Hey hey. My name is Dan, and I used to work in a call centre. We used get people every day yelling and screaming at us as if thier problem with the company is OUR fault. It's not, so I used this here space as a place to let y'all know what it was like. Now, as of late July 2005, I work in a record store. Which means more of my rants, and this time with extra VVVVVOLUME!!! Woooooo.

Saturday, February 19, 2005

Electricity is NOT transittable via radio waves.

music: the cricket, actually. NZ v Australia.

Sometimes, you just have to shake your head in disbelief. I had this call once, from the representative of some kind of building company no less, who were removing an office block from its location, with the intention of relocating the entire building. Down the street somewhere. You'd assume they, being a company who deals with this kind of thing, would've organised everything they needed to have had organised prior to removing the building completely from its foundations with a crane; but nooooooooooooooooooooooo.

They forgot to get the power disconnected. And I don't mean just turned off; they forgot to DISCONNECT THE PHYSICAL PREMISES FROM THE METER AND UNDERGROUND SERVICE LINE.

So they had this building hanging from a crane, attached to the ground by a 3-phase electrical cable, unable to be moved any further. We don't employ electricians in the actual call centre, cause electricians are all out there being, err, electricians, so when the lady on the phone asked me if they could get a paid of shears and cut the dwelling free, I advised them it wouldn't be a good idea, and I couldn't probablyreally recommend it. They'd have to get the network out to do a permanent disconnection and get the meter removed, basically.

There's a 24 hour turnaround time on a permanent disconnection, the network advised me. They'd just have to wait till the next day, when someone would be available to detach the airborne office from its earthly, electrical shackles.

I followed up on the account a few days later, and the hapless (hopeless...) company hadn't called back to try their luck with someone else, so they must've waited. Idiots!