Call Center Purgatory

Friday, July 14, 2006

(click the link to get to Part I of "The Malfunction")

"No man remains quite what he was when he recognizes himself."~Thomas Mann

I've got a new series that I will be starting in the next couple of days. It's called "The Malfunction". It's really different from other things that I have wrote here. It's my first attempt at serial fiction, but its not your run of the mill fiction. It's fiction combined with biographical elements from the humble life of yours truly.

I won't lie to you, it's a blatant rip-off of stories like "It's a Wonderful Life", or "A Christmas Carol", I'm more than willing to admit that. That's fine with me, imitating Dickens or Frank Capra is a hardly a bad place for any writer to start from. The other thing that inspired me was a story C.S. Lewis wrote called, "The Pilgrim's Regress", about a man finding his way back to God after being blinded by religion.

In my own life, the time spent in the call center has been a low point in my own spiritual growth. I've been less fervent, less faithful and more back-slidden than I care to admit. I'm writing this story to remind me of who I am, why I am here, and how much God loves me in spite of my own failures.

If you don't like "religious" writing, you may still want to stay tuned. I find a lot of established religion to be bondage to rules made by men. A relationship with God is always more important than simply obeying a bunch of rules. Back to the series, I'm going to be talking about some of the experiences I have had that have defined who I am. I am not going to be talking about doctrine, or shoving scripture down anyone's throat, it's just a story. If you're offended by any type of mention of Christianity, I understand if you don't want to read it, but I'm not writing this to convert anyone. This is not a missionary blog. I just want to share who I am with people I consider my friends.

Thanks for reading,

AC
Anonymous Cog

¶ 1:23 AM

Comments:

Depends on why you're following the letter of the law :) Nobody likes the fuddy duddies who show up every sunday "doing their duty." Nobody likes a pharasee :) At the same time... I can say there've been times that I've lost that warm fuzzy of faith, and doing it "by the book" is the only thing that kept me on the straight and narrow. Of course... it's kind of like with my depression when I feel like things can't possibly get any worse, I have to step back and tell myself it's a FEELING, it'll pass. It's kind of like that with the faith thing. At some point, intellect should say ok, things arn't going swell, but ya still haveta say your prayers, even if it's lip service (aknowleding lip service is the first act towards sincarity, I believe), ya gotta go to church and worship with the community, and other stuff ya "gotta" do, and eventually, if you're actually trying, you can kick the funk. A priest told my husband he went through that for YEARS. Finally the whole "personal relationship" thing made sense, and he realized shortly thereafter he was being called to the priesthood. Sometimes, for the honest seeker, checking everything off on the list can kind of be a tool until we figure everything out. IF you aknowledge it as such. Personal honesty sucks sometimes. My mother's the opposite. She made my brother an athiest and generally makes her kids nuts with the following the rules thing. She treats them like burdens (obey, or ELSE!--of course, that's how she ran her household ;) ). They're supposed to be HELPS. Cuz really--how many times have you seen people breakin' the 10 commandments, and you're like... geeze... THAT wouldn't have turned out like a flaming ball of crap if you just wern't cheeting on your husband with a married man and stealing from your boss (true story).

See, now you made me soapbox :)

# posted by

TLG : 5:38 PM

I lived in Bacolod City Philippines for a while and my friend told me that his call center had Time Warner Cable's account.

A customer once called in and was yelling at him that his cable wasn't working and he was tired of time warner cable screwing him over.

My friend asked the guy if he could walk through the steps to fix the issue. After checking the cable to see if it is working he asked the guy if the light on his TV was on. The guy said oh... nope. Guy didn't turn his TV on.

Then the guy said I would still like a free month for my troubles lol.

# posted by

Live Reps Call Center : 1:19 PM