Nothing gets rid of a bad rule faster than following it exactly.

What would you do if your new supervisor said you’d be written up for deviating even slightly from the call center script?

Would you keep your natural style and risk getting in trouble?

Or would you deliver every awkward line as written?

In the following story, one call center employee ends up in this exact scenario and opts for the latter.

Here’s how it all played out.

“Stuck to the script” so I did. Word for word.

I (18F) worked at a call center for about 3 months, mostly helping people reset passwords and answer basic questions.

During training, they told us to “sound natural and conversational.”

That’s cool. I did that and got great feedback from callers.

Then we got a new supervisor who flipped if we didn’t read the script exactly as written.

She said, “If you deviate even slightly, you’ll be written up.”

On her very next call, she stuck to the script.

Okay.

On the next call, a guy says, “Hey, my account’s locked. Can you help me real quick?” I respond (in robot mode): “Hello, thank you for calling. My name is [NAME], and I hope you’re having a wonderful day. How may I assist you with your technical concern today?”

He paused and said, “…Are you serious?”

I kept going exactly word for word. Even the weird fake empathy lines like, “I completely understand how frustrating this unique situation must feel.”

When her supervisor walked by, she didn’t like what she heard.

Mid-call, my supervisor walked by and stopped to listen.

She tilted her head, looked confused, and asked after the call, “Why were you talking like that?”

I just said, “You told me to stick to the script.”

She didn’t have a comeback.

And funnily enough, the next day, she told our team: “Okay, just make sure you cover the key points. You can be natural again.”

Wow! That’s one way to show them.

Let’s see how the readers over at Reddit relate to her story.

Here’s someone experienced with phone sales.

This reader worked at a pretty good call center.

For this reader, they don’t want someone who sounds like a therapist.

According to this person, they got written up for not being polite enough.

She handled it perfectly!

But just think about those poor people who had to speak to the robot!

If you liked that story, check out this post about an oblivious CEO who tells a web developer to “act his wage”… and it results in 30% of the workforce being laid off.