have of saying ‘Shut the f**k up.’

Twenty minutes later she replies, again.

To: Simon@theOffice.biz
From: Client@HerHome.com
Subject: Ref Claim
Simon (not Dear Simon any more I see)
I am well aware that my externals are not covered but believed the internals to be so. Please review and get back to me.
Have a nice weekend.

As you can imagine, I was somewhat annoyed by now and my idea of a nice weekend was one that didn’t involve her. I clicked reply, and stared at the screen for 20 unproductive minutes while I worked out what there was left to say.

Finally, I gave up and emailed my senior instead.

‘I have explained this repudiation to the insured twice and she still keeps insisting we should be covering the internals.

Maybe you can explain this better than me?

She works week days so we can only contact her by e-mail.’

I clicked send and watched as my e-mail disappeared into the bounds of cyberspace. There was just one problem. I hadn't changed the address. I’d just sent it sent straight to the insured.

Naturally, I did what any internet savvy person would do in this situation. I panicked. For a brief, horrific, moment I longed for a simpler time before technology when I could have got my hand stuck in a postbox whilst trying to get the letter back

I was overcome with nerves, I'd screwed up. I'd made a classic stupid mistake and sent a mildly insulting e-mail straight to the person I was mildly insulting.

I had a desperate and inexplicable craving for dark chocolate.

A moment later she replied,

From: Client@herhouse.com
To: Simon@theoffice.biz
Subject: Ref Claim
I think you meant to send that to your supervisor.
I'm working from home on Monday if you'd prefer to talk on the phone.

I jumped up, stabbing for the off button as if my monitor contained a naked picture of John Goodman, ridding my screen of her cyber-terrorism. Gingerly, I rang my senior and reported the mistake, checking the number twice before I dialed. And then I left the office.

But as I walked home, the last words of her reply stuck in my mind like a record suffering from an ugly scratch.

'Do have a nice weekend.'

Roll on Monday

Archived Articles

• Taking Note
• Claims, Stains and Octogenarians
• Harry Potter and the Endless Sequels

Claims, Stains and Octogenarians

On my first day in my new job, I handled this claim.

'My husband was in the bathroom when he fell and banged his head on the cistern, which cracked, pouring water over the floor. I rushed to help him, and stepped on some cracked porcelain. I did not notice this until I had walked into the bedroom, and my foot had bled on the hall and bedroom carpet. '

Now despite what this blog may make you believe, with its sparkling, acerbic wit and Oscar Winning mood swings, I’m actually quite sensitive. Really! Try tickling me!

When I read the claim I felt like I was in that bathroom. It was my boyfriend on the floor, me in shock, trying to stop the water, trying to help him, running to the bedroom for the phone, my heart racing, the blood spurting from my foot unnoticed as a hero ignores his mortal wound until his damsel is saved.

And besides, they were old, sweet people. They needed my help. They wouldn’t lie to me.

My senior looked over my shoulder. 'Yeah right.' he said, 'like you wouldn't notice you had a bloody big piece of porcelain in your foot.'


Now you may think the odds of someone faking this are somewhat slim.

'Forsooth Roger, I find myself rather tired of one's bedroom carpet.'
'Tis true Maria. I believe, also, that the lavatory be naff.’
‘Rather naff indeed.'
‘You know, one believes we can purge of the twain with one stone.'
'Mercy, no?'
'Verily, with naught but a head-shaped hammer and a vile of blood. Hurry now, bring me forth a knife and one's Home Policy Booklet.'

But the more claims I've handled the more I can imagine it. In the last month I’ve had people claim their stolen 18 year old Television was HD ready, their burnt down council flat was full of priceless artworks, and their defrosted freezer was stocked with Caviar and Salmon. Every day someone is trying to screw the company out of money. And my job isn’t to help people as you may expect. My job is to work out who is lying.

After all, who knows how many people sit at home every night, plotting to commit insurance fraud.

'Geeze Brian, what we going to do tonight then?'
'The same thing we do every night Peaches, try to defraud our Insurance.'

But maybe you think that I'm being too cynical about this. Maybe you think that deep down Human Beings are honest, kind people.

Well my naive friends (who I must come 'visit' one day) let me give you one more example.

A few days ago I was called up by a lovely, old Gentleman, the kind who hands out sweets in the bus queue. With a wonderful chortle he told me that his wife had been saving up £2 coins. But the purse she was saving them in had 'gone missing.' This sounded perfectly reasonable. Old people often save up change at home, it keeps the queues in the bank short, and the glass jars market afloat. They are also famous for losing things: normally their memory.

Then I asked how much money was in the purse.
‘About £800,’ he said.

For those who don't know, a £2 coin is roughly the size of a quarter, 1 1/8" in diameter and 1/8" in height. It is the largest coin in the English currency. Yet his wife apparently had 400 of them in her purse. Call me cynical if you must (in fact I rather enjoy it) but I find that hard to believe.

To give some idea of scale, a pile of 300 £2 coins would reach up past my waist. Any purse containing them would have a volume of over 40 cubic inches and weigh over 8lb. It’s not the kind of thing you take with you when you go go to Waitrose to buy a new glass jar. Losing something like that would take a highly concentrated effort, detailed planning and, at their age, a forklift truck.

And so he's cheating us, claiming for more than he lost just like everyone else who ever made an insurance claim, including me.

And yet, knowing that he has cheated us, I’ll pay him the money. I'll sign the cheque and move onto the next liar, cheater or master criminal.

Because that, after all, is my job.

Previous Posts

• Harry Potter and the endless sequel
• Forensic Fotos
• 5 Reasons to be nice to telemarketers

5 Reasons to be Nice to Telemarketers

The Moaning meme is haunting me.

Being a telemarketer, I have been thrown into Room 101 by my fellow Memers so often that I’ve had an escalator installed. This attack on telemarketers seems somewhat harsh, so I have taken it upon myself to defend my profession.

With my sales skills, I should be able to end the unfair prejudice for ever.

5 Reasons to be Nice to Telemarketers

1. We can afford our own alcohol.
   Every person in a call centre is one less person on the street begging. Being of a higher class than the homeless however, we do our begging via the phone. And unlike the street-beggars we tell you straight out where your money is going – we’ll be buying alcohol so we can forget the hellish way we earn a living.


2. We hold back the evil advance of McDonalds
   If we weren't calling you we'd be flipping burgers. And, with our brilliant sales skills, healthy eating wouldn't stand a chance.


3. We offer free counseling
   Where else can you find hundreds of people who actually expect to take your abuse? In fact, we wait till you’re at your most stressed before ringing, just so you can scream, swear and threaten us until you’ve released all your tension. And we take it all with an empathic smile. It’s only after you've hung up that we start swearing back.


4. We call your parents more than you do
   It's us who listens to their meandering stories, us who waste our lives away as they hunt for their paperwork, us who help them remember their birth days, us who coax them back to sanity in a gentle but firm tone of voice...

And if none of that works …


5. We call your parents more than you do.
   Once we get them talking they tell us everything...
   Be nice the next time we ring you, or we be ringing the tabloids instead...
   

Previous Posts

• 5 Reasons to Visit Britain
• Home Remedies
• Addicted to grub

Photo provided by millieudrop on Flickr

Evil Breeders

I phoned a man at work yesterday called Mr Dack.
First Name Donald.

I can only hope he's forgiven his parents.

Other Quickies

• Why I'm getting Old
• Walk this way
• Animal Slights

Y is for...

Because the calls for my office are routed through our head office, located somewhere in the Mars' wastelands, we are trained to repeat back details in the phonetic alphabet, making up for the lack of quality on the lines.

This has the unfortunate effect of making us sound like we're telling a bad joke about Uncle Charlie doing the Foxtrot in Quebec, and quickly, most of us make up our own phonetic replacements, E. g., A for 'allo 'allo, b for boxers, c for culinary... Sticking to the original phonetics can cause problems.

For example, a few days ago, a new girl was reading back a number plate to a customer. It was a Y plate and she used phonetics, beginning with 'Y for Yankee.'

For some Freudian reason however, she replaced the 'y' in 'yankee' with a 'w.' The result was somewhat unfortunate.

I know a girl who needs to make up her own phonetic alphabet... It would seem however, that she has other things on her mind.

Previous Posts
Part 7, Part 6, Part 5, Part 4, Part 3, Part 2, Part 1, All

Happy Chappy

A brilliant day!

I got approved for a wedding loan, I got the job and I even managed to catch the bus!

Who knows, at this rate I may even get laid tonight...

Related posts

• Intervi-eeeew
• Warner Busers

Intervi-ewww

I applied for a new job recently. I had to. My current one is killing me.

At present, I spend 7 hours a day annoying old women by offering them home insurance. It’s impossible to hit my target and, being a bad loser, is sending me running for cliff edges like a bewildered lemming.

So I applied internally to work in claims.

I’m meticulous at interview preparation, especially when trying to escape death. So I re-read the Job Spec, asked others what to expect, worked out answers to all possible questions, mentally rehearsed them, clipped my nails and arrived 5 minutes early.

And the first question he asked me was ‘What do you know about the company?’

I was stuck. Being an internal interview I wasn’t expecting this. After all, I already worked for the company, why should I regurgitate a cheap sales pitch to impress my interviewer? What kind of internal interview quizzes you on why you want to work for the company you’re already in?

I mumbled out an excuse instead and waited for him to move on.

‘What achievement are you most pleased of in your work?’

Now I could win it back. In my previous job as Duty manager of a chain store, I had years of customer service skill. Over 3 years I was promoted quicker than any of my peers, given more responsibility than those 3 times my age. I was the first person called on to handle customer complaints, was in charge of some of the busiest sale periods, respected by over 20 staff, and, most excitingly, held the store keys.

I opened my mouth to speak, when he added, ‘…since you joined our company?’

And I was flummoxed again. I sell insurance. I annoy people. I exaggerate features and benefits to hide the fact that our price is 3 times higher than other insurers. What could I possibly say I’d achieved?

‘Um, I managed to overcome my stammer, which was threatening my sales call when I first started.’

He paused for a moment and said, ‘O.K.,’ then turned back to his notes.

It was the same throughout the interview, ‘What experience have you gained for this role since you joined our Company?’ ‘How hove you shown Passion for your work since you joined our Company?’ Even ‘How do you cope with a busy day in your current role since you joined our Company.’ I make outbound Calls! How can any day be busier than another? I have days where people shout at me more often if that’s what you mean.

At the end of the interview I hadn’t had a chance to mention any of my relevant experience, the reason they should employ me, or even the fact that I have an NVQ in active listening, am a brilliant empathiser, and really want to work in customer service. Not a single question I had prepared for came up. I wanted to shout, ‘Do you know what an Outbound Sales role is like, you ignorant jackass? Do you really think I go home every night with a passionate sense of achievement burning in my soul? Well I don’t! I go home with a burning anger and take it out on my boyfriend!’

He stood up, thanked me and pointed the way out of the building. I left the room and got lost, before heading back to my office, the failed Computer Science graduate who spent his life talking to geriatrics for £8 an hour.

I’m expecting to get feedback next week. I’m dreading it.

He’ll come into the feedback room, sit me down and offer me a coffee. Then referring copiously to his notes he’ll look at me and, in so many words, call me an idiot.

Still, it’ll only be since I joined the Company...

Other Working Rants

• Overheard at the Water Cooler
• Miracle on Park Street
• Technical Design

Overheard in the Cynic Household - Part 4

Editors note: Greenflag is a car rescue and breakdown service in the uk

Sales associate talking to elderly pensioner about our car insurance at work this week.

Sales associate

Do you have any breakdown cover on your car?

Customer

Yes. I've got that with... who is it now... that one with a colour in it's name...
Oh yes, GreenPeace!

The only Breakdown company that fixes your car and protests against it at the same time.

Recent overheard posts
Part 3, Part 2, Part 1

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A Miracle on Park Street...

1. Talk
2. Get off the Web
3. Get Healthier
4. Leave the House
5. Join some Clubs
6. Say Yes
7. Spoil Myself

I went out with my work mates last night drinking!
To those who may not understand why that statement is being exclaimed allow me to elaborate.

• Last night - a Wednesday! Even though I'm working today!
• Went out - I do not go out. I prefer to sit and watch TV or surf blogs trying to find the well written ones.
• I – the nominative singular pronoun, used by a speaker in referring to himself or herself.
• Work mates - I haven't had ‘work mates’ since I moved to Bristol, and I prefer not to mix my work and social (or lack of) life, but last night I went out drinking with people from work.
• Drinking! – Imbibing of poisonous toxins for pleasure and sexual gain.

And I loved it. Really - even though my friend and I started drinking early ad probably made complete tits of ourselves. But then that is the purpose of alcohol in this country.
And I made myself leave early so I could wake up in time to go the gym today!

Gym!

1. n a building or room designed and equipped for indoor sports, exercise, or physical education. (gymnasium)
2. n An English male name as spelt by dyslexics
   

What is going on with me? A month ago I would have hated the idea of going, refused to get drunk, sat in a corner and not spoken to anyone, and left at about 10:00. But last night I really enjoyed myself, had a few drinks chatted to everyone and left at the reasonable hour of 11:30 but only because it's a school night and I'm going to the gym today. (I also had Nandos for Dinner, but we won't tell anyone that...)

I think, maybe, someone should get me Doctor; there is clearly some strange sociable creature that has taken over my brain,
And at this rate it will probably take over my liver too.

The Ingenuity of modern technical design

I was calculating my tax codes at work, which is much better than doing what I'm paid for, when I ran out of clean blank paper.

Thanks to this site however I was able to carry on with my financial pondering
Blank Sheet of Paper!

"I was making a paper aeroplane to write a rescue note on after I was captured by terrorists, but had ran out of paper. Blank Sheet of Paper saved my life."

- Olivier