Brring brring… brring brring…

 “This call is being recorded for training purposes”

and Christ you hate that fucking thing.

 

You speak for 7, 8, 9, 10, however many hours,

losing faith in all humanity with every mardy customer.

Explain to re-explain to re-re-re-explain again,

no deviation from the script,

and you can only tell me this, no more, no less,

this call’s recorded

for so-called training purposes

(and not surveillance?)

 

With tattered throats, day in day out:

“So madam, can I help you?”.                                               

And you listen as she rants and raves

and, bursting for your piss break,

calls your mother every shade of shit,

finishes envisioning fatalities for all,

wishes cancer on your daughter,

and the onslaught leaves you weeping,

and this is what you’ll dream about tonight.

 

The overtime is just a joke but every well-timed toilet break

is noted, to extend a life’s probation.

No deviation from the script,

you re-explain to re-explain, being flayed alive

by strangers on a mission to avoid the bill, the debt, the fine.

 

And the overtime’s a fucking joke cos just when you’re about to go,

the phone rings…

brring brring…brring brring…

and CHRIST you hate that fucking thing

cos now you have to take some more

and whore your spirit, sell your soul;

the floorwalker strolls past your back

not giving shits about the flak that’s driven home

once more unto your mental health defences,

with not one penny more to take that call

that’s being recorded

showing overtime that’s never ever paid.

                                                                       

Call centres are modern mines with shit conditions, lowly wages,

selling rage and daily hatred, on probation,

zero hours, just for profit profit profit,

and now the collar colours are confused,

what once was blue today is white

and now you shoulder all the bile, all the fury,

of all the cheated and defeated, of every skint and pissed-off pauper,

of every single caller with a worry of their own.

 

Corporations making monsters drained of empathy, of sympathy,

of faith in all humanity, subsisting on a ‘living wage’,

breaking with the mania of each and every one of us.

 

And I know, I know, I know, I KNOW

the overtime’s a fucking joke;

if I could make it better then I would

cos we are ALL in this together,

feeding venom to each other

for the sunny summer holidays

and profit profit profit of the bosses.

 

So when the phone rings,

and it’s you,

I will simply be polite, Ps and Qs,

refuse to mirror the abuse.

Because we lie

on a fault line,

in a schism, a divide,

making monsters on both sides,

losing faith and will to live

 

and when the phone rings,

and it’s me,

I will simply be polite, Ps and Qs,

refuse to ruin someone’s day.

Let’s try to narrow the divide

because we both lie

on a fault line

and we’re all in this together

 

brring brring…brring brring

bringing profit profit profit

to the bosses.