All our advisers are busy, please hold

Just so you know, when you hear that (for the 10th time) and are getting madder and madder, imagining all the advisers chatting round the water cooler or gossiping in the smoke shelters, nuh UH.

Probably not enough advisers, for starters. That's standard. Not enough hired, or some off sick, train delays, some simply didn't pitch up. I worked on a bank support desk for 5 months, great hours, best paid worst job I ever had.

Managers demanding you should be handling AT LEAST 6 calls an hour. Called in to a Serious Meeting if your average dropped too low over a 3 session period. Trust me, no point in reminding them you've had commendations for your service. Time is what matters, Biff, time. Not doing it right.

We were working 4 hour shifts, 4 pm to 8 pm and got one allocated 5 minute break in the 4 hours - go to the loo? have coffee? smoke? decisions decisions.

Managers marching up and down the office shouting 'calls stacked up EIGHT MINUTES PEOPLE wrap up the call you're on!!'

Disconnect that call and before you can update the customer's notes on their account, the next voice is coming through your headphones, and he is MAD because he's waited 8 minutes and he wastes 3 minutes of the 10 you should be giving him by being bitterly sarcastic. Or you waste time because the notes from the last time he called might as well be in Klingon for all the sense they make, and the caller has to explain from the beginning. He'll love that.

Some advisers pretended to keep on talking while they frantically updated complicated notes about a complicated problem before they disconnected. However, the managers also randomly listened in on calls. Get caught, and you were in big trouble, so we rarely risked it.

Some calls simply can't be handled in 10 minutes. We were handling mortgage arrears, try rushing someone who is about to lose their house despite having made arrangements the last time they called in? Sorry, buddy, no notes about that.

Rush them, you get a complaint against you. Don't rush them, 'calls stacked up NINE MINUTES PEOPLE HEADS WILL ROLL wrap up the call you're on!'

So - next time you're told all the advisers are busy, they probably are. If the managers stopped being pocket Hitlers and answered calls themselves to help out - but that suggestion never went down well.




While we're on the subject, can anyone explain why deliveries promised between 9 am and 12 noon only arrive 10 minutes after you went out at 3 pm? Or any other background explanations?