Ma Bell: Ding A Ling Training Day

Training, training, training.  We really had to keep a positive outlook.  It was grueling, and we had to stick together and keep our spirits up collectively.  One had to maintain a certain level of self-confidence.  If you didn't, if you doubt yourself, you might not have enough confidence to make it to the end of the training and graduate.  We were all determined to get our full-fledged service rep ears.  None of the four of us wanted to be sent back to our old jobs because we flunked out of class.  That was the only option, either that or quit.  We were not biting into that failure sandwich.

Obviously, we started our training with the easy stuff and added more difficult pieces of the puzzle as we went along.  That meant that our time taking real phone calls from real customers increased as our skill level widened.  One of the more difficult parts of our training was dealing with customers who had delinquent bills or customers who passed the late phase and whose phones had now been turned off, suspended, or "cut off," as we liked to say.  This part of the training was difficult.  There was a lot of information you had to remember.  There were many dates to remember; how long the phone had been turned off when to send a disconnection notice, how many days you could extend them to prevent the suspension, and how long had they been a customer.  And back then, everything was on paper records, so you were translating information from a 4" by 3" piece of paper that was crammed with important info.  Ninety-nine times out of a hundred calls, the records you needed were on someone else's desk in a huge office.  You had less than a minute to find their records, get back to your desk, read the information, and understand what was going on.  The time interval changed all of the time; I think our objective was 57 seconds to perform our miracles.  And it wasn't like you calmly got up and strolled over to another place and then returned to your desk.  You were dodging everyone else who was hauling butt to find their stuff.  It could get pretty wild.  It reminds me of the air control traffic pattern over an airport.  Every person was zooming around, over, in front of, behind, or below another person.  It was quite a feat.

Once you returned to your customer, the negotiating began.  If they were lucky, the phone was still on but due to being turned off that day or soon.  Or maybe it was already off, or even worse, we might have been in the process of removing the equipment permanently and totally disconnecting their service.  I never realized how much people valued their phones.  They would pretty much lie, cheat, steal, curse, and scream to either keep it on or get it turned back on.  We, our class, were not yet hardened by the job of having people lie to you to save their phone service.  We were naive, and our judgment was tainted by empathy.  "Your dog died?  I am so sorry to hear that.  Would you mind if I put you on hold for a moment and check to see if you can pay your bill next year?"  No, it wasn't quite that bad, but we had to be monitored closely to make sure we did the right thing.  It didn't take us long to keep our feelings out of it.

The worst part for us was having to tell a person that we were turning their phone off.  People would just freak out.  They would either lie, beg us not to or cuss us out.  Sometimes it would be pretty abusive, and our referral rep or sometimes a supervisor would have to talk to them.  It was very unusual for the supervisor to extend their service simply because most customers calling about their late bill were chronic offenders with a history of being late or having their phone turned off.  Compared to the large number of customers that our office serviced, this type of customer was small.

I remember one guy in particular that called enraged because his phone was off.  There was nothing I could do for him until he paid the full amount of his bill.  He was abusive and cussing me out over and over.  I just sat there thinking what an ass he was until he finally took a breath and shut up.  I called him by his name and told him I was sorry that he was upset and reiterated the amount needed to get his phone back on, and asked him when he would be paying his bill.  It was at that point that he lost every ounce of manners that he may have had.  Now he was just abusive and demanded to talk to my supervisor. I was grateful, so I went to my boss Mike and told him that the guy was a jerk, cursing and abusive.  I went back to the phone and introduced Mike as the supervisor.  He got on the phone, and I got on the handset to listen.  As soon as Mike got on the phone, the guy switched from super jerk to super guy.  No cussing, no yelling, no abuse, he thought Mike was his phone, bro.  He told the guy the exact same thing that I had said, and he accepted it.  It was a learning experience.  And it was going to be the type of job that would teach us about people, both good and bad.  I can't speak for my three classmates, but that training and that job taught me how to deal with people, recognize certain traits and behaviors in folks, and deal with them.  It was and is an invaluable tool.

Towards the end of the day, we would go back to our training room to discuss some of the calls and our experiences.  We all had similar experiences.  Talking about them together was like letting the air out of a balloon; it allowed us to destress ourselves and have the confidence to come back the next day and do it all over again.