Thursday, April 09, 2009

Survey Interference

This is interesting. I go to Bev in the SickBay.

"Hello, Jean-Luc." she starts, "Would you like to see me later and..."

Good evening , sir I'm sorry to interrupt you.

What? What is this?

My apologies.My name is Nigel. I just wondered if you would be free for me to conduct a survey. Starfleet are asking us to appear on random logs so we can get an opinion on...

No it isn't, Now clear off. I'm trying to write my latest adventure here.

That's all right, sir, now tell me who you are and we can begin our survey. I assure you that it is totally confidential and will just take up a few moments of your time.

Sigh. Very well. I'm Captain Jean-Luc Picard of the Starship Enterprise.

Really? Hey, Bill! We've hit the paydirt with this one. You'll never believe who I've got on my monitor! It's Picard of the Enterprise. Jasmine, MaryAnn, Jeff, Ritchie! Come over and take a look at my screen!

I thought this was confidential? Everybody seems to be reading it.

Forget what you heard, Captain Picard, your answers are completely confidential.

Well what do you want to know?

Do you have a wife and child?

No I don't!

All those gals on the starship I suppose? I remember in my History class what Kirk was like. Do you try to be like him?

Is this a question on the survey?

No, Captain. Sorry. I was just distracted. (giggle)

Did I hear a giggle?

Sorry, Captain. That was Georgina. She was bringing the drinks round for us in the call centre. She was looking at my screen. Everybody is finding it hard to read it with all the staff looking over my shoulder.

This doesn't sound at all confidential. Watch what you ask, or I'm switching off.

All right, we'll get back to the survey. Now I know you have those replicators, but where do you do your shopping when here on Earth?

Well, my favourite shop is....hey this isn't going to result in a lot of junk mail being sent to me, is it?

Of course not, Captain....that is if you specifically request it now, then send a form to the Preferential Deletion Unit, then make a Video request to the President of SellQuik Galactical.

I thought so. This is all one big marketing scam.

Certainly not, Captain. We prefer to classify it as Customer Resource Appropriation Preferral.

With a very appropriate acronym!

I'm not sure I understand that, Captain. Now back to the question...

Sorry, Nigel. I think this will have to stop. You can tell your superiors that Starfleet Officers will be on it's way to SellQuik Galactical to close it down and put them in the penal colony.

The screen goes blank.

-----------

With a satisfied smile on my face, I go back to what I was doing.

Now what was it?

10 comments:

The Curmudgeon said...

Sigh.

I would so like to put my sales callers in a penal colony.

Fly Girl said...

I second that!

Nepharia said...

It's like Spam for your phone....or your blog...ew.

Unknown said...

A wise move! :)

Jean-Luc Picard said...

The prisons would have more call centre operatives than any other offenders! They would spend their time trying to sell the other prisoners things and get a commission.

Heather Dugan ("Footsteps") said...

In the U.S. we're able to register our phone numbers as "Do Not Call" numbers with certain penalties for telemarketers that violate the rule. There are some caveats that allow some to get through anyway, but it has made a HUGE improvement over the last few years.

merlyn said...

eeep. You need to beef up your security call screening measures.

Anonymous said...

Oh my gosh, its bad enough over the phone. I'll have nightmares about the potential of sales calls via video. Yikes!

Ellee Seymour said...

That sounds like a very thorough survey. I just stopped by to wish you a very happy Easter.

Jaime said...

Way to go, Captain!!