Chris Dalton's Personal Development Blog

So I’d just back home from work and the phone rings.

“may I speak with (insert name of other person in the house)?”

“I’m afraid she’s not here right now, she’s still at work”

“my name’s (insert monosyllabic first name, male), and I’m calling from Abel & Cole” (at this point I’m thinking, ‘ok, I know this company – they deliver organic fruit & veg boxes to your door, and we haven’t actually used them for a while.) “this is just a courtesy call, buddy.”

(two things are now going through my mind. 1. ‘courtesy call’?? What does that mean? Is it because it’s free for me? They want to be polite?  And, 2., ‘buddy’??? This allows me to figure out in a flash that Abel & Cole might have outsourced their ‘courtesy’ to a call centre, but not let them know the demographic of their customers…) (still, perhaps it was a slip of the tongue…)

“er, right, ok” I say, hesitantly

“perhaps I could call (name from above) directly, I see we have a mobile number, buddy” (there it is again. Who says ‘buddy’ to a customer?

“well, all righty then…”

“ok, thanks, then, mate” (and he hangs up?). (hold on…. ‘mate’? )

Am I being too grumpy-old-man? I don’t think so, not when I’m being called unsolicited by  a company that wants my money. Actually, not even if they didn’t want my money. There is such a thing as the right register, and it’s a shame that Abel and Cole have employed agents who don’t know, or don’t care, how to speak…

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Well, a distraction, at least, from PhD writing, which is my sole interest for the summer, and which will be the explanation for few, if any, blog postings here until September. I know, I know, what will my regular readers do (all three of them… And that includes me)…?