Life...scripted.

At work, I'm on the phone all day. And I get the same sorts of questions all day. Repeating the same answers over the phone all day might seem boring, but I've developed a highly useful script for answering those questions. Screen-tested during my first weeks at work for general understanding by the general person, I can now answer almost any question without thinking about it, or while doing something else entirely.

My script makes me feel like I'm working as a part of a corporate conglomerate, even though I'm usually the only person in the office. I have to admit to chastising the girl who helps me out sometimes because she said something not-quite-exactly the way that I do, because that made it not-quite-exactly right. I don't mean to be prissy about it, but obeserve the following two sentences side-by-side:

"We don't do refunds, but you can change your date if you want."
"Our policy is that we don't offer money refunds for tickets once they're bought, but we do allow you to change your date twice. If you find you can't come on this day, just give us a call and we'll get you in on another train."

One is obviously less...something. The second one takes longer, but it can make the difference between a sale and someone saying they'd rather buy tickets on the day of an event (and handling 50 walk-ins is hard, people!)

My experience obtaining people's credit card information to type into our credit card machine from the stone age is particularly fascinating to me. I don't know what kind of a device people think I'm using, but I'm sure what I have is not what they're picturing. I always ask the same questions the same way, but unlike me, the people on the other end of my phone have a variety of ways of answering - and they're simple informational questions! When people give me a credit card number, I always repeat it back to them four numbers at a time. This ensures that I get it right, and also ensures that they give it to me in a way that makes sense. Most of the time, when people are reading a number 2 or 3 numbers at a time and I repeat back after the first 4, they get the hint and read the rest of to me 4 numbers at a time. When people insist on giving me a credit card number 2 numbers at a time when I'm reapeating back after every 4, I'll be honest - I feel like they think I'm stupid! "You can't handle 4 numbers at a time, little girl, just stick with two okay?" I also feel like they're kind of jerks, like they're telling me how to do my job. I do this every day, people. I really do know the best way to do it.

It's amazing the kind of human interactions that occur without words between strangers every day. Them, on their end of the phone, thinking they know better than I do, or stubbornly sticking to the way they always do it, or not thinking at all. Me, on my end, feeling more and more frustrated, the dangling paycheck in front of my nose the only thing keeping me from reaching through the phone to strangle people.

Also - a bizarre thing. After the credit card information is entered, I write down the last 4 numbers of the card on the reservation sheet to identify it later if there are any problems. This takes maybe 2 seconds. I have noticed the following thing: men will not wait this two seconds. I have no access to information about people other than their gender, of course, but there aren't many LBGTQ people in Utica, and fewer of them ride the railroad, so I'm going to assume I'm dealing with a large majority of heterosexuals. Invariably men will offer the expiration date before asked. I don't know why this is, but it's damned annoying! I'm asking you for things as I need them, and I'm not going to suddenly stop saying things. Are you in charge of this process? NO! This makes me feel like women really do have a sisterhood - the sisterhood of waiting politely for people to ask things of us before we offer them.

But in my feminism, I'm not sure if that's a good thing! Does this mean that women are polite, assuming that I will lead them through this process because I'm the expert? That's true, but what if it's because we're all just waiting for direction before acting? What if it's because we're so used to being led around by the nose by our men that we won't do things for ourselves except in the absence of that leadership, and thus are not able to truly have charge of our own lives?

...does it qualify me as crazy that I've made these extrapolations from a credit card transaction? I'M WILLING TO TAKE THAT CHANCE.