After dealing with a loan company I would never recommend to anyone on the phone today, and Friday, and after hearing Leslie deal with them on the phone for awhile, I developed a very strong dislike for overseas call centers staffed by folks named “Andrew Sebastian”, “Neil Smith”, and “Craig Williams”. I have nothing against the people on the phone, but the fact that the call centers are not at all helpful at handling any situation outside of the scripts that they’re reading, that you can’t get the same person back if the call is disconnected, that the supervisors don’t have direct extensions, and that getting in touch with the actual company is impossible makes for incredibly frustrating phone conversations.

To add to the awesomeness of talking on the phone with Sallie Mae, their version of account security is to have Leslie get on the phone and say that I’m allowed to access her account information. They have no way to verify that the female voice on the phone is in fact Leslie, but they need someone to say “I authorize Joel” to let me access her account information.

As a bit of catharsis, I made my own version of what I assume call centers already have, to create a handy friendly phone name for customer service reps., rather than the scary foreign-sounding names they were born with. I give you the Call Center Name Generator. Enjoy.