Rage redistribution.

By Benjamin Wicks.


“Yer a pure bawbag!” What elegant prose; a resounding cry of utter castigation. So short, so sharp and oh so beautifully concise. The disparaging remark brought to an end a period of three months in which I endured hundreds of customers impotently yell similar profanities daily. It was intended as a harmless joke to amuse a harangued colleague. However, the remark, rather than being bellowed down the phone at call centre telephonist, formed the entirety of an email message read right at the top.  Bob.Fuller@three.co.uk ‘yer a pure bawbag’.


I ask that the jury overlook the audaciousness of the act, and view it instead as a rare moment of sweet justice. For David was filthy: caked in the mud aimed by angry customers at the face of Goliath. Paid to stand in the way of the unappreciative giant, but never shown one single iota of gratitude. Thankfully he was empowered. The minion, noticing a chink in his ungracious ruler’s armour, managed to deflect just one speck, sending it hurtling right into the big man’s eye. That a lowly, embattled customer service advisor should earn the chance “enrage” the CEO of a gigantic multinational conglomerate by saying that in his essence he is no more than a ‘bawbag’ is poetic justice. I urge to jurors to consider the sweet, democratic implement the instant electronic message has become. Gather and listen to the heartening tale of how a joke message, one which the sender never imagined would reach its target, became the most wonderfully appropriate communication ever to grace its recipient’s inbox.


True, the cold sobriety of unemployment weighs heavy on my mind this sunny September morning. Yet the feelings of shame only felt by those recently dismissed for “gross misconduct” have been replaced by a warm joyous happy fuzz. In “enraging” Mr Fuller so I have won a battle for the masses, and all the millions who spend their long mundane days taking abuse for the mistakes on another. Rage redistribution is fair, and should form the basis of a new politics. Like many revolutionaries, in truth, I cannot claim that the act was wholly premeditated. Meant as a harmless joke to amuse a colleague, and sent from my personal email account rather than that of the company, it was somewhat underhand. Furthermore the message was sent to an address I presumed would either not exist or would lead into a labyrinthine network of PA’s and under secretaries, one of whom would obediently fling it in the trash-can. Yet unintended victories are often be the sweetest, and this is no exception. The languid gout suffering fat cat at the top of Hutchinson 3G’s tree was so enraged by the correspondence that he assembled an elite squadron of IT whiz kids to find out ‘who is this boy?’ In cross-referencing my name against a raft of databases they realised I was a temporary employee. ‘Enraged’ to find that one of his own men had a complete lack of respect for his lordship, the CEO ensured that I was frogmarched away from of the company’s Glaswegian outpost immediately.


My actions may seem a little cheeky, rude and offensive to those whose ears have not been ravaged for the past few months by an army of howling owners of 3G mobile phones. But to those that have it is sweet revenge. Standing on the front line - hearing caller after caller cry of the injustice that has befallen them is a thankless task. Mr Fuller’s staff, in assembling their network, forgot to inform new customers that their ‘billing month’ wouldn’t begin until between 3 and 12 days of their contract had elapsed. This seemingly esoteric point meant that virtually every new customer, excited at their purchase was landed with a gigantic first bill due to making calls they had been told would be free. The head of accounts, evidently adept at shrouding billing procedures in mystery in order to fleece the masses and present lavish offerings before the feet of Mr Fuller, decided that the error was down to the customer, not the mobile phone network. The customer had to pay. We were hired to persuade people this was fair and just. The fat cat would get another bowl of cream and we would be lambasted with verbal abuse. The people were not happy. We were not happy. They were even less happy the following weak, and so were we. On this occasion the company forgot to debit anyone with a bill dated 7th of the month – a quarter of those with contacts with the network. This automatically barred tens of thousands of people from using their phones who had, due to Three’s incompetence, been sent over their credit limits. So another group of irate phone owners were ours to placate, or more accurately we were theirs to abuse.


More and more of the poor unfortunate customers entered a blind fury. Alas they were unaware that we had no powers to offer any kind of refund. In the ensuing mania they imaginatively gathered an impressive arsenal to protest at the injustice that had befallen them. Screaming children were coerced into wailing down the phone. Complaint calls made from such choice locations as wind tunnels and pneumatic drill infested roadwork sites and fire alarm testing factories. Calls were lodged from nightclubs, airport runways and motorway embankments. These were all excruciatingly painful for our tender ears. Kept in bondage: tethered to our headsets, forced to take the full force of these deafening, tinitus-causing audio-shocks. Oh how we suffered.


Did we complain? Try as we might, the only response implied they would relocate our department to their Indian call centre in Mumbai. How could anyone wish this anger be thrown at some unsuspecting foreigner? Surely dumping the west’s rage upon the developing world is equally as laudable as selling them nuclear waste? No, we persevered. But with that faint buzzing sound forming a backdrop to our every move, the tinitus had taken hold, and the squadron were battle worn and flagging.


The final insult came as the company, in their wisdom, disabled the system that allowed us to explain billing procedures to the customer. This left us, for almost a week, being told to keep advising the customers to ‘ring back in an hour, the systems are down’. No one would tell us what was really happening; we weren’t important. As soaking sponges left out to soak up customer anger we were sodden and forgotten. Hour after hour the same livid individuals rang up to gnashing their teeth on the telephone wire. “You’re a pure bawbag” said one such understandably annoyed man after calling hourly for days on end to demand that his phone be reconnected. Each time assured that in an hour he would be helped, each time knowingly lied to by ourselves. Meanwhile the bosses lied to us “systems ‘ll be up in an hour”. This gentleman, having spent a fortune calling and an untold sum in time and grief, his views needed to be broadcast. “Ken who runs this pish heap? Gan tell him his a pure bawbag!”.


And so it was written. It was transcribed, sent, and amazingly found its way around all the obstacles preventing trash form the digital ether reaching our lords and dignitaries, and was opened by his highness. Sire was not happy, not disgruntled, not perturbed, but enraged. He was “enraged”. And fact he was enraged is one nil to the disgruntled customer – the customer who, as always, was right. The understandably angry Glaswegian’s sentiments proven when Mr Fuller used the IT systems experts to track down my location, rather than having them fix our systems and help appease the enraged. Your honour I’m glad that it was my head placed on the block for such a worthy cause, and I refuse to retract my use of such a wonderfully pithy slur. Dear CEO, “yer a pure bawbag” was the most superbly apt resignation letter. I will gratefully accept my P45 a thousand times over in return for this rare moment of rage-redistribution upsetting the feudal hierarchy of the call centre.