Thursday, May 20, 2010
Music Dear Cipha Sounds and Rosenberg: Please Discontinue Carmen's Phone Jacks
Posted by Mark Asch on Thu, May 20, 2010 at 12:22 PM
Now, most mornings, round about 8:30, whiny-voiced middle-aged Mexican mama Carmen (I really don't know who does the voice), will call up some local business with a complaint: the clown we hired for my son's birthday was a perv and my cousins beat him to a bloody pulp; why won't you help me unlock my husband's iPhone so I can see if he's cheating; you're hiring physical therapists? Good, I'll massage anything.
She cusses and accuses and, like any good improv comic, sticks to her premise when it's questioned. When she's hung up on, she calls back. On the second and third calls, the person on the other end, who's just politely or stridently hung up, will answer the redial with her same professional greeting script, often sighing audibly when she hears the same voice as before on the other end.
I really can't stomach it any more, all this fucking with secretaries to get a laugh.
Look: who answers the phone at an agency, or a store, or a clinic? Somebody who's not getting paid very much to keep things organized, put out her boss's fires, and be constantly answering the phone. (And, as anyone who answers phones for a living can tell you, people calling in for a legitimate purpose are infuriating enough.)
It's top-down class warfare, and to the extent that listeners enjoy it, I find it distressing, giving that the average listener probably makes closer to what a secretary makes than what a prominent morning-show jock makes.
If Carmen is going to continue her phone jacks—which, despite my pull at Hot 97, I suspect she will—I wish she would at least ask to speak to the manager.
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