Saturday, December 03, 2005

Gail

I have to tell these amusing stories about my training at work. They are probably jokes that you could only understand if you were there or if you had a sense of my personality.
I will tell my best anyways to recreate the day.
Part of our training involves doing these role playing exercises done via the telephone. We haven't gone into dialogue training in depth, just doing basics. So when I play the customer, I get into improvisor mode. See there's a switch in my brain that I can activate when I want to get into this spontaneous, creative mode. It also has various levels, i.e. I can put it to 10 (which is the highest). I usually keep it at a low 2-3 level so that I can 'fit' in with the normal people of society.
I never really turn this switch off, I just keep it low so I can integrate into society.
We had been assigned partners and we got to switch roles as well, so I did get a chance to be serious. When I was the customer (improvisor mode), I was making unusal requests (but appropriate and relevant to the training) and using an accent of some sort. I hate to say it but I had so much fun being the customer. I obviously was also paying attention to what my partner was doing and making sure that we both were doing things right and learning what we are supposed to be doing.
Being in improvisor mode is about messing with people's minds and throwing things at them that they aren't used to. It's about waking people up from their slumber. Getting their chemical soup going.

Our trainer took a few people and we played that "who am I?" game where you are only allowed to ask questions that will produce a yes or no answer. We were asked to come up with people for them to be. I was thinking about who is someone who is famous but obscure? Someone shouted out Oprah Winfrey and I associated obscure and Oprah and shouted out "Oprah Winfrey's best friend Gail". Again I accelerated into improvisor mode because I wanted to come up with someone whom they could never figure out. For all of you who don't know, Oprah's best friend Gail has appeared on her show at times as a guest correspondent. Her full name is Gail King and I think she works as a television reporter.
I'm generally quiet in class and every once in a while I burst verbally. I'll use a metafuckaphor to clarify: I'm like a bolt of lightning on a clear sunny day.
We had someone re-do their person because our trainor accidently gave away the answer. Our training assistant wasn't there when I first shouted out Oprah Winfrey's best friend Gail and so I thought I'd go with that answer again and shouted it out and that surprised the assistant and she laughed pretty hard. They didn't go with my answer.

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