I had been pre-warned about their call centre being based in the Philippines, and while the lovely girl on the end of the phone spoke excellent English, it was apparent that she was having a few minor problems understanding my Scottish accent. The problems arose when she was trying to confirm my address, and we got to the postcode...
After listing the first letter as F, she promptly read S for sierra back to me. I had to think quickly on my feet, and in fairness did a decent enough job fishing out “Freddie” to confirm it. The problem now was that I had many more letters to go, and my lack of confidence at dealing with phone calls was being shaken further by being put on the spot and being tested on my knowledge of police callsigns from The Bill. Sensing my floundering, this was the moment that my mum decided to 'helpfully' step in, to help fill out the rest of the code with... sierra for S. Thanks for that! Clearly my wild arm and eyebrow flailing successfully communicated that she was not helping, so she quietened down, leaving me alone to desperately plough the darkest recesses of my mind to find a K for Kilo, and a P for...
…
PIE!
I don't think I'm going to be allowed to live that one down. In my defence, it's not easy to be put on the spot like that, especially with an audience! Were I looking to glean any minute positives from it I could claim that being able to both make the phone call and deal with the scenario taking a turn for the unexpected is further proof of my progress, but for some reason I suspect any attempts to bring that up might be shouted down in a fit of giggles in favour of the very minor faux pas.
And by this point its barely even worth mentioning that my third submitted complaint altered nothing and I remain without my lovely imaginary horse. Sigh sigh.
No comments:
Post a Comment