Brothels // First Hangover

So yesterday was an interesting days. Weekends are always interesting. Angry people wanting the council to shut their noisy neighbor's dogs up, requests for brothels, and a lot of pub trivia ( 2 squares and 4 rectangles make a cuboid! WTF a cuboid is, I'll never know.)

Yesterday I had a gentleman call up asking me for a brothel. Actually, ALL the brothels in his local area. I've only learned this call type recently, so I wasn't 100% sure how to go about looking for what he needed. I just googled the word 'Brothel' and his city, and I clicked the most likely link to give me what he wanted. I was taking a while though, as our computers are a bit slow and he decided hitting on me was the best way to pass the time. 

'What's your number?'

I gave him the directory assistance number. He and his friends laughed.

"You sound so sexy."
"I'm afraid if you keep that up I'll have to hang up on you."

"But I'm just so switched on by your voice."

I remain silent.

He talks to his mates for a moment.

"Are you still there?"
"Yes, I am just getting a text message ready for you now."
"You know what I'd do to you? I'd lay you out and I'd kiss yo-"
"I don't think my husband would like that."
"Oh no, he would. He could stand in the corner and watch as I-"
"Well, I have that text message ready for you, it's on it's way now. And I would like to say, that YOU'D be the one in the corner."

And then I hung up.

I'm worried that my call might have been recorded, or that I might get in trouble for my conduct. 

Cross your fingers for me for the next few weeks!

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I've decided I'll also pick a random picture from my extensive picture files and tell you a story about it at the end of each blog. We'll see how long I can keep this up.

This is me, age 15 or 16. My Chelsea hawk had fallen, and I was suffering from my first hangover. Though I hated the band those days, I had promised myself when I was about 11 or 12 that if Good Charlotte ever came to my province, I'd have to go see them. Well, I like to keep my promises, so I went. I moshed, I wandered around, I bought some merchandise, and then we went camping. As you do. We had stupidly NOT set up our campsite before the concert, so it was about 1 AM when we got the tent up, and then we waded into a freezing cold lake and passed around a bottle of Jack. There were 4 of us, and Keith was our only male, and our only friend who could legally get alcohol. So all four of us were in a lake in the middle of no where after driving 2 hours to get to a campsite after a shitty concert, getting drunk. We had a blue permanent marker and we decided that drawing on each other in the moonlight was a fantastic idea. "We're in a lake!" we thought. "It'll wash off easily!" we thought. Obviously, as this is the day after (I think at about 4 AM, when the sun was just rising) we were proven wrong. I had a belly full of Jack Daniels, a headache from the Jack Daniels, and I woke up clutching an empty Coke bottle for dear life. I apparently looked 'adorable' and Keith grabbed my camera and took this snap of me.

It was a good night.

My strange job

My name is Berlady, and I made this specifically so I could have somewhere to bitch. I work in a call centre (SURPRISE, COULD YOU TELL FROM THE NAME OF THIS BLOG ALSO I LIKE TO RANDOMLY YELL) and I get a lot of ... interesting stories.

I don't make phone calls, so I'm not the one who calls you up when you're eating dinner. That's the good news. The bad news is that I have the general public calling me all day. I take about 1400 calls per week. That's pretty insane, considering I work part time.

I do two different call types.
Call type the first: I answer phones for various companies around the country (and by various, I mean thousands. I take calls for plumbers, doctors, restaurants, mammogram and ultrasound appointments, hobby stores, IT assistance... it goes on and on) when they are unable to answer their phones. I -usually- just take a name and number for a return call, but sometimes I need to take a few more details. The basic name and number call should take about 47 seconds.

Call type the second: Directory assistance. People call me up and say they want this company in this area. Sometimes 'This' company is actually called 'That' company, and 'This' area is actually 'That other' area. It's a bit of a pain. It should take about 50 seconds for each of these calls.

I get fucking crazy callers on both lines. People screaming down the phone because the company they want to talk to isn't calling them back and they are sick of giving their name and number. People screaming down the phone because I can't find a bowling alley fast enough- who needs a bowling alley in an emergency?

People forget that they are talking to a real human. They forget that I have a name, I have an age, I have a life.

It also doesn't help much that I have an accent in this country, and they tell me to 'fuckin' learn how to speak English' when in fact, it's my first language. It's not only my first language, but my country has been speaking English for a good 200 years LONGER than the country I am currently in. Funny that.

So, this blog is going to be dedicated to the crazies, the xenophobic, and also the very kind lovely people that I get the pleasure to speak to every day.

I assume this is going to be largely boring, but I'll try to add cute stories and anecdotes about real life too.

PS. This weirdo is me.