Ma Bell: The Ching That Stopped Everthing
 |
| Allergies? |
Lenny was the class clown. No doubt, he had experience in this area. He was the Arnold Horshack of the training classes. He was the disrupter, the guy with the one-liners, He was the guy with the biting tongue of Ratso Rizzo and the Italian Stallion of the entire office. It was hard to keep a straight face around him. He kept us from being bored.
Jim, the instructor, the buzzed-haired, conservative with the pretty eyes, was the deceiver. He gave the impression that he was a no-nonsense guy, that he didn't tolerate any kind of disruption in the classroom. He was there to do a job and do it well and turn us into something that he could be proud of. All of his good intentions and plans only lasted a couple of days. I don't know if we broke him down or if he was already a clown and just hiding it. I suspect that he was a closet clown. And Lenny just made him worse.
Jan was one of the sweetest girls I have ever known. She was always in a good mood; she never talked about anyone negatively and sounded like she had been born in a bowl of grits. She almost sounded like a female Gomer Pyle; her southern accent was strong. Somehow she managed to be a sweet, kind person while being married to one of the world's biggest a-holes. She just didn't know how bad he was yet.
Margaret was the non-conformist among us. She came into the training as a no-nonsense, somewhat religious, reserved young lady. She was married to a guy that was what might be considered a nerd. They hadn't been married very long, and she talked about him. David was his name all the time. David this, and David that. If we heard about David once, we heard about him a thousand times. And once was more than enough. She was, however, a very nice person who would do anything for you.
Have I left anyone out? Oh yeah, myself. But you already know about me. I came into the training determined to do very well. I waited a long time to escape my former office. I was going to make sure that I didn't get sent back there. But silliness and humor were always right there with me. I just had to wait for the opportunity to let them out. It wouldn't be long.
Every time we completed a chapter, we would practice the skills that we learned. Most of the time, it involved some kind of role-playing with Jim being the ever so difficult customer. The role-playing was awful at first. We were all very self-conscience of how we sounded and appeared to each other. We were all very stiff, nervous, and nauseous every time we had to perform in front of everyone. And when it was over, we all had to nitpick the performance of the person. I don't think any of us knew that we would have to do this. It was nerve-racking. But it would get worse later, we would be doing it on the phone, and we were recorded while performing in front of the entire class, and when managers and supervisors came into the classroom.
After the first few chapters of reading, practicing, and testing, the classroom environment was teetering on the edge of change. I'm not sure if we pushed Jim over the edge or if he was simply hiding the fact that he was hysterically funny. He started acting out his role-playing parts as if he were real people, not just people but odd people. He had a written script prepared by the training organization, but the personalities that he added to the written script were bizarre and would make us all laugh. I think the first one he did was portraying himself as a little old lady with gnarled hands calling in about her/his bill amount. At first, we all laughed at him and whoever he was practicing with, but the goal was to not let his weirdness affect your reactions. Because anyone who was a service rep knows you talk to some peculiar people. So if you were able to not laugh at Jim while you were the phantom service rep, you had to listen to your fellow students laughing at you. It was hard, so hard not to laugh, but it was done to teach control. Let's face it, you couldn't talk to a real person and bust out laughing at them because of their circumstances or voice or accent. Not back then anyway, not at Ma Bell. We were professionals.
Not only did Jim lose his mind while doing the role-playing, but it was also starting to be present constantly. Lenny and Jim turned into a real-time comedy routine. Everyday. And laughter only made them act worse. Jan and I constantly had tears running down our cheeks. Margaret was cracking up in her own way.
And then one day it happened, and I'm laughing about it now. Someone was in the middle of role-playing, and Margaret sneezed. Not too weird, huh? Wrong. This is how she sneezes; achoo, and then in a very high-pitched voice, we heard ching. So her sneeze was, achoo ching. And we all died laughing for a very long time. And when Lenny recovered, he asked her, "What the heck was that?" And we all started laughing again—even red-faced Margaret. I think we were sent to break because we were all out of control. When we came back, she was sitting there alone. We walked into the room, and it started over again the hysteria. And then she sneezed again. Achoo ching. After we all recovered, Lenny crowned her with the new name of Ching. And every time she sneezed for the next 8 or so weeks, we busted out laughing. And every time Lenny called her Ching, we busted out laughing. One time one of the managers was present in the room. Lenny addressed Margaret as Ching. We were all cracking up inside and trying to control ourselves. Unfortunately, the manager said, "Ching? I thought her name was Margaret?" Total dysfunctional hysteria erupted from everyone in the room except Margaret and the manager. It was the kind of laughing that makes your stomach hurt. And Jim was right there with us, tears running down his face. He was a co-conspirator. And he was busted. And now we were all going to break except Jim and the manager. Somehow we all had to get it out of our system in 15 minutes to keep Jim on the good side of THEM.
Were we going to be able to maintain self-control when we returned to the classroom? Or would Jim be getting a reprimand because of us? Would Margaret get mad at us and complain? Would we end up with a new, nasty instructor?
Tune in next time to find out the outcome of As The Sneeze Blows.
Comments
Post a Comment