The Time Is Nearly Nigh

As of 6pm today, the Bo-ny training regimen is officially over. I sat through the final class today. We are now expected to be pretty much ready to start taking calls. We've been assigned to our teams and given our desks. I am in the "Palm" team and I have an "aisle" desk (as opposed to a window). Obviously, a window seat is much nicer both for peace of mind and also for a little privacy. If you look at the pictures of the call-center in the post from last month, you'll see what I mean.

Each team is named after a beer: Duvel, Kwak, Leffe, and Palm. There is a Scandinavian in each team. My team leader is a very German fellow named Dirk. From what I've heard, he's a bit of a taskmaster (although that's not the word his detractors used). So, that's obviously a bit disconcerting. On the plus side, the CSAs who are on his team tend to be the most efficient and field the most calls. That's German efficiency for you!

Tomorrow and Friday they will slowly ease us into phone duties. First listening to someone else's call. Then logging the call while the other person does the talking and troubleshooting. Then doing the talking and troubleshooting while the other person does the logging. Then doing both yourself while someone of authority listens in. And finally, flying solo. Yikes! Swedish support "goes live" on Dec. 1st. Yikes again!

I've been practicing my Swedish as much as possible and translating a lot of the call-handling scripts with the help of my mother and the other Swedes. It has actually been quite helpful typing up all of that wordage. Not only am I learning how to spell in Swedish, but my vocabulary is growing.

I'm a bit stressed about taking calls in Swedish because my language skills could be A LOT better. So, it's not good to have those worries tacked on top of the basic worries about taking calls and logging them properly. This is definitely adding to my stress-level. To be honest, I'm not sure I'm going to be able to hack it!

But I just have to...

-RP-