Thoughts for ships

[addams]

Using a device which, while professionally designed and made and very sturdy and so on, is pretty much a jack on a skateboard.

Yes.
That will very likely be the answer.
When it happens, I will let you know.

Ta! Da! It's Done!!
So very much easier than expected.

Her brake was Not locked up.
The smell came (i hope) from the MethHeads over there >>.

It was simply a matter of giving her battery a Jump.
Very E.R.ish. And; Fixing the nail hole in her tire.

Lucille! my noble little friend, Rides Again!

[teelo]

If elected Emperor of Earth, I vow to create the following law:

Anyone who works for a call center, including all staff, managers, directors, and majority shareholders, must submit to a session at least once a year involving being locked into a secure soundproof room and being subjected to no less than 24 hours of listening to the hold music used at that call center.

(i) The duration of 24 hours may be reduced if that call center can conclusively prove to the relevant authority that over the previous financial year, the combined duration of waiting on hold across all callers was less than 24 hours. This is completely up to the discretion of the authority.

(ii) For clarity of (i), "on hold" is limited to time the caller spends waiting when an operator manually places the caller on hold during a call.

(iii) Part (ii) does not apply if the callers time spent in queue exceeds ten minutes.

[Kewangji]

Like, on one hand I know that is a joke, but on the other it sounds like you hold the people who answer the phone responsible for any of that, which sorta leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

[Quercus]

If elected Emperor of Earth, I vow to create the following law:

Anyone who works for a call center, including all staff, managers, directors, and majority shareholders, must submit to a session at least once a year involving being locked into a secure soundproof room and being subjected to no less than 24 hours of listening to the hold music used at that call center.

(i) The duration of 24 hours may be reduced if that call center can conclusively prove to the relevant authority that over the previous financial year, the combined duration of waiting across all callers was less than 24 hours. This is completely up to the discretion of the authority.

Just ban the fucking stuff outright. One beep every 15 seconds or so to let you know that the call is still connected, and otherwise blessed silence. Ban especially the inane recorded messages about how valuable my call is to whichever giant corporation I'm trying to get in touch with. They know it's bullshit, I know it's bullshit, so just drop the act already.

Like, on one hand I know that is a joke, but on the other it sounds like you hold the people who answer the phone responsible for any of that, which sorta leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

Yeah, those folk get more than enough shit already for stuff which is completely out of their control.

[teelo]

Like, on one hand I know that is a joke, but on the other it sounds like you hold the people who answer the phone responsible for any of that, which sorta leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

Their managers, directors, and shareholders get to suffer because they're the ones who picked the shitty music. The staff get to suffer for being the ones who put me on hold. This will incentivize them to minimise the duration they put people on hold. If they don't like it or feel management has made some poor decisions then they have the choice to find another profession.

[Sableagle]

They really don't. If you turn down a job, you get no JSA. Everybody who's hiring here these days wants new recruits who have experience beyond the job they're advertising. They want trainee project managers who have experience as senior project managers, office assistants with experience running offices, teaching assistants with experience as headteachers, apprentice carpenters with their own furniture-making businesses, bar staff with experience of running four-star hotels and deck-hands with round-the-world yacht race medals.

[Quercus]

If they don't like it or feel management has made some poor decisions then they have the choice to find another profession.

I would contend that very few people working in call centres have the choice to find another profession. If they did, many would have already done so. It's not renowned as the most rewarding line of work.

Edit: I was under the mistaken impression that call center work was pretty universally unpleasant, I have now learned that that is not the case (in hindsight if I'd given it a moment's thought I probably could have worked that out for myself).

The implication that call centre workers are personally responsible for inconveniencing you and deserve to be punished for it is astonishingly self-centred and unkind.

[Kewangji]

Like, on one hand I know that is a joke, but on the other it sounds like you hold the people who answer the phone responsible for any of that, which sorta leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

Their managers, directors, and shareholders get to suffer because they're the ones who picked the shitty music. The staff get to suffer for being the ones who put me on hold. This will incentivize them to minimise the duration they put people on hold. If they don't like it or feel management has made some poor decisions then they have the choice to find another profession.

Yeah I just decided: I really don't like you.

[SecondTalon]

They really don't. If you turn down a job, you get no JSA. Everybody who's hiring here these days wants new recruits who have experience beyond the job they're advertising. They want trainee project managers who have experience as senior project managers, office assistants with experience running offices, teaching assistants with experience as headteachers, apprentice carpenters with their own furniture-making businesses, bar staff with experience of running four-star hotels and deck-hands with round-the-world yacht race medals.

There's a joke out there about "Seeking new SQL Database Admin. Must have 5+ years experience with MS SQL 2016" or something to that effect.

[somitomi]

Just ban the fucking stuff outright. One beep every 15 seconds or so to let you know that the call is still connected, and otherwise blessed silence. Ban especially the inane recorded messages about how valuable my call is to whichever giant corporation I'm trying to get in touch with. They know it's bullshit, I know it's bullshit, so just drop the act already.
.

And introduce a special penalty for playing music while you're on hold with the penalty inversetly proportional to the time it takes for the damn music to loop. Phone lines were quite deliberately designed to transmit only the frequency range used by speech and PCM-lines have just made it worse. Playing music over that is only going to make me less patient if anything.

This will incentivize them to minimise the duration they put people on hold. If they don't like it or feel management has made some poor decisions then they have the choice to find another profession.

I don't think call center workers have much control over how long any particular person is on hold. I always assumed it was because these systems put callers in a "hold queue" if there aren't any people available. The workers can't do much to reduce wait time other than spending as little time as possible on each call, which they probably already do, because conversations with a call center are not the "how was your week in France" kind.

[SecondTalon]

If your call center has 10 people, it'll be slammed non-stop with wait times 30 minutes or more.

When you hire that 11th person, you suddenly have a call volume drop and now you've got 8 people collecting a paycheck for twiddling their thumbs.

(My numbers are hypothetical and holy fuck, if you say a goddamn thing about the call center "only" having 10 people I'll probably ban your ass for a day for missing the fucking point - if a call center has 10 people it's because it's a fucking support center for a regional chain of lawnmower manufacturers or something, not goddamn AT&T.)

There are certain predictable times people call in with issues - Monday morning, Friday afternoon, and from 11:30-1:30. But even then the raw numbers are unpredictable, you just know the calls will increase, not that they increase by 15% or 30% or 115%... or 2%. Just that they'll go up.

Any time outside of those is pretty much completely unpredictable. That's why you're holding. Because the company just sent 14 hourly workers home as the call volume justified them sending 20 workers home, but they kept six "in case shit". Then fifteen people decided to call in during the same 20 minute window.

[Zohar]

(i) The duration of 24 hours may be reduced if that call center can conclusively prove to the relevant authority that over the previous financial year, the combined duration of waiting across all callers was less than 24 hours. This is completely up to the discretion of the authority.

That is a really shitty rule. Imagine you work for a large company with, say, a million customers. Let's assume a tenth of those call once a year, and are put on hold for 10 seconds - the industry standard is under 30 seconds. The combined wait time for one year is almost 12 days.

If they don't like it or feel management has made some poor decisions then they have the choice to find another profession.

That's a shitty position to hold and implies a lack of imagination on the available employment of people.

I actually work at a call center, where people are fairly happy to work and many have been here for years at a time. We're not a standard call center - we provide phone-based coaching to people who are trying to quit smoking, and the people working here feel a lot of satisfaction and being able to help people feel better about themselves and live healthier lives. Our average wait times are under 30 seconds, but obviously some people will have longer wait times, and we don't have a way to control for that. We can try as best as we can, but if one of the states we serve suddenly has an ad on TV advertising our services and they didn't let us know about it in advance, we'll see a spike in calls that we're not necessarily ready for. Having too many people would mean we'll be hemorrhaging money as well and end up having to fire people and not being able to provide services.

In closing, yes, waiting on the phone is shitty, but your suggestions are bullshit and your expectation that everyone is out to get you and no one wants to work here are shitty.

[speising]

waiting could be made more bearable if you'd get announcements of your place in the queue and / or estimated remaining waiting time.

what i really hate is music which stops mid-tune - then a little pause - you get all excited (yay, i'm through!) - then a "your call is important to us..." message and the music starts again. bonus for interspersing 2 or 3 different messages which are all equally unhelpful.

[Quercus]

I actually work at a call center, where people are fairly happy to work and many have been here for years at a time. We're not a standard call center - we provide phone-based coaching to people who are trying to quit smoking, and the people working here feel a lot of satisfaction and being able to help people feel better about themselves and live healthier lives.

Huh, consider me schooled. I'm glad that there are rewarding call center jobs out there. Brb, off to edit my previous post, sorry about the incorrect assumptions

[SecondTalon]

waiting could be made more bearable if you'd get announcements of your place in the queue and / or estimated remaining waiting time.

what i really hate is music which stops mid-tune - then a little pause - you get all excited (yay, i'm through!) - then a "your call is important to us..." message and the music starts again. bonus for interspersing 2 or 3 different messages which are all equally unhelpful.

That is pretty terrible, honestly. The music's playing and it's purpose is to let you know the line didn't die. I get that. I can tune it out and work on other things, but the interruption every 45-90 seconds... that gets me every time.

[poxic]

The person who needs to have live ants inserted under their eyelids is the one who decided that those interrupting messages should contain further advertising for the company I am currently on hold with. Voiced by perky ex-cheerleaders who excel at that tone used by kindergarten teachers with especially slow students.

[Quercus]

I've had companies which are something of an ordeal to call because something in their hold music sets off my sensory processing issues. I've not had any so bad that I am unable to stay on the line at all, but I imagine that some people with sensory issues would have that experience. I advocate silence with periodic beeps (or at least the choice of that or music) for accessibility as much as anything else.

[addams]

I've had companies which are something of an ordeal to call because something in their hold music sets off my sensory processing issues. I've not had any so bad that I am unable to stay on the line at all, but I imagine that some people with sensory issues would have that experience. I advocate silence with periodic beeps (or at least the choice of that or music) for accessibility as much as anything else.

What about silence with the periodic soothing voice saying, Thank you for continuing to hold.?

[Quercus]

I've had companies which are something of an ordeal to call because something in their hold music sets off my sensory processing issues. I've not had any so bad that I am unable to stay on the line at all, but I imagine that some people with sensory issues would have that experience. I advocate silence with periodic beeps (or at least the choice of that or music) for accessibility as much as anything else.

What about silence with the periodic soothing voice saying, Thank you for continuing to hold.?

That's also good. Voice is perhaps a little more distracting than just a beep, but I can see people getting confused by the beep and thinking the system is broken.

[Kewangji]

WHILE YOU'RE ON HOLD YOU COULD DOWNLOAD OUR ~~AAAAAPP~~ AND NEVER HAVE NORMAL HUMAN PROBLEMS AGAIN, SAIL THROUGH LIFE ON A LUBED UP TURTLE HAVING THE TIME OF ITS LIFE. IT'S ALL DOWNHILL FROM HERE: NO MORE TRUDGING UPWARDS AT ALL. NO MORE OF THAT. DOWNLOAD IT NOW TO THE PHONE YOU'RE HOLDING IN Y-- thank you for holding. your call, it's important to us. i cannot tell you in terms you would understand how much your call means to me, personally.

[poxic]

Well done, made my skin crawl good and proper.

[teelo]

This will incentivize them to minimise the duration they put people on hold. If they don't like it or feel management has made some poor decisions then they have the choice to find another profession.

I don't think call center workers have much control over how long any particular person is on hold. I always assumed it was because these systems put callers in a "hold queue" if there aren't any people available. The workers can't do much to reduce wait time other than spending as little time as possible on each call, which they probably already do, because conversations with a call center are not the "how was your week in France" kind.

To clarify: by time "on hold" I'm referring to when an operator has already taken the call, and places the caller "on hold" to do something. Maybe to transfer the caller to another person. Maybe to talk about the caller without the caller being able to hear. I don't consider the time waiting for the operator to answer in the first place as being "on hold" - that is time with the phone line still ringing. "On hold" is a mid-call thing.

Now the operator has incentives not to place callers on hold. They have an incentive to get the issue sorted out then and there, or call them back when they can.

Ex: If I press "4" for "our accounts team" and say I want to cancel my account, now they have an incentive to actually cancel my account rather than saying "okay let me place you on hold while I transfer you to our cancellation team". If they don't like it they should have set up their automated message properly.

[teelo]

After considering the points raised by the opposition, I have decided to make an amendment to the Call Center Torture Bill 2044 in order to ensure it gets passed in this dictatorship.

The call center staff shall only be subjected to listening to the hold music for a maximum of one hour per year. The remaining 23 hours can be spent watching and pointing and laughing as their managers and directors squirm.

[SecondTalon]

Now the operator has incentives not to place callers on hold. They have an incentive to get the issue sorted out then and there, or call them back when they can.

You mean, on top of the red-faced supervisor screaming at them for not getting their call times below a 5 minute average like the corporate mandate wants?

Because they totally get counted for every single second you're on hold.

If you talk to someone and they have to put you on hold, it's because they're trying to fucking help you, you dumb fuck of a fuck.

[teelo]

Now the operator has incentives not to place callers on hold. They have an incentive to get the issue sorted out then and there, or call them back when they can.

You mean, on top of the red-faced supervisor screaming at them for not getting their call times below a 5 minute average like the corporate mandate wants?

The supervisor will be too busy dreading their own future in the chamber and will become more than happy to fix the problem themselves or create a system that prevents the need to call customer service in the first place.

[pogrmman]

Holy cow, the dust storm on Mars is impressive. Sure, it’s in it’s waning phase, but tonight was the first time in around two years I’ve observed our red neighbor. I could see some of Syrtis Major and Sinus Sabaeus/Sinus Meridani plus the north polar cap, but they were way, way less visible than in the past. It all had a sort of orangey pinkish haze blocking out parts of it. From what I saw, it looked like the storm is worst over the Mars Tyrrhenum/Mare Cimmerium region right now — that area blended in nearly perfectly with the surrounding light areas, even though it’s normally quite visible. Most of the other albedo features were only washed out.

This is the first dust storm I’ve ever seen on Mars, and I have to say it’s pretty cool. I do hope it clears up some before opposition though. While it’s neat to see the storm effects, I doubt my friends and family will want to see a washed-out looking Mars!

[Kewangji]

Now the operator has incentives not to place callers on hold. They have an incentive to get the issue sorted out then and there, or call them back when they can.

You mean, on top of the red-faced supervisor screaming at them for not getting their call times below a 5 minute average like the corporate mandate wants?

The supervisor will be too busy dreading their own future in the chamber and will become more than happy to fix the problem themselves or create a system that prevents the need to call customer service in the first place.

Yeah, mid-line managers who get screamed at by corporate are definitely known to not just pass that shit on to their subordinates. That was sarcasm.

Why are you defending your stupid joke idea about torturing people who mildly inconvenience you? Why are you stubbornly refusing to accept what people with more apparent empathy than you are saying about the reasons people are putting you on hold? I'll allay your fears: those people are definitely not talking shit about you when they're putting you on hold. They're talking shit about you afterwards, when there's a lull in their workload and their performance stats don't get affected by it.

[somitomi]

Ex: If I press "4" for "our accounts team" and say I want to cancel my account, now they have an incentive to actually cancel my account rather than saying "okay let me place you on hold while I transfer you to our cancellation team". If they don't like it they should have set up their automated message properly.

They probably do that because they are actually not authorised to cancel accounts. I've worked in customer service once and I genuinely don't think people in such jobs want to inconvenience customers any more than necessary. Mostly I just wanted people gone so I can get back to being bored to death.

[SecondTalon]

Yeah, what callcenter work I did (on top of the 8-12 other things I was doing at the time) involved me wanting the customer off the phone as fast as possible. Putting them on hold does not get me to that goal, but me putting them on hold to ask someone else a question or what have you does.

At least the place I worked at was small enough that I could get people who wanted to cancel over to billing in, like, 10-15 seconds.

[Sungura]

Im friends with quite a few who work at call centers, over phone purchasing type (yes lots still do this) and support for purchasing online. Like any job they have their complaints but it isnt terrible either. Lots of hillarious stories especially from my friend who does the night shift which seems to have unusally high number of people calling litterally just to have someone to chat with. Im not aware of all the nitty gritty rules, but again like any job there is one supervisor no one likes but the others are pretty good. One my friends has made a career of it and seems happy. So yeah. Adding to the its not just a terrible carrer bit. I will say, the bit of customer service on the phone Ive had to do in my job and hearing some of their customer horror stories makes me cringe. Its not their fault something went wrong no need to yell, sheesh. But where they work there are rules about it - if the customer isnt calm-able you pass them to a sup, you dont have to stay on the line and be screamed at.

[flicky1991]

I sit opposite the customer support department for my company. The woman who sits opposite me was once close to tears because of how much she'd been yelled at over the phone that day. I would not want to do their job.