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| Saturday, February 18, 2006 |
| Weirdos |
The bonus of working is that you get regular opportunities to interact with people who are nonstandard. And not always in a good way.
Like the guy who called on Wednesday.
"Hi!" he said brightly. For increased accuracy, imagine him speaking in a quite camp voice. "I'm Louis from XXXX Recruitment. I'd like to speak to whoever handles your recruitment, induction and training!"
Ata knows a cold-caller when she hears one. Besides which, the Sales Manager is out of the office. Ata herself is a Temp provided by a competing recruitment agency. And the head office is in Sydney, so Ata suspects that this company - a very large corporation - has some fairly set-in-stone arrangements about how to and who does their recruitment. Ata gives the polite response.
"I'm sorry, you'd need to speak to YYY. Unfortunately, he's out of the office. I can take a message."
Louis accepts willingly, and spells his name to be sure Ata takes it correctly.
Fifteen minutes later, he calls back. "Did I just call here? Yes? Oh, sorry, nevermind."
The next day he calls again. "It's Luke from XXX recruitment here, calling for YYY!" Ata is a little confused about the name change. Perhaps he is having an identity crisis. Or perhaps he's found 'Louis' too hard over the phone, and has switched to Luke. Ata does that sometimes.
Ata checks with the Sales Manager, just in case he does happen to want to speak to Louis/Luke. He doesn't. He is flat out with Making Sales, and has no desire to speak to a cold-caller. Ata returns to the held call.
"I'm sorry, YYY is busy at the moment - but he's asked me to let you know that we are quite happy with the people who currently handle our recruitment. So thanks for calling." It is a brush off. A polite brush off. The polite and socially-accepted response at this point is to go away. The more aggressive sales response is to try another way of getting in touch - perhaps suggesting that they mail or fax something, or trying to give a little information to the Receptionist (me!) which might convince her that her Boss could be interested in their services after all. What does Louis/Luke actually say?
"Oh! That sounded like a ventriloquist act!" With just a trace of nasty in his oh-so-bright tones. Ata is startled almost speechless.
"I'm sorry?" Says Ata, in a stunned voice. Louis/Luke laughs, and the nasty is gone.
"No, no, nothing. So, he doesn't want to speak to me, then?" Ata is now pissed off with Louis/Luke for the previous comment. Her response is firm and flat.
"No."
"Well," says Louis/Luke, "I hope he's not relying on sales to make his money, then." And hangs up.
Ata is flabbergasted. (Woo-hoo! I get to use flabbergasted in a sentance!) What the? Could that possibly have been a prank call? Surely he does not speak to all prospective clients like that?
At any rate, Ata suspects that Louis/Luke, whoever he is, is likely to have a Very Short Career with XXX Recruitment. |
posted by Ata @ 5:01 pm  |
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| 1 Comments: |
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Oh if only XXX Recruitment could read that blogpost. Priceless.
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Oh if only XXX Recruitment could read that blogpost. Priceless.