Hello, Goodbye!

Yes call centres, those places one loves to hate and currently the bane of my existence – I do have a dull little life it seems.

Their computers are set up to dial a whole host of numbers at once, they pick on the first poor person to answer and leave the rest on hold on a dead line or with Muzac (blerk) playing. Sometimes there’s a computer generated voice asking you to hold – the audacity of it all!

They hide their numbers so you don’t know who’s calling and to prevent you from phoning them or registering complaints to the company ultimately responsible.

Why do they program their computers to keep dialing the same number, time after time, day after day when they continually get the pickup and immediate hang up treatment, or the answering machine, non stop?

The companies that set up these networks must have at least a modicum of intelligence (or is that too much like wishful thinking?) or else they wouldn’t be in business. How much programming skill would it take to filter out those numbers that continually hang up? All they do at the moment is infuriate the general public and make sure that the services they are spruiking and the companies they represent, will go to the bottom of my list (If they appear at all), should I ever have a need for the type of service they are “offering”, if you can ever find out who is calling in the first place – not a good advertising strategy at all, I would suggest!

This brings me to the “no call” register. When will this be available here? I know they want to do it right and all that, but keeping us in the dark as to what’s happening, is not the best option. Will those in authority and the legislators get off their collective bottoms and get something set up, or at least keep the public up to date on its progress!

Having my privacy invaded by hawkers and collectors at the door is one thing, but I utterly detest being “assaulted” by someone trying to sell me something that I don’t want and never asked for, let alone someone who claims to be calling from locally, when you know they’re sitting thousands of kilometres away in a foreign land. That’s outright lying and I won’t abide it!

A friend received a call centre call, which, judging by the accent, originated overseas. The conversation went something like this:

Friend: Where are you calling from?
CC: Australia
Friend: Where abouts in Australia?
CC: Sydney
Friend: What’s the weather like in Sydney today?
CC: errrrrr………

Another incident saw the caller inform us that we “HAD” to listen to what he had to say – I don’t think so!

I utterly abhor junk mail on the phone. Anyone who’s familiar with Kevin “Bloody” Wilson’s song “Dictaphone” would “catch my drift”.


Tuesday 18 May 2004

AC1 – Day 14

Hair "down there" decided to start vacating my body yesterday.

I collected my new glasses today.

Had an appointment for a blood test at 3.45pm with my onc.

I told him that things were going quite well, better than I had expected and he said that this first cycle would be fairly indicative of the rest of my treatment, which is a relief.

He wondered why I was wearing a wig already as hair normally starts to fall out the day after patients see him for their blood test. I told him about my little party and he thought that was a good idea.

As far as the blood test is concerned, no news is good news.