Work and the GRE

So for this post I will need to further explain my job. When anyone in the office makes a phone call it is recorded under the account of the person being called. So if I come across the account of a woman who owes $22.50 I can see everyone who has attempted to contact her, whether or not it was successful, what was said or if a simple voice mail was left. Each entry is time coded so people are not called too often. Since we make many phone calls and don't have time to fully type out conversations abbreviations are used. And not just for single words, but for entire sentences. The following is a list of my favorites.

GFFVP - Good for future value pays - This means that someone has given us a form of payment that they want used the next time our office receives a file on their account.

PUHU - Pickup, Hangup - For the several times that people pick up the phone only to immediately hang up because they know we are calling. This is usually followed by x2 or x3, etc., meaning how many times in a row it happened. My record is PUHUx5, meaning five straight times calling someone and them picking up, not speaking, and hanging up.

NWN - Not a working number - For the numbers that no longer are in service.

TTD - Talked to debtor - Obvious.

LMOR - Left message on recorder

Atty - Attorney - Yes, people either try to sue us or file bankruptcy, so this information is vital.

TPF/TPM - Third party female/male - When someone other than the debtor answers and takes a message.

LMTC - Left message to call - What you give to those TPF/TPM.

CB/WCB/IWCB/WCMB - Callback/Will call back/ I will call back/ Will call me back - Wow.

Even though several more are created every day, I will stop with these. Being that I do like to write and will be needing to write in my hopeful career, I try my best to not use these abbreviations and just type out full sentences. The best part is I never received a list of what these computer abbreviations meant, I was forced to figure them out for myself. In fact, after one month I can now decipher codes like Nicholas Cage. Sign me up for National Treasure 3. I would even be willing to bet that I can decode any abbreviation related to conversation. It's like our data entry system has turned into an AOL chat-type program. I have not been through my GRE study book yet, but if their is an abbreviated words section, IWD (I will dominate).

While on the subject of work, here are some statistics from my first month, don't mathematically to help me prepare for the Fifth Grade math section of the GRE.

On Average
300 accounts a day
x 2 numbers per account
= (a) 600 phone numbers dialed per day
x 13 digits per call (8, 8 in order to get a dial tone, 10 digit number and # to send) = 7800 phone buttons pressed a day not including the answer button when a rare phone call does come in.

(a) x 4 rings per call (averaging out for those who answer earlier, those who take longer and those who never answer
=2400 rings heard each day.

Since about 80% of calls end in a voice mail being heard
(a) x .8
= (b) 480 voice mails heard (rarely listened to)

Since about 90% of those voice mails don't have an actual greeting
(b) x .9
= 432 times hearing the basic "You have reached 3 2 0 2 8 2 5 0 5 8..." I used to think that voice was sexy.

Oh, and on average one can of pop purchased a day;
30 (days) x $.65 = $19.50 spent on caffeine.

At least now I can take one more career off my list, collections agent. So since I finally decided the NBA was out, the list now rounds out at a total of two.

FML, but TFR (thanks for reading).