The Survey…..

The Scene:

Jack is wandering back to his desk on the first floor of recently expensively refurbished office included refurbished and improved water leaks, dysfunctional toilets with added viewing for passers by, no microwaves as we can now walk 400 meters to another recently expensively refurbished building with canteen (they call it a restaurant…but don’t they have waiters?) and brown grit machines (apparently coffee is what the brown grit is). Jacks phone rings…..shit…its still got the ring tone set to the clipped mp3 recording of the first scene in Pulp Fiction……

“Everybody be cool this is a robbery!” (the marvellous Tim Roth aka Pumpkin/Ringo)

“Any of you fucking pricks move, and I’ll execute every motherfucking last one of ya!” (Amanda Plummer –Honey Bunny/Yolanda)

Cue the Dick Dale guitar theme….Jack flies to the desk and stops the tune, which most appear to like, realising the damage is done….

Heads turn, some people smile, some frown…Jack looks sheepish as this is the outside of office ring tone, guaranteed to make people laugh or look in the pub, but definitely not for the middle of the office or ….god help us…in a meeting. Work time is supposed to be the lilting Ennio Morricone theme to A Fistful of Dollars, although The Mexicans in the office may get upset at that.

Jack (says): Hello Grocer Jack speaking

Caller: Hi, this is Cold Calling Bird ringing on behalf of the Big Telephone Company, would it be possible to gain access to a few minutes of your time

Jack (thinks): Shit, they fucking got me, if it’s a bad day then it’s a sales pitch, if it’s really bad then it’s a survey
Jack (says): Hi (she sounds nice OK!)

CallBird: The Big Telephone Company treats its customers very seriously and would like your feedback. This is a survey that is approved by the British Cold Calling you Sad Bastards Survey Overlords, of which I can give you an address, phone number and web site afterwards. Would you be prepared to assist in this survey? Big Telephone will give £10 to Childline for every successful interview conducted.

Jack (thinks): Great Charity fucking blackmail….I can see the headlines “Kid killed for the want of £10 because some miserable fucker wouldn’t do a survey”
Jack (says : Yeah, no problem, anything to help (yep, she sounds dead horny now!)

CallBird: It’ll only take a few minutes, and the call will be recorded for quality assurance purposes. Please feel free to answer “Don’t know” at any point

Jack (thinks): You might be horny sounding but this is a fucking script girl…break away, think for yourself…
Jack (says) : Fire away.

CallBird: With regard to Big Telephone Super Flagship product, how would you rate this on a scale of 1 to 10

Jack (thinks): It’s a fucking phone, it’s been around for a 100 years
Jack (says): Oh , that’d be a 9, after all its changed my life for the better immeasurably, I mean where would we be without it….certainly not doing this survey…ha ha
Jack (thinks): Good one son, that ought to break the tone of Callbirds scripted happy, yet horny voice

CallBird: errrr…….just the rating please……moving on

Jack (thinks): fucking bitch

Then followed the most stultifying, boring, deadly dull, life sapping, mind numbing, cock flopping, lend me a blunt rusty knife with which to hack at my wrists 30 minutes of my life. When did “a few minutes” become thirty? Will God refund them to me with these words?

“Sorry Jack, have them 30 minutes back I didn’t mean to create these cold calling survey androids, they were a fuck up made up from the leftovers of my other complete fuck ups. You know the ones - double glazing salesman, tabloid journalists, traffic wardens, project managers, doctor’s receptionists, lorry drivers, car parking attendants, Davina McCall, Dale Winton, Morrisey, Westlife, Eastenders script writers and religious clerics. I mean even Gods have a few off days Jack”

A nice thought that God might say that but somehow I doubt it!

Anyway, the questions were simple enough, with answers from 1 (bad, death, pain, they deserve to die) to 10 (fucking superb, ace, great, the world is lovely, I want Big Telephones babies), but Miss Horny Cold Calling Bird began to sound more like Miss Stepford Wife Cold Calling Bird with every question. If I asked her to repeat the question you could hear her struggle with the concept of being questioned, of having to deviate from the script. By the end of the interview I had the feeling she was actually a 3-Star MacDonald’s waitress, working in her lunch hour. The temptation to ask for a Quarter Pounder with Cheese, Large Fries and a Diet Coke (hypocrite..moi?) was indeed very great. But then I applied the Principle of Charity and decided the poor brainless, mindless, soulless, semi-sentient and by now sexless Miss MacDonalds/Cold Calling hybrid was probably just doing what she was told, and what she thought was needed in order to try and scrape enough of a meagre pittance with which to try and conduct an experience of a life. I smiled with my voice for the last 2 minutes, she thanked me for my time and we parted, not as enemies, nor as friends, but as two lost souls swimming in a fish bowl year after year. Running over the same old ground etc etc etc.


Later, Grocerjack