Friday, April 15, 2005

Things at Work: Part 3 - The Credit Card Menace

Everybody has experienced/is experiencing this at work and hence mine wont be a different story, but yeah,the way it happened is different. Am talking about the Credit Card Menace and the literally unstoppable telephone calls we get day after day. "One year free credit card, sir". "Sir, ours is a life time free credit card sir". "These are the blah blah benefits of getting our credit card, sir. Please take it up sir".

These days, I have stopped picking up my desk telephone unless am not sure as to whos calling me up, because 95/100 chances are that it is from a credit card company.Thanks to the Caller ID facility, their number gets flashed and helps me a lot.Its even worse when they call you on your mobile and disturb you. God, how do they get our numbers? One day, wife of my colleague who sits next to me came over and that time, the desk phone of mine started ringing and I didnt pick it up. It kept on ringing for a minute and still, I didnt pick it up. She must have thought I was a crazy person and she gave me this look, "Are you nuts?". Then i told her that it must have been from some credit card company and I didnt wanna answer the same. Then her husband, my colleague would tell us, "Yeah man, once this guy from this credit card company called up and I refused to take up his card. Then he started pleading : Sir, please take this card. If you do not take it, I am going to miss my target for this month, so you have to take it sir"

Ooh! That was close to a threat! Anyway, there are different ways in which people handle this issue: Some would pick up the phone, say NO straight away, some may hear all the information about all the plans and benefits from the credit card guy and finally say a big NO,and some may start blasting at the person for disturbing them at work hours. But what I did that day was different from the above.

My desk phone number ends with 39.So on that day, i got a call when was working. I saw the number getting flashed and grew suspicious that it is from a credit card company. So I didnt pick it up. After few secs, the call went to the number ending with 40. My colleague picked it up and after ten secs, I heard him saying "No, sorry. I have one already and I am not interested". So I could be more sure that the same guy who called me seconds back, called my colleague next. Once he hung up, in few seconds, the phone on the next desk, ending with number 41, started ringing. The desk was empty as that person was away. I told my colleague @ 40, "Lemme go and look. I suspect it to be the same credit card guy" and Bingo! I was right. I came back and told my colleague @ 40, "Yup. I am right. I guess this guy got one of our office numbers somehow and is calling each extension by adding one to the extension.". And just as I finished saying this, the phone with extension ending 41 started ringing. And both of us didnt care to look at the number this time. We know from whom the call was and started lauging at it. And still when I think about it, I laugh, laugh a lot!

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