As I was reading the article about our weird species I came across the reference to "so-called customer service attendants". I would like to relate my feelings and experience on why someone as clearly optimistic as Ms. Waldbieser is using "so-called" in front of such an important part of our technological world.

First, allow me to give my experience. I have been involved in the teleservices industry for about 10 years and the last 3 years I managed what we in the industry call QA. The abbreviation stands for "Quality Assurance" and, as far as I'm concerned, is a joke. Unless someone is listening to every Customer Service Rep all day and on every call we can not "assure" quality.

You care to know why our customer service is in the state of decay that we all see on a daily basis? Hiring practices. Two words that describe it all. My department was given the dubious task of training untrainable people. If you're naturally good at and like being a truck driver, you will excell in doing so even if the training you received was inadequate. If, on the other hand, you hate driving a truck there is no training in the world that will make you good at it.

I use the truck driver example because I want (the feeling part of my letter) all excellent truck drivers to start running down all the poor Customer Service Reps as of today! To make my point, if indeed I have one, more clear......YOU CAN NOT MAKE SOMEONE THAT DOES NOT BELONG IN CUSTOMER SERVICE(because they are not people persons, have a bad disposition or generally hate the world)A GREAT OR EVEN GOOD CUSTOMER SERVICE REP!!

The people in charge of hiring at companies that need positions filled such as these are to blame, as well as, QA Managers, floor managers, other Reps around bad Reps and last but not least, the heads of these companies. Because money is their bottom line and if they don't fill these positions they will lose the God they all aspire to.

Please note that I use the past tense in my explanation of my experience in being a "QA Manager". I walked away from this lucrative position out of frustration at not being able to make a difference where I felt one was needed the most--Hiring practices.

What can we do about this problem? If you receive substandard service, take a minute to speak with that individual's manager and write a letter to the company about the incident. Nothing will change if we allow this to continue.

A new truck driver trying to be excellent in Illinois,

Joel