Saturday, March 8, 2008

Are You Open Today and Other ??? Life at the Call Center...

It's been snowing all night and most of the day. Blizzard conditions in various areas. Blowing snow closing roads the road plows have just opened. Various emergency levels being declared depending on where you are. Not really a day to be out and about unless you have to.
The call center, usually very slow on bad weather days like this, seemed pretty busy this morning. The most interesting call of all, and one that came in as one of the top 3 calls--"Are you open today?"

Okay, has our society become so addicted to constant activity, to being on the go all the time, that we can't just stay home for one snow day? Is it that difficult to just stay in and play with the kids, or watch a video with the whole family? Or try this one--go outside and have a snowball fight! Build snowmen, snow forts--if the snow is not too powdery. If it is, just go out and play in it. Then come back in and make some hot chocolate and watch that video. Take lots of family photos while you are at it. Who knows when you might get another chance like this one.

Oh, well, maybe you could play video games together too...that is...if you could just get a Wii!
Ahhh, but hey, we could go check if the store has one yet...if we could actually dig ourselves out of the snowed in driveway. Better call and find out if they have any snow shovels. And while we are at it...let's check if they have any sleds. Then we could go outside and play in this snow!!! But here we are, snowed in because we don't actually have a snow shovel. We just somehow didn't think we would need it when the weather started getting cold back last November. And we evidently didn't see any need for checking out sleds back then either. It's always so much more fun to wait until we actually need them before we go looking for them, now isn't it? What a challenge it can be to actually find a sled, any sled on the day we turn time forward because spring is coming.

Well, I can say that I laughed most of my call center shift today. First, because I was totally amazed at how many people were actually calling. Second, because I figure that probably a good 85% of my calls today had to do with these 3 topics: Are you open? Do you have any sleds? Do you have any snow shovels left? The real fun was getting people to not hang up before I connected them to the business because they automatically believed that since someone answered the phone, "Hey! They are open--Let's Go!!!"

Now we can look at it from a different angle. The roads are a mess. The snow is still falling pretty hard and heavy. The wind is blowing and drifting the snow everywhere. Snowplows are out trying to keep the roads clear. Other public safety people are out trying to maintain safe traffic levels. Accidents are most likely occuring even as we speak (on the phone that is). Even if your area hasn't declared any emergency levels for traffic control, do you really think going out and adding to the problems is the thing to do? If you don't have to be out in this weather, stay home. Again, I ask you--is it really that difficult for you to stay home and spend time with your family?

That was this morning. Okay, so around this area, the snow has stopped and I have heard the snow plows go by several times. Since I live in a less traveled area, maybe that means the other roads and streets are getting cleared now. Even the sun is trying to shine. I can see that you might want to go outside to get out for awhile, even if just to check out what the snow looks like everywhere else. Go and be careful if you have to.

By the way...do you know when the best time to sell umbrellas is? Of course...when it is raining!

1 comment:

Ngozi Obanye-Stephen said...

Yes I think you're right that our society has become addicted to too much activity. I think most people feel that if they don't rush around, then life will pass on by. No time to relax. No time, no time. When in fact relaxation does a world of good!