Work Snippets

[firstfrost]

• I've felt compelled to switch from answering the phone as "Hello, Athena User Accounts" to "Hello, Athena User Accounts, this is Laura" because of an increasing number of people who simply wait in silence after I answer the phone, assuming that I am an answering machine or a phone tree. When I eventually say "Hello? Hello?" they assure me that I sound just like an automated answering thing. (Now, after answering the phone the same way for years, I can see how I'd get fairly practiced at this, but last week had an unacceptably high number of these calls).
• I sent out the traditional seven hundred emails to sponsors regarding their guests yesterday (which caused the barracudas to decide I was a Spammer, but that's another story). There are far too many people who answer the question of "Would you like to continue sponsoring this account, or would you like it to be deactivated in the next round of deactivations in January of 2007?" with "Yes, I would like to continue sponsoring this account until January of 2007".

Comments

[firstfrost.livejournal.com]

I'm actually pretty careful to not say it quickly - at least one of the people who told me I sounded like an answering machine was quite clear that it was a compliment ("you have such a pleasant friendly voice, I assumed it couldn't be a real person" or something like that). Of course, there have been the couple of people who heard it as "Athena User Account?" and then stammered out their username, but as far as not-quite-clear goes, I think that's pretty good.

(One reason I had avoided "this is Laura" for so long is because I hate calling somewhere and listening to a big long spiel before I can say anything. "Good morning, you have reached Athena User Accounts, part of MIT's IS&T department. This is Laura speaking. Calls may be recorded for our quality assurance. How may I direct your call?". But I suppose three more words won't get all the way there.)