Thunder Before Lightning

That's right, you're about to be struck by lightning. Figuratively, of course. That is, it's more like lightning in the form of thoughts. Probably somebody somewhere is going to get offended by this blog, because this is the only other place besides my journal and my mother's bedroom that I am not going to censor my thoughts. At *all*. It's going to be random musings, yada yada yada, all the time. Makes me feel kind of reckless.

Have you ever felt insulted when someone uses his/her "professional" voice with you? You know, when you call UPS and the CSR stumbles over her words so quickly you're not even sure she knows what she's really saying and before you realize yes, she really does know what she's talking about, the call is over? Or when someone calls in to your call center and she's all, "I need this and this and this and I need it now." And then what you want to say is, "Ex-cuse me? You need it? Use your words, woman!" But instead, because you get paid to kiss ass, you have to say, "Oh, okay, we can do that. No problem, ma'am. Yes, ma'am, I understand your dissatisfaction. I'm sorry about that. Of course we can get that to you tomorrow. What? You don't like the price of the shipping? I'm sorry ma'am, but there's nothing I can do about that. Yes, ma'am, I realize you're a octuple-diamond-star in the company, but unfortunately we can't adjust shipping prices. Alright ma'am, hold just one moment for my supervisor."

Okay, so maybe I went a little overboard complaining about a job I love and that I'm lucky to have, but it's been a long day. As a certain eight-year-old I know would say, "Eat me!" But I'm getting off-topic. I think the "professional" voice is offensive. Do you know why? Because it's condescending. It's saying "you're not worth my time, so I'm going to get you off the call as quickly as possible." It's saying "you're too stupid to really understand what's going on, so I'm going to explain it to you as I would to a sixth grader." At least, that's when I use my professional voice. If I were a caller, I would much rather hear a friendly, polite voice, as opposed to a cold, harried one. Because that's what a professional voice is, people! Cold and harried. Like a harpy.