MORE BITTERNESS: One of my tempsponsibilities is to answer the phones for four different vice presidents. Bankers. Most of the people who call these bankers are also either bankers, or somehow directly or indirectly related to an occupation or business that relies on bankery type individuals to accomplish bankerish tasks involving banky stuff. Not to generalize, but every single person who ever calls is a total fucking waste of life who deserves to suffer under my considerable wrath and ultimately perish slowly in the acidic pools of the lowest subterranean caverns of Hades. That being said, there is a certain subgroup of these callers that manages to tick me off even more than the average dipshit business drone. These are the callers (men in their 40s and 50s mostly, I would guess) that for some reason feel it is in their best interest to adopt an extremely stern, curt, aggressive, unfriendly tone on the phone. Let's call it the Mr. Important Businessman tone. Now, the guys who utilize this particular type of phone manner tend to be pretty high up on the corporate fuckball ladder, so it must have worked pretty well for them throughout their pathetic, meaningless, useless, scumwad, assdip careers. WHY?! HOW?!? Am I the only one who intentionally "forgets" to write down messages from these assholes? Am I the only one who drops their calls on purpose? Am I the only one who gives them the good 'ole temp stiffarm? Somehow, throughout their soul-draining bowelmunching creep up the corporate habi-trail, this for want of a better word for it - MEAN - attitude, has only brought them success. That's just plain fucking sad as all crap hell. Oops, pardon my language there. Didn't mean to say "crap." Sigh. Here's a short one-act playlet. I think you can figure out which one I am and which one Mr. Important Businessman is. As a side note, I'm about 10x more of a man than any of these douchebags. Here ya go:
RING.
"Good afternoon, my Boss's Office."
"Is he there." (please note that there is NO inflection in this guy's voice - it's an oh-so-slightly angry monotone)
"May I ask who's calling please?"
"Mr. Important Businessman."
"Thank you, hold please."
I make no effort to determine whether or not My Boss is around.
"I'm sorry, but My Boss isn't at his desk at this moment, I can take a message or I can certain-"
"Voicemail."
"Sure, hold on please."
I hang up.
RING!
"Good afternoon, my Boss's office."
"I just got disconnec-"
I hang up.
RING! RING! RING!
(at this point, I have gone downstairs for coffee and left my phone unattended - Mr. Important Businessman goes into voicemail as he requested, with no aid from me)
This will occur repeatedly for eight hours. And all these fuckers have to do is introduce themselves properly, and say "please" and "thank you", and they will get the results they want. Not with me on duty. No sir. Well, okay. I really need the money, so I do my job. That little playlet was more of a fantasy than anything else. Ugh. Somebody is going to pay me a lot of fucking money someday to do what I do best - the only thing I'm any good at, actually - and this will all seem like a distant and laughable memory. But for now, I am here. The human phone connection between useless, rude morons. I will not go postal, I will not go postal, I will not...
Posted on August 16, 2002 |