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'Call Center' The Summer of '96 by Tom I graduated from high school in May 1962 and enlisted in the U.S. Navy. Out of 'Classification' tests the Navy determined that I had a knack for Morse Code. So, when I finished boot camp in September 1962, I was ordered to Communications Technician School in Pensacola, Florida. I graduated in May 1963 and received orders to a U.S. Navy radio facility in Scotland. = = = = = = = = Rhoda
and I married February 6th, 1965. We
had a beautiful baby girl, In November 1983, we transferred from Spain to my final assignment, Naval Security Group Headquarters, Washington, D.C. In August 1985, our daughter Linda enlisted in the Navy. By then I'd logged 23 years in the Navy. We decide to move on to a ‘second career.’ I mailed my resume around and got a few bites, including one from the F C C . Sounded good. The F C C offered me assignments at their monitoring stations in Anchorage, Alaska or Kingsville, Texas. Rhoda and I talked it over and opted for Texas. In the early morning hours of New Year's Day, 1986, Rhoda, Caryn and I departed Washington, driving south. We found a nice 3-bedroom brick house on an acre lot about 6 miles south of Kingsville. Caryn attended high school; Rhoda divided her time between taking care of me and Caryn and the house, and battling Texas fire ants. I worked at the F C C monitoring station. The years rolled by. Caryn graduated from high school, worked and attended Texas A&M University at Kingsville. She joined the Navy in 1992 and became a Navy communicator, same as her big sister – and me. Life was good. Then, early in 1995, we began hearing rumors there would be something called a “realignment” in the F C C . It was clear the “realignment” would affect the field, and it wouldn’t be good. Finally we learned that many field offices would severely cut staff (“Realign”) and the monitoring stations would close altogether (“REALLY Realign”). Part of this plan called for the F C C opening its National Call Center in Gettysburg, PA. Call Center job announcements were posted. I wondered what a ‘call center’ could possibly be? I applied for a job, and I guess lots of other people did, too, but when it all shook out, only 15 of us from the closing F C C field stations were selected for Call Center positions, whatever a call center was. So, while I’m the one telling this story, I expect it is in some measure the story of the other people who came from all parts of the country to Gettysburg, to work at the Call Center. Rhoda and I put our house on the market on Wednesday, May 8th, 1996. On Sunday, May 12th, a family contracted to buy our house. Not bad; we’d put the house on the market Wednesday and had a contract by Sunday. Things were going okay. On Sunday, May 19th I departed Kingsville, driving my little Toyota truck. Rhoda stayed behind to take care of selling the house and slaughtering the few surviving fire ants. I stopped in Arkansas, on Monday, May 20th, to visit my Aunt Inez who lived in Hot Springs. After visiting my aunt I continued the journey to Gettysburg and arrived Friday, May 24th. = = = = = = = =
Larry had arranged for all us transients to stay in the Now that I was here, I looked forward to meeting my fellow transients. I knew a few of them; Ed of Kingsville, and I’d met Angie and Gloria of Houston. I also knew Will of the monitoring station in Vero Beach, Florida, although I hadn’t seen him in 30-odd years. Back in the mid-1960s, Will and I had worked together in the same Navy communications watch section in Scotland. I parked outside the hotel, threaded my way through the crowded lobby, and registered.
Later, comparing verbal notes with Will, we would realize we I had all of Saturday and Sunday to relax and explore the Gettysburg area. One thing I remember is a vintage car show in progress, and a parade of beautiful old cars cruising around Lincoln Square all weekend. Also there must have been a Harley-Davidson convention going on, because Harleys rumbled around town that weekend. I was aware there were probably other Call Center recruits showing up, but I didn’t recognize anyone until I came across JoAnn whom I’d met once while visiting the Dallas F C C office. Finally we all met on Monday, May 27th, the Memorial Day holiday; that evening all the Call Center recruits gathered downstairs in the ballroom of the Gettysburg Hotel, for our first get-together as a unit. We met Beverly, chief of our bureau in Washington, and Cynthia who would be the Call Center Director, whatever a call center was. The ballroom was wall-to-wall with people, and the Call Center recruits were out-numbered by Washington F C C dignitaries and well-wishers. I could easily identify the recruits in the crowd; they all looked like I felt: lost, doubtful, and wondering what a call center was.
Larry was – and is – a charismatic, gregarious personality,
the kind of guy who seems to suck all the air out of the room when he enters. He had clearly taken a The gathering would have trickled to an end if not for Larry hustling around inviting everyone to something he called the “Ice House.” Larry announced that the party would continue at the nearby “Ice House,” and that some real food and drinks would be offered. At that moment I was not especially excited, thrilled, or eager for any further socializing. So I went back to my hotel room and kicked back. But in an hour or so I became restless and decided, since I didn’t know what a call center was, I might as well try and find out what an “Ice House” could be. I left the hotel, walking, trying to remember the directions Larry had given to the “Ice House.” I walked a couple of long blocks from the hotel, turned toward a residential neighborhood, and heard boom-box music and the characteristic sounds of partying. I followed the sound and came upon the party itself, which was going on inside a house facing the street, but also spilling outside the house and onto the front lawn. It was a fairly ordinary house and I couldn’t think, then or now, why it was called the “Ice House.” Never mind, there were happy people and refreshments of all kinds, I was beginning to have actual fun, and there was a barbecue of sorts. Actually the barbecue was only a small hibachi, and Larry and Mike were working it with some vigor. They offered me a choice of a burger, hot dog, steak, or chicken. I’d just come from Texas where barbecue is serious business, and I couldn’t see how anyone could possibly cook on this tiny thing. It looked about six inches in diameter and wasn’t even enclosed as a respectable barbecue should be. I figured a hot dog would be safest, so I asked for two and they were okay. Then I noticed people actually eating steaks, burgers and chicken, and it all looked pretty good. Somehow, with just this pathetic excuse for a barbecue grill, Larry and Mike were actually managing to feed the crowd of revelers. It was like the miracle of loaves and fishes. I figured anybody who could pull off a trick like this could also get a call center up and running. Whatever a call center was. = = = = = = = =
On Tuesday, May 28th, 1996, we all reported for the first time to the
It was Cubicle World. The Wireless Telecommunications Bureau, or WTB, already occupied the That Tuesday we were trained in using Expert Advisor, the application software we’d use for logging calls and for providing information to callers. On Wednesday, May 29th, we began three days training provided by a company called ‘Technical Assistance Research Programs,’ or ‘TARP.’ A lady named Monica Jenks conducted the seminar. I’ve attended enough seminars to hate them, but I must say this was pretty good training. And the government sure got its money’s worth out of Monica. She was relentless; she had a thousand seminar games and she made us play them all, and we learned a lot. It seems call centers do NOT exist because everything is wonderful and customers call you to say how happy they are. Nope. Monica taught us all about the “Bell Curve of Anger,” and some techniques for ‘diffusing’ anger. You can’t do business with angry people, and you must get them past their anger so that you can work with them. By the time we’d finished TARP training on Friday, May 31st, I had a better Idea what a call center was. I recall that weekend we did some more “Ice House” partying. Then, Monday, June 3rd, 1996, we opened the Call Center. This amounted to us occupying our cubicles, clamping on our telephone headsets, logging into Expert Advisor, opening our toll free line to the world and saying, “Here We Are, World.” And the moment we opened, the calls started flooding in. We were aware the F C C had been issuing news releases announcing the Call Center’s presence. From the way we were getting hammered by calls, we figured the announcements must have been pretty effective. I’d heard Cynthia remark that we’d brought with us from the field a lot of ‘institutional knowledge.’ This was true, but we also had a lot to learn. Or at least I did. Now and then I’d get a caller with a question so obscure, off-the-wall and esoteric, it would at first seem impossible to answer. And it seemed to me everyone else in the Call Center knew everything while I knew very little. I’d hear Paulette or Larry talking with off-handed ease to callers: “Why, yes,” they’d say knowingly, “The subscriber line charge on your telephone bill, why, that’d be blah blah blah ...” Subscriber line charge? What the heck was a subscriber line charge? I was continuously flying around in a panic, trying to find fact sheets and whatnot to educate myself, wishing someone would call and ask me something I knew, like what “Ten-4” means on the CB radio. No such luck. I kept getting calls from scientists and PhD-engineers, asking me things like, “How do you terminate a U-Adcock antenna in its characteristic impedance?” “Uh, yeah ... Personally I always do that with a terminator.” After a while I developed the practice, whenever anyone asked me about ‘frequency,’ of saying, “Oh, about 2.6 times a week.” We took it one day at a time, and managed to get through our first week relatively unscathed. Then we got through our second week. By that time some of our transients had to return to their home offices to complete the office closings and other matters. On Friday, June 7th, I drove Angie, Gloria, Will and Ed to Harrisburg airport for their respective flights home. On June 23rd, Paulette and I flew to Boston for a 3-day training seminar with Incoming Calls Management Institute (ICMI). We were amazed at the level of knowledge that exists about the ‘call center dynamic,’ and we learned a lot at the seminar. Friday evening, June 21st, Paulette flew from Boston back to St. Paul and I flew back to Texas. For Rhoda and me the next two weeks were occupied by getting our household goods packed and shipped. Operations at the monitoring station had pretty well petered out, but Oliver Long our Engineer-in-Charge and Brad Gilliland our Senior Engineer were in a frenzy of final preparations for closing the station. I think the main thing I did around that time was to mow the several hundred acres of the station property. Finally, on Friday, the 12th of July, Rhoda and I signed the closing papers on our house. I recall it being a long day, we returned to the house for a quick shower and then departed Kingsville around 6:00 p.m. We’d liked Texas okay, but after 10 years we’d pretty well used it up. We didn’t even look back as we drove away from Kingsville. Click
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Linda. After Scotland, we lived
over the years in: Iceland; Florida - where we were blessed by the birth of our
second beautiful daughter Caryn; Guam; Okinawa; Skaggs Island, California; and
Spain.
historic Gettysburg Hotel. I can
barely manage to find a Motel-6 when I’m traveling, so I was in awe of Larry’s ability to pull off a trick like getting hotel rooms for a dozen or
so people. And remember, this was
in early May, in Gettysburg, when tourists flock to the area and hotel rooms
become scarce in the extreme.
had walked right past one another in the lobby, neither of us recognizing the
other. This can easily be explained
in that, while I hadn’t changed at all over the years, Will had aged 
horribly. He hadn’t recognized me
because, back when we’d known one another in Scotland, Will’s
moustache was darker.
primary leadership role in the Call Center effort, and that first night he’d
assumed the role of active host, greeter and cheerleader. His right-hand man was Mike; tall and strikingly good-looking,
Mike had formerly been a public affairs specialist at the Los Angeles F C C
office.
Mike was equally strong in personality as Larry, but much quieter. We learned Mike had
completed law school, and in fact he seemed overqualified for call 
center work, whatever a call center was. A
year or so later Mike would pass the California Bar exam and move on to other
opportunities. But on that our
first night together, Larry and Mike were definitely running things. We had some drinks and snacks in the ballroom, and exchanged a whole
bunch of introductions. The
visiting F C C dignitaries all said they were “excited” about the Call Center,
and in fact they tried outdoing one another in describing the heights of their
respective excitement. I think the
winner was one who went beyond being merely “excited” and claimed to be
“thrilled” about the imminent opening of the Call Center. Whatever a call center was.
F C C building just outside Gettysburg, for training.
building.
Our Call Center would share the physical plant with WTB. By comparison, we would be a mere fraction the size of WTB’s operation.