For the first time on this site (other than the front page, and that's subtly different) I feel the need to put a disclaimer on at the top of a rant. I feel I should do this primarily because I know some of what's going to be said is going to be easily misconstrued as racist, or somesuch shite, and anyone who knows me should by now know that I'm not, and that I'm actually only bigoted about bigots. So if you want to see a nice pretty disclaimer from yours truly, then click here. (Yes, I could have done it as just a pop-up, but I couldn't be arsed)  That way I shouldn't get too much hate e-mail, or whatever other garbage people want to come up with.

  Anyway, my issue at the moment is this, once we've got away from the racism and disclaimer bollocks. Over the last couple of weeks, I've had to deal with one hell of a lot of incoming calls, forwarding them to other people and so on, and it's given me some real food for thought. And a lot of the thoughts have been about people's manner on the phone.

  First point of all - why the hell do companies employ people to be on the phone fulltime when their accents and pronunciation make it virtually impoosible to understand them? Sometimes it's been all I can do to interpret their wording into English (normally from Brummie or Scouse, but not always) before I can even begin to understand who the hell they want to speak to, or what they're calling about. It's a bit of a nightmare - and for some reason recruitment companies and telesales companies seem to the be worst culprits.

  There also seem to be one hell of a lot of companies who rely on telephone departments populated by people for whom English isn't the first language. I'm sure this is down to the bizarre piece of industrial "wisdom" that call-centres and the like are best filled with temps from agencies, and it's also fairly common knowledge that if you're immigrating into the UK, the best place to start work and get quick easy money with few questions asked is to go and join a temping agency. If the government ever really wanted to stop benefit fraud, doing spotchecks on temps would be a good place to start. But that's a rant for another day.

  The second real nightmare when answering phones, is that you pick up the phone (or click the button on the PC system, or whatever) and say "Hello, company name, how can I help?" only to be greeted by either a conversation held at high volume while they're waiting for the phone to be answered, (fairly annoying) or a complete blank silence, followed by "Is that company name?" - Yes, of course it fucking is, that's why I answered the phone with the company name, it was a fucking wind up, and what are the chances that I've answered it with that company name because it's the wrong number, but somehow, telepathically, I know which company you wanted when you dialled the wrong number, so I answered it with that name. You retard. That one rates as very fucking annoying, excelled only by the following conversation, experienced today, the real sole reason for needing to put this rant online :-

  "Hello, company name"
    "Hello?"
  "Hello, company name"
    "Hello?"
  "Hello, company name, {Strained voice, by now, with the words "YOU FUCKWIT" loud and clear at the end of the sentence} how can I help?"
    "Which company's that?"
    <CUE BALLISTIC OUTBURST>
  FOR FUCK'S SAKE! You're the fucking cretinous primate who called the number! Do you have a memroy span transplanted from a goldfish? Do you dial the number then forget who you wanted to talk to? You're the sort of person that wears an ID band so you can check when you forget you're own name, aren't you? Maybe you should get it tattooed on your forehead, backwards, so you can read it in the mirror every morning. Maybe that would help. Do you dial the phone numbers with your tongue stuck out because of the necessary levels of concentration? I bet you have to hold your breath too, because your braincell can't cope with doing two things at once. Now fuck off, crawl into a nice little hole somewhere, and die. Just don't bother me until the maggots have infested your body with enough brain matter to raise your IQ into at least double figures! *Slam*

  Of course, I didn't say all that. But I could have. In fact I even should have.

  But he'd have forgotten why it started by the time I finished. And by the time he put the phone down and had taken a breath, he'd have forgotten all about it anyway.

  So I didn't say it. But I can dream. And in a way I've said it now anyway. I feel better now.