ONE NIGHT (5 page)

now.’

‘Cool. You do know who made that right?’

‘Yes, you and Vroom. But I don’t think you should make a big deal out of

it. The website has cost Connexions a lot of business.’

‘But the website helps the customers a lost, right?’ I said.

‘Shh. Don’t talk about the website here. Some agents are very upset.

Someone said they would cut people.’

‘Really?’

‘I don’t know. Listen, why are you so unromantic? Is this how Eddy

Teddy should talk to his Curly Wurly/’

I wanted to know more about what was going on at Connexions. Bakshi

was super-secretive—all the said was there were some confidential

management priorities. I thought of asking Vroom to spy some more.

‘Eddy Teddy?’ Shefali repeated. I looked at her. If she stopped wearing

Hello Kitty hairpins, she could be passably cute.

‘Huh?’

‘Are you listening to me?’

‘Of course.’

‘Did you like my gift/’

‘What gift?’

‘The ring tones. I gave you six rings tones. See, you don’t even

remember,’ she said and her face turned sad.

‘I do. See I put
Last Christmas
as my tone,’ I said and picked up my

phone to play it. Vroom would probably kill me if he heard it, but I had to for

Shefali.

‘So cute,’ Shefali said and pinched my cheeks. ‘So cute it sounds, my

Eddy teddy.’

‘Shefali…’

‘What?’

‘Can you stop calling me that/’

‘Why/ you don’t like it?’

‘Just call me Shyam.’

‘You don’t like the name I gave you?’ she said, her voice transcending

from sad to tragic.

I kept quiet. You never tell women you don’t like something they have

done. However, they pick up on the silence.

‘That means you don’t like the ring tones either,’ she said and her voice

started to break.

‘I do,’ I said, fearing a round of crying. ‘I love the ring tones.’

‘And what about the name? You can choose another name if you want. I

am not like your other girlfriends,’ she said and tiny tears appeared in her

eyes. I looked at my watch. There more minutes and time will heal

everything. I thought. I took a deep breath. A hundred and eighty seconds and

she would have to leave for sure. Sometimes counting seconds is a great way

to kill time through woman’s tantrums.

‘What kind of girlfriends/’ I said.

‘Like,’ she sniffed, ‘bossy girls who impose their way on you. Like you-

know-who.’

‘Who?’ What are you implying,’ I said, my voice getting firmer. It was

true; Priyanka could be bossy, but only if you didn’t listen to her.

‘Forget it. But will you give me a name if I stop crying?’ her sobs were at

a serious risk of transforming into a full-fledged bawl.

‘yes,’ I said and became normal. ‘Give me a name,’

I though hard. Nothing came to mind.

‘Sheffy? How about Sheffy?’ I said finally.

‘Nooo. I want something cuteeer,’ she said. Shefali loves to drag out

words.

‘I can’t of anything cute right now. I have to work. Isn’t your Qualis

leaving soon too?’ I said.

She looked at her watch and stood up.

‘Yes, I better leave now. Will you think of a name by tomorrow?’ she

said.

‘I will, bye now.’

‘Give me a kissie,’ she said and tapped a finger on her cheek.

‘What?’

‘Kissie.’

‘You mean a kiss? Yeah sure.’ I gave her a peck on the check and turned

around to return to my bay.

‘Bye bye. Eddy Teddy,’ her voice followed me.

#4

The others were already at the desk when I returned from Shefali’s bay.

Our bay’s name is the ‘Western Appliances Strategic Group’ or WASG.

Unlike the other bay that troubleshoots for computer customers, we deal with

customers of home appliances such as refrigerators, ovens and vacuum

cleaners. Management calls us the strategic bay because we specialize in

troublesome and painful customers. These ‘strategic’ customers call a lot and

are too dumb to figure out things (actually the latter applies to a lot of

callers).

We fell special, as we are not part of the main computers bay. The main

bay has over a thousand agents and handles the huge ‘Western Computers’

account. While the calls are less weird there, they miss the privacy we enjoy

in the WASG.

I came and took my seat at the long rectangular table. We have a fixed

seating arrangement: I sit next to Vroom, while Priyanka is right opposite me;

Esha is adjacent to Priyanka and Radhika sits next to Esha. The bay is an open

plan, so we can all see each others. Military Uncle’s chat station is at the

corner of the room. At each of the other three corners, there are,

respectively, the restroom, a conference room and a stationery supplies

room.

However, no one apart from Uncle was at their seat when I sat down.

Everyone had gathered around Priyanka.

‘What’s the news? Tell us now,’ Esha was saying.

‘Okay, okay. But on one condition. It doesn’t leave the WASG,’ Priyanka

said, sitting down. She pulled out a large plastic bag from under her seat.

‘Guys,’ I said, interrupting their banter.

Everyone turned to look at me.

I pointed at the desk and the unmanned phones. I looked at my watch.

It was 10:29 p.m. The call system routine backup was about to finish, and our

calls would begin in a minute.

Everyone returned to their chairs and put on their headsets.

‘Good evening, everyone. Please pay attention to this announcement,’ a

loud voice filled our bay. I looked up. The voice came from the fire drill

speaker.

‘I hate this irritating announcement,’ Priyanka said.

‘This is the control room,’ the speaker continued. ‘This is to inform all

agents of a fire drill next Friday at midnight. Please follow instructions during

the fire drill to leave the call center safely. Thank you. Have a nice shift.’

‘Why do they keep doing this? Nobody is going to burn this place down,’

Esha said.

‘Government rules,’ Vroom said.

Conversations stopped mid-way as two begs on the computer screens

signaled the start of our shift.

Calls began at 10”31 p.m. Numbers started flashing on our common

switchboard as we picked up calls one after the other.

‘Good afternoon, Western Appliances, Victor speaking, how may I help

you?’ Vroom said as he took one of his first calls.

‘Yes, according to my records I am speaking to Ms Smith, and you have

the WAF-200 dishwasher. Is that right?’ Esha said.

Esha’s ‘memory’ impressed the caller. It was not a big deal, given that

our automated system had every caller’s records. We knew their name,

address, credit card details and past purchases from Western Appliances. We

also had details on when they last called us. In fact, the reason why her call

had come to our desk—the Western Appliances Strategic desk—was because

she was a persistent caller. This way the main bay could continue to run

smoothly.

Sometimes we had customers that were oddballs even by WASG

standards. I will not go into all of them, but Vroom’s 10:37 p.m. call went

something like this:

‘Yes s Paulson, of course we remember you. Happy Thanksgiving, I hope

you are making a big turkey in our WA100 model oven,’ Vroom said, reading

from a script that reminded us about the American festival of the day.

I could not hear the customer’s side of the conversation, but Ms Paulson

was obviously explaining her problem with the oven.

‘No Ms Paulson, you shouldn’t have unscrewed the cover,’ Vroom said,

as politely as possible.

‘No, really madam. An electrical appliance like the WA100 should only

he serviced by trained professionals,’ Vroom said, reading verbatim from the

WA100 service manual.

Ms Paulson spoke for another minute. Our strategic bay hardly had a

reputation for efficiency, but long calls like these could screw up Vroom’s

response times.

‘See madam, you need to explain to me why you opened the top cover.

Then perhaps we’ll understand why you got an electric shock… so tell me…

yes… oh really? Vroom continued, taking deep breaths. Patience, key to

becoming a star agent, did not come naturally to him.

I looked around; people were busy with calls. Radhika helped someone

defrost her fridge; Esha assisted a customer in unpacking a dishwasher.

Everyone was speaking with an American accent and sounded different from

how they had in the Qualis. I took a break from the calls to compile the call

statistic of thee previous day. I did not particularly like doing this, but Bakshi

had left me with little choice.

‘See madam,’ Vroom was still with Ms Paulson, ‘I understand your

turkey did not fit and you did not want to cut it, but you should not have

opened up the equipment…. But see that is not the equipment’s fault… I can’t

really tell you what to do… I understand your son is coming, madam…. Now If

you had the WA150, that is a bigger size… ‘Vroom said, beginning to breathe

faster.

Ms Paulson ranted on for a while longer.

‘Ms Paulson, I suggest you take the oven to your dealer as soon as

possible’ Vroom said firmly. ‘And next time, get a smaller turkey... and yes, a

readymade turkey will be a good idea for tonight… No, I don’t have a dial-a-

turkey number. Thank you for calling Ms Paulson, bye.’ Vroom ended the call.

Vroom nagged his fist on the table.

‘Everything okay?’ I said, not looking up from my papers.

‘Yeah. Just a psycho customer,’ he mumbled as another number started

flashing on his screen.

I worked on my computer for the next ten minutes, compiling the call

statistics of the previous day. Bakshi had also assigned me the responsibility

of checking the other agent’s etiquette. Every now and then, I would listen in

on somebody’s call. At 10:47 p.m., I connected to Esha’s line.

‘Yes sir. I sound like your daughter? Oh, thank you. So what is wrong

with the vacuum cleaner/’ she was saying.

‘Your voice is so soothing,’ the caller said.

‘Thanks you sir. So, the vacuum cleaner…?’

Esha’s tone was perfect—just the right mix of politeness and firmness.

Management monitored us on average call handling times, or AHTs. As WASG

got the more painful customers, our AHT Benchmarks were higher at two-and-

a-half minutes per call. I checked my files for everyone’s AHT—all of us were

within targets.

‘Beep! The sound of the fax machine made me look up from my papers.

I wondered who could be faxing us at this time. I went to the machine and

checked the incoming fax. It was from Bakshi.

The fax machine took three minutes to churn out the seven pages he

had sent. I tore the message sheet off the machine and held the first sheet

up.

From: Subhash Bakshi

Subject: Training Initiatives

Dear Shyam,

Just FYI, I have recommended your name to assist in accent

training as they are short of teachers. I am sure you can

spare some time for this. As always, I am trying to get you

more relevant and strategic exposure.

Yours,

Subhash Bakshi

Manager, Connexions

I gasped as I read the rest of the fax. Bakshi was sucking me into several

hours outside my shift to reach new recruits. Apart from the extra work, I

hate accent is so confusing. You might think the Americans and their language

are straightforward. Far from it—with them, each letter can be pronounced

several different ways.

I will give you just one example— T. With this letter Americans have

four different sounds. T can be silent so ‘internet’ becomes ‘
innernet
’ and

‘
advantage
’ becomes ‘
advannage
’. The second way is when T and N merge