Crisis Service Provider
September 12, 2002
It’s not every day you’re standing patiently at the traffic lights, idly performing your anal clench exercises when an elderly lady pulls a Jason Donovan and spontaneously falls to the ground.
I don’t mean a simple fall to the ground. I mean full-on, stay stiff as a plank and fall in a perfect arc, oh-my-god-what-are-all-these-purple-rats-running-around-me Jason Donovan spinout fall to the ground.
Taking a leaf from Looney Tunes’ patented rules o’ violence, she then absently moaned, ‘oooh’, as a trickle of blood ran down the pavement.
All around, everyone noncommittally jumped to the scene. Cries of ‘Has anyone got a mobile phone?’ prompted much self-reassuring patting of pocket bulges, and murmurs of ‘Uhhh… no.’
Realising that the group of people were simply standing around umming and ahhing, I angrily walked over to the lady and hoisted her back up. Realising that the blood was pissing from her nose as quickly as a Kennedy absently wandering into the realm of a large number of handguns, I quickly passed her my wrinkled hanky. Which, to be honest, was probably the equivalent of an If Award at the time: a welcome sight, but of no true help or consequence in the scheme of things, merely a gesture in a vain attempt to do something.
‘You can do better than that!’ she shrieked unexpectedly, perking up somewhat. I frowned in confusion, and wondered where to go from here.
‘Maybe we should get you to a doctor, hey,’ I suggested, to her utter dismay.
‘I don’t do doctors,’ she glared knowingly at me. ‘No doctors.’
Realising that leaving her standing there as a monument to the importance of the upkeep of motor skills wasn’t the best step to take, I look around – a bank was directly behind us. I began leading her into there, as she hobbled along beside me.
‘Hang on,’ she stabbed into my ribs, and dabbed at her nose daintily with a tissue she’d produced from her handbag. ‘You’re taking me into a bank? Why are you taking me into a bank? Get me help!’
‘Look,’ I replied patiently. ‘Please understand that I am just trying to help.’ Mentally, I kicked myself in the realisation that I’d autonomously begun using cornerstone customer service phrases as a knee-jerk response to confrontation. Damn you, career choice!
‘Boooooo!’ she hollered loudly as I tried to lead her once again into the bank’s entrance. ‘BooooooOOOO!’
‘What, you’re booing me now?’ I protested in disbelief.
‘BOOOOO!’ she creakily moaned, staring me in the eyes.
‘I need a set of cheerleaders just to combat complaints when I’m only trying to help? For Christ’s sake. I could have easily walked on like everyone else did back there. Believe me, there’s plenty of other things I could be doing right now – I am only. Trying. To. Help. You.’
‘BOOOOO,’ she continued. ‘No bank.’
‘You know what? I’d rather sit in a bath with 50 packs of Potatoes ‘n’ More with a whisk right now. I’d rather be in the back seat of a car getting demolished at the wreckers. But I choose to help you. So please. Please! Just come into the bank and we’ll get some help.’
This wasn’t good enough. The heckling continued – she obviously had something against banks.
‘Let me clarify,’ I explained. ‘I would rather be in the back seat of a car getting demolished at the wreckers… NAKED… surrounded by flesh-eating scavenger crabs. So let’s just go in and we’ll get help, as you apparently claim you really do want, and all will be fine with the world.’
Crestfallen, she hesitantly shuffled into the bank with me, and I began to feel a little bad. Customer Service Satisfaction Jeb kicked in once again.
‘I just want you to feel comfortable and happy,’ I reassured her. ‘We’ll get help and everything will be fine.’
‘I guess,’ she moaned.
‘Why don’t you want to go into a bank, anyway?’ I asked, out of curiosity.
‘I just want to go somewhere that’s the opposite of a bank,’ she looked up at me.
‘Ohh,’ I squinted my eyes. ‘Is this kinda like, how German tourists only go overseas because everywhere else is the opposite of Germany?’
‘Now you’re catching on,’ she nodded, as a concerned teller rushed up to meet us.
‘Is there anything I can do?’ panicked the teller, which really meant ’stop bleeding on the carpet, old bitch’.
‘This lady here has had an awful fall,’ I explained, hoping that as someone who was surely used to dealing with complaints, the teller would know what to do. ‘I’m not really too sure what to do from here. And neither is she.’
‘We have two first aid trained members of staff here,’ replied the teller, patting the lady gently on the back. ‘Why don’t you come over here and have a cup of coffee and we’ll help you out some more.’ And off she shuffled, with only a fleeting glance of something between disgust and thanks in my general direction.
‘It was a pleasure being your Crisis Service Provider this afternoon,’ I spoke. ‘If there’s anything we can do in the future, don’t hesitate to fall flat on your face and call again. It’s our pleasure to have your business.’
I really do need to think hard about this whole customer service thing.
