How can I help you today?

Farhee's post on teleconferencing reminded me of my call center days at an international card company. I was a authorization analyst, which means most of the time I was in charge of authorizing card charges for the merchants internationally.

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Me: Good Evening Mr...(double checks his name)..Deadman.

Aussies have the darnest names.

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Customer: Finally, a human being!

A customer who was held on automated voice response for a tad too long

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Customer: Is this Bombay?
Me: No ma'am this is Malaysia.
Customer: Oh My god!

Sometimes I sound like an Indian.

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Call comes in, I greet in Cantonese. No answer. Greets again. No answer. Check the phone display: the call was from Australia.

And yes, I was dozing off when that call came in.

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Colleague: Ma'am, can you verify the person in front of you is Sir Elton John.

Would it be embarassing if he was asked for his ID?


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Customer: Why was my charge declined?
Colleague: This are our policy rules, sir (followed by a short explanation of the rules).
Customer: No, no, this business model won't work.

He then launches into a half hour lecture on why he thinks so.

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Customer: I'm going to buy a house with my card.
Colleague: I'm sorry sir you can't do that (again, follows up with an explanation.)
Customer: Whats your name?
Colleague offers his name.
Customer: OK, you'll be expecting my legal letter.
Colleague: Thank you sir.

In this line of work, legal threats was a daily affair. One should accept with gratitude.

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The priceless one

Platinum Card customer: Why did you decline my charge?
Colleague: Ask yourself (hangs up).

The disgruntled colleague proceeded to decline the charge using his team leader's ID, and quit the same day.

V for Valentine

This year's Valentines we decided to visit the Look Out Point aka Little Genting for a piece of the alleged breathtaking mountain view of KL.

The only resemblance to the actual Genting Highlands was the steep, winding road. But the view was as splendid as advertised, something the highland resort couldn't hope to emulate.

We had a light dinner at the Gasoline restaurant, one of the three restaurants there, and was lucky to get a relatively strategic table with a view. The service, however, was awful. If you intend to dine at any one the restaurants there, make sure you call to reserve a table.

EDIT: I have been duly told that Little Genting is NOT Look Out Point, regardless of what google maps told me. Damn you, Internet!

Colin's bear

This got me laughing for days.



According to the youtube page, this reel was created by certain Colin Sanders who recently graduated from UOIT's (University of Ontario Institute of Technology) game development programme, and was apparently pretty pissed due to the ineptness of his professor(s) who failed to teach him anything useful.

This video has since made it's round in the CG community, making Mr Sanders here famous of all the wrong reasons, if he is in fact looking for a career in this industry.

That's why I always tell my students: don't depend on me.