Thursday – A Tale of Two Tongues
Feb. 11th, 2011 12:08 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ninanevermore.
.
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Back when I first worked for the Toll Road Authority, Priss was the receptionist. She was, without a doubt, the worst receptionist I’ve ever met. She was not a people person, and she hated the telephone. Since greeting people and answering the phone where the two prime components of her job, I got a kick out watching how bad she was at it. It’s not she couldn’t do a good job; she simply didn’t care to.
The phone at the front desk rang non-stop because the calls from the public to ask about getting a Toll Tag or to check on their Toll Tag Accounts were routed through the main switchboard. Priss answered it in a monotone. “Toll road authority can I help you one moment please,” and transfer the call. If it was an EZ Tag call, she would put them in a voicemail loop where they would sit until one of the 10 or so people working in the EZ Tag store at the time picked it up, or after 20 minutes or so it would ring back to Priss.
“They didn’t pick up I’m sorry they’re busy no I can’t take a message you have to wait for a customer service rep to help you no I can’t help you I don’t have access to the system one moment please,” and off they’d go again into the voicemail purgatory she’d damned them to in the first place.
This was 1997, when the internet was still kind of new (though it existed), and several years before the Toll Road Authority in Houston set up a website and expanded the call center in the EZ Tag Store to adequately handle the demand. There was no direct line to the EZ Tag Store then; if you wanted to talk to someone there you had to go through Priss and be damned to burn in the voicemail loop, listening to a recording tell you how great the EZ Tag was and that all of the customer service reps were busy assisting other customers.
Priss was a tall and attractive 40-something year old woman with short hair and a pixie face. She was not unfriendly if she liked you, and actually had a good (if deadpan) sense of humor. If she didn't like you, she her sense of humor turned acerbic. She didn't spare the toll patrons, either. Once I was walking by the front desk and I heard her drying tell someone, “Sir, that sounds like a personal problem to me,” and then a moment later, “Let me put you through to the Tag Store one moment please.”
“What was a personal problem?” I asked.
A slight smile played across her face. “He said his little thing wasn’t working. What would you have said to him? I couldn't resist.”
“I’d probably just put him through to EZ Tag. That’s the only little thing that doesn’t work that they call about here.”
She shrugged and answered another call. “Toll Road Authority how can I help you one moment please she’s on her line can I put you through to her voicemail thank you.”
Priss had a 12-year old daughter and an alcoholic husband she was trying to get a divorce from. One day she told us that her daughter had a boyfriend, and that the boy had a peculiar talent.
“His tongue is so long that he can lick his eyebrows.”
The group of woman gathering around the front desk all stared at Priss wide eyed. “His eyebrows?” “Really?” “Wow!”
“Yup,” Priss said, “She said he does it all the time. I asked her why he does it, and she said it’s because she keeps asking him to. I asked her why she keeps asking him to lick his eyebrows, and she said she didn’t know, she just likes to see him do it.”
At that point I had to laugh. There was so much you wanted to say to this girl and boy, but you couldn’t. Because they were 12.
Eventually, Priss took a position away from the front desk right about the time the EZ Tag Store got its own phone line and adequate staff to answer the calls that came in. I left the Toll Road Authority in 2001, to discover that there is a lot more money to be made outside of public service than inside of it. Every time I meet up with a receptionist who is friendly, helpful and polite (like the one at my current) job, I think about Priss and how she was none of those things. I think more companies should hire receptionists that answer the phone with loathing in their voices; it makes people get to the point and not ramble so much when they realize that they are talking to someone who seems to be wishing they would just hang up and go away. If my theory is correct, that makes the bad receptionists more efficient than good ones, which is perverse. I like perversity.
Which is probably why I still can’t forget the story about the 12-year-old boy who could lick his own eyebrows. Somewhere out there, there is a 26 year old man with a tongue like no other. He’s old enough to be married now. I wonder if his wife makes him lick his own eyebrows in front of her friends. You know, to impress them.
Because, damn: that’s pretty impressive.
* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * # * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *
.
.
Back when I first worked for the Toll Road Authority, Priss was the receptionist. She was, without a doubt, the worst receptionist I’ve ever met. She was not a people person, and she hated the telephone. Since greeting people and answering the phone where the two prime components of her job, I got a kick out watching how bad she was at it. It’s not she couldn’t do a good job; she simply didn’t care to.
The phone at the front desk rang non-stop because the calls from the public to ask about getting a Toll Tag or to check on their Toll Tag Accounts were routed through the main switchboard. Priss answered it in a monotone. “Toll road authority can I help you one moment please,” and transfer the call. If it was an EZ Tag call, she would put them in a voicemail loop where they would sit until one of the 10 or so people working in the EZ Tag store at the time picked it up, or after 20 minutes or so it would ring back to Priss.
“They didn’t pick up I’m sorry they’re busy no I can’t take a message you have to wait for a customer service rep to help you no I can’t help you I don’t have access to the system one moment please,” and off they’d go again into the voicemail purgatory she’d damned them to in the first place.
This was 1997, when the internet was still kind of new (though it existed), and several years before the Toll Road Authority in Houston set up a website and expanded the call center in the EZ Tag Store to adequately handle the demand. There was no direct line to the EZ Tag Store then; if you wanted to talk to someone there you had to go through Priss and be damned to burn in the voicemail loop, listening to a recording tell you how great the EZ Tag was and that all of the customer service reps were busy assisting other customers.
Priss was a tall and attractive 40-something year old woman with short hair and a pixie face. She was not unfriendly if she liked you, and actually had a good (if deadpan) sense of humor. If she didn't like you, she her sense of humor turned acerbic. She didn't spare the toll patrons, either. Once I was walking by the front desk and I heard her drying tell someone, “Sir, that sounds like a personal problem to me,” and then a moment later, “Let me put you through to the Tag Store one moment please.”
“What was a personal problem?” I asked.
A slight smile played across her face. “He said his little thing wasn’t working. What would you have said to him? I couldn't resist.”
“I’d probably just put him through to EZ Tag. That’s the only little thing that doesn’t work that they call about here.”
She shrugged and answered another call. “Toll Road Authority how can I help you one moment please she’s on her line can I put you through to her voicemail thank you.”
Priss had a 12-year old daughter and an alcoholic husband she was trying to get a divorce from. One day she told us that her daughter had a boyfriend, and that the boy had a peculiar talent.
“His tongue is so long that he can lick his eyebrows.”
The group of woman gathering around the front desk all stared at Priss wide eyed. “His eyebrows?” “Really?” “Wow!”
“Yup,” Priss said, “She said he does it all the time. I asked her why he does it, and she said it’s because she keeps asking him to. I asked her why she keeps asking him to lick his eyebrows, and she said she didn’t know, she just likes to see him do it.”
At that point I had to laugh. There was so much you wanted to say to this girl and boy, but you couldn’t. Because they were 12.
Eventually, Priss took a position away from the front desk right about the time the EZ Tag Store got its own phone line and adequate staff to answer the calls that came in. I left the Toll Road Authority in 2001, to discover that there is a lot more money to be made outside of public service than inside of it. Every time I meet up with a receptionist who is friendly, helpful and polite (like the one at my current) job, I think about Priss and how she was none of those things. I think more companies should hire receptionists that answer the phone with loathing in their voices; it makes people get to the point and not ramble so much when they realize that they are talking to someone who seems to be wishing they would just hang up and go away. If my theory is correct, that makes the bad receptionists more efficient than good ones, which is perverse. I like perversity.
Which is probably why I still can’t forget the story about the 12-year-old boy who could lick his own eyebrows. Somewhere out there, there is a 26 year old man with a tongue like no other. He’s old enough to be married now. I wonder if his wife makes him lick his own eyebrows in front of her friends. You know, to impress them.
Because, damn: that’s pretty impressive.
