Lessons of Weeza

I work in a call center as a customer service representative for a major credit card company. For the sake of complying with company policy, let’s just call it Weeza. On an average day, I make or receive 240-250 phone calls. This equates to approximately 57,600 interactions yearly, for a total of 115,200 people that I have conversed with in my short career here. I should add that I work the night shift, so about 75% of these exchanges are accompanied by a dangerously high level of alcohol (on the cardholders’ end, not mine). That being said, this will probably be the first of many posts pertaining to this particular facet of my life.

These are a few of the lessons that I have learned…

- Your card number can be found on the front of your card. It is embossed and generally shiny. It is bigger than any other number you will find on the card; there is no need to search the fine print on the back for it. It is not your name. There are no letters in it…if you see an “L”, you are holding your card upside down.

- If you find that you have lost your card, consider the following before permanently blocking it… Have you just maxed out your card at a series of bars and taverns in one night? If your answer is yes, wait for sobriety before blocking. There is a fantastic chance that you have failed to check both your left AND right pocket.

- If you are a man using your card in Las Vegas at locations that are, at best, morally questionable without your wife’s knowledge, make sure that your credit card’s fraud prevention line does not list her as primary contact.

- If you are a woman and your husband falls into the above category, make sure that his credit card’s fraud prevention line does list you as primary contact.

- If you are planning to travel to a remote third-world country by yourself, please please please do not depend on a 2x3 inch piece of plastic as your one and only life line. Please.

- If it is too late for you, and you are already guilty of the aforementioned blunder, please be kind to the poor representative to whose phone your call will be randomly routed. It is simply not their fault that you traveled to Yemen after depositing your entire life savings onto a pre-paid gift card that clearly stated in the terms and conditions “cannot be used outside the U.S.” Though I assure you that their sympathy is of the utmost sincerity.

- If your name is Pat, Erin, or Jamie and you have a strikingly manly voice, you have no right to take offense when someone erroneously calls you “Sir”. Please consider a name change. Promptly.

This is only 7 of roughly 115,200 lessons learned. However as I sit here tonight nearing the end of my shift, these are the ones that come to mind. My night would have been greatly improved if only the world had taken heed.