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Why Nobody Ever Answers VoiceMail Questions

Ever since I started going to Columbia, I’ve been leaving VoiceMail messages in the virtual boxes of administrators. I have never, to this date, received a response to any of those messages. I have received responses to personal complaints, but I’m still waiting for them to return my calls. I always wondered why — it’s so easy to hear the VoiceMail, jot down the pertinent information, and return the call.

Then, I got a new responsibility at my job. Once a day, I am to check the VoiceMail. And now, at long last, I understand why nobody ever returns calls.

It’s all about apathy. See, the thing that I don’t think students understand is that most of the people fielding these VoiceMails are student workers. If they call the direct extension of an administrator, they will ignore them because they have more important things to do, or they’ll transfer them to the VoiceMail box of the student workers.

They simply don’t pay me enough to want to bother responding to these people. Honestly, the irate tone does not go a long way with me at $7.00 an hour. I know it’s frustrating to call several different people trying to get answers to no avail; I know it’s frustrating to actually get someone on the phone, only to be transferred to someone else’s VoiceMail; I know it’s frustrating to search the website or the school handbook and find absolutely no information to answer your questions.

I went through the exact same thing, and I sympathize with their plight. But not enough to call them and deal with them. Because I know how they’re going to act, because I was that irate caller for many years. Now I’ve learned, as they will, the many different ways information can be ascertained without resorting to making phone calls.

For example, a girl called today. She sounded ordinarily pleasant and probably attractive (or, at least, the image I conjured was attractive, ahem), but in this particular case she was pissed off. She called to let me have it via a recording. She was angry because she was being charged for a U-Pass that she had never received and never planned to use.

The horror!

Except, oh wait, as is clearly stated in no fewer than three zillion school publications, you are charged and have to pay for the U-Pass fee whether you use it or not. You may as well just get one, people; even if you don’t think you’ll ever use it — and, hell, maybe you won’t — it’s much easier to get it and have it than to not have it and whine when it takes seven to 10 business days to get it after the initial instant-gratification period during the first week of school, or whine when you are being charged for something you don’t have.

I don’t make the rules, and as a $7.00/hour employee on federal work-study, I personally cannot waive the rules. Nor can my immediate superior, nor can her immediate superior. Hell, she could personally beg the college president to waive the fee, and it’s simply not going to happen. Them’s the rules.

It’s not that we don’t sympathize or empathize with the plight of the students (most of us are students ourselves). It’s just that breaking the rules for one person sets a precedent, a very bad precedent. The U-Pass fee is not, has not been, and will not be optional. I’m sure there are logical reasons for this, such as people balking at the $70 fee if they are charged at a later date, but it’s not my place to look for the reasons. It’s just my place to say no.

Or, in this case, to ignore the phone call, which is what I did. I didn’t want to be an asshole, and I’m not really as callous as I portray myself on the ol’ blog. But they really, truly, seriously do not pay me nearly enough money to field calls from enraged people who will get further enraged by my complete inability to help and my stony apathy (which is really just a façade so I can get through tough calls like that).

I’ll hang up on them before they break me. So, let that be a lesson to you all: if you’re going to leave VoiceMails from which you want a response, be as polite as humanly possible. You can ream them all you want when they call you back, but if you attempt to ream them virtually, I can almost guarantee you won’t get called back.

But, hell, don’t even ream the people you call. It probably won’t make you feel that much better, especially when you hear how little we care. Seriously, I feel for the people, but in 99% of the cases I’ve dealt with, there has been literally nothing I could do to help them, so it really doesn’t matter how much they yell and scream; yelling and screaming will not magically solve their problem, and they only get frustrated by my apathy.

People have to do what I do: instead of yelling at people you don’t know without having any effect on them, you have to yell at friends and loved ones. Bring out all the nasty shit they really hate having dredged up, and then watch them squirm. It’ll make you happy when others are also suffering. Trust me.*

End of sermon.

I also fielded a call — not a VoiceMail — today from a girl who lost her U-Pass “five minutes ago,” she said. She wondered how she could go about getting a replacement, so I explained in minor detail what she needed to do, omitting the caveats that make most people angry (the $35 replacement fee and the fact that it will take seven to 10 business days), which I would have ladled on her after she agreed to do the first part (filling out a form and taking it to the CTA office).

She hung up too quickly, though. Worse than that, right after I told her she had to fill out a form and take it to the Merchandise Mart, she said, “Okay, great, I’ll come right over — otherwise, I won’t be able to get home.”

Oh, shit. She thought getting a replacement would be instantaneous. I wasn’t really sure why anybody would be dumb enough to think this, but on the way home, I realized she probably thought all the equipment used during the initial week of U-Pass distribution (the special cameras and printers) were stored in some magical office used for replacements. While this would be a handy method, it is not the reality of the situation. In fact, that equipment belongs to the CTA.

She had hung up before I had a chance to tell her she should secure hotel reservations, as she wouldn’t be going home for seven to 10 business days.

She came into the office about 15 minutes later. I gave her the form, which she filled out on the spot, and I sadly admitted — looking down at the desk the entire time, pretending to be doing paperwork so I wouldn’t have to make eye contact — that not only would it take seven to 10 business days for the replacement to be processed, but it would also cost her $35. I went out on a limb and assumed that if she didn’t have $1.50 to get home, she probably didn’t have $35.

Then, things got horrible. She started crying. Seriously, tears streaming down her face, incoherent jibba-jabba (to paraphrase Mr. T), followed by, “Okay, thanks.” I waited for her to add “FOR NOTHING” in a hostile tone, but she didn’t. Her sobbing diminished as she walked down the hall, and I felt really, incredibly bad.

But still, I had to say what I said. I am not a magician, and even if I was, they don’t pay me enough to perform tricks that cool.

*Special Note: Don’t trust me. [Back]

Tags: annoyance, confusion, crying, embarrassment, Fall 2003 semester, fee, girl, irritation, job, message, U-Pass, VoiceMail, work-study

Posted by Stan on November 13, 2003 9:58 PM  | Permalink | “I’m a Living Joke!” - Horror Stories from the Workplace | Digg It