This Is Not A
BLOG!
Date: 07/07/10
Irony Aloud
The phone just rang. I knew it would be a sales call. It almost always is. I'm registered with the Telephone Preference Service, but their writ obviously doesn't run everywhere. Like India, for example.
On this occasion, the conversation (if such it could be called) went something like this:
Voice: HELLO! AM I SPEAKING TO MR STAPLEY?
Me: Speaking.
Voice: OH HELLO! I'M CALLING FROM (Name of company withheld. Not out of a sense of decorum, but simply because I couldn't make it out. She was very, very loud).
Voice: OUR RECORDS TELL ME THAT SOMEONE AT THAT ADDRESS MAY HAVE ADSDSA FASSDEWREW WQEWQTDSLQKWEQ?
Me: Pardon? (It wasn't that I couldn't hear her, it's that I was holding the receiver a good five or six inches from my left ear by this point)
Voice: I SAID, OUR RECORDS TELL ME THAT SOMEONE AT THAT ADDRESS MAY HAVE ONCE WORKED IN A NOISY ENVIRONMENT? LIKE A FACTORY?
Me (resisting the natural temptation to shout): No, darling, I've only ever worked in an office.
Voice: OH, I'M SORRY. I'LL TAKE YOUR DETAILS OFF OUR SYSTEM. GOODBYE!
Click.
I couldn't find it in myself to be cross with her. She had a pleasing accent with a hint of the West Indies to it, and her cheerfulness seemed to be of the kind which has always appeared to me to be second nature to those of Caribbean origin rather than the usual version which is like fake tan applied over the essentially lily-skinned Eeyoreness of its wearer.
I found the irony of the nature and volume of her enquiry to be pleasing, so I thought I'd share it with you.
