CHECK MATE AND MATCH Now, theyre changing the game. Seven years ago, I got a lot of mileage out of those sales calls. Pretending to be someone else, lets see: Meet Borrowed Earths fictitious owner number one: MR. BING Mr. Bing, the absentee man of mystery who wed never met, a man who stopped by at 2:00am, we claimed, with bags of money from his 14 other restaurants. Mr. Bing was a complete work of fiction that was drawn from characters from a short stint selling ad space in a Clipper magazine. Business owners, when asked if they were the owner, would look you in the eye and say the owner wasnt there. We took it up a notch: We took the owner isnt here and raised it one. For a while, we told people Mr. Bing was on the lam, his wife was callin lookin for him and that I was just the dishwasher, a cretin named Bobby. We found that identifying yourself as the house dishwasher *guaranteed* that they would want to get off the phone with this loser as quick as possible. Mission accomplished. Im not the owner, I am but the humble dishwasher... Bobby got to stay, by virtue of his title. We gave him a bad Southern accent, because Dannys is a bad one, but the sales legion dont deserve a good one, which is why he claims he should be solely responsible for the phone fun. Meet fictitious owner number two: GARYBOB Garybob, the absentee, ever-fishing somewhere exotic owner, is based on our real friend Garybob, whos not really named Garybob, like Jimbob, but thats another story for another day. We made Garybob nice, but neglecting of the restaurant, and often leaving us, the dishwasher, Bobby and his girl (Kathy, but unnamed, as no one cares about the dishwasher, his dog, favorite tv soaps, let alone the name of his girl). Once we reeled them in with a line like, Hes not here...hes off in Bermuda, strapped into a fishing chair, someone pouring water on a screaming reel, a cigar clamped in his teeth and a captains hat turned backwards on his head, a girl with a drink laughing at his jokes while he cranks in a monster fish on camera for some shockumentary fishing show.... Well, they wanted to see if he caught the fish or if she spilled her drink and theyd forget what they were selling. Garybob beat Mr. Bing and we kept him for three years. We retired him when the callers got less interested. As the call centers in Arkansas and Southern states (who, frankly, I felt *liked* Bobbys folksy stories, true, false or otherwise) moved to India, the callers understood less idioms and the stories, even told slowly, would elicit monosyllabic responses. Then, the human calls all but dried up. Just like in the Terminator, in such and such a year, the voice-overed scene plays, the machines took over... Now when a human does call, from anywhere, I immediately admit the truth, to keep the game going. But, just like in War Games, the machines dont really want to play. Check mate and match. Well played sales legion. Well played. World Sales Call Peace at last. I gave it my all, but in the end, like John Henry before us, we concede to the machine. A feature of the restaurant, not advertised on the website or menu, is that dining in, in the old days, could listen in on a live sales call. One nameless customer laughed as I spun a yarn over the phone and then laughed again as I typed it in and she said, You *really* said that, and I said, We couldnt make some of this stuff up. Well, she knew what I meant. You really *do* say those things, was what she meant. I told her it was a medical condition, solemnly and I looked a little sad and off in the distance. I waited a beat and then said, Just kidding. I promised not to write about it. Right then. I waited, like til now. The delay gives me hope...for my condition.
Posted on: Wed, 06 Aug 2014 19:09:36 +0000
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