Len’s Phonetic Alphabet for Call Center Workers Who Hate Their Customers

[Today’s post is written by guest blogger Len Pal.]

From time to time over the last twenty years, I’ve worked in some capacity or another in call centers. Occasionally while speaking with a customer over the phone, one must spell out names or words. In technical support even more than in other types of call groups, accuracy is critical. If a customer doesn’t type the right letters, the command they are typing either won’t work at all, or worse, it WILL work, but will have a very different result than the one intended. To avoid this, we use phonetic alphabets – saying things like “B as in boy, A as in Apple, D as in Dog”, and so on.

I personally always fell back on the phonetic alphabet I learned in the army: alpha, bravo, charlie, delta, foxtrot, etc. This worked well nearly all the time, and most of my co-workers used it as well. But every once in a while, some unenlightened customer would take issue with our choice of words, despite that alphabet being designed by experts to ensure clarity over radio waves, and the fact that it has been in use by NATO forces for over SIXTY FUCKING YEARS. It is the most widely-used phonetic alphabet in the WORLD, and this customer is annoyed that I said “November” instead of “Nancy”.

Do you think I LIKE spelling out everything for you? Buy a damn “For Dummies” book if you don’t like my word choices. I’m doing this for YOU, to make sure you don’t make your problem any worse by typing the wrong phrase into your Windows registry file. You know how when you press the power button, eventually Windows comes up and you can play FarmVille and look at pictures of cats and stuff? Do you like that? Because if you put the wrong stuff in your registry, your Candy Crushing days are over.

Instead of letting myself get all worked up, I decided to offer an alternative. I wrote my own custom phonetic alphabet, just for those special customers who feel the standard NATO alphabet is too weird. I don’t do much phone work any more, but I’m passing this alphabet on to those that still do. I encourage you to use this alphabet whenever someone gives you crap for using NATO’s… it will teach them to keep their opinions to themselves. And so without further ado, here it is:

A ARE

B BEE

C CUE

D DJEMBE

E EYE

F FALSILOQUENCE

G GNOME

H HEIR

I ISLET

J JALAPENO

K KNIGHT

L LUMPENINTELLIGENTSIA

M MNEMONIC

N NECYOMANCY

O OEDIPUS

P PTERODACTYL

Q QUEUE

R RHINOTILLEXOMANIA

S SEA

T TSUNAMI

U USAGEASTER

V VOILA (pronounced well-ah)

W WHY

X XEROGRAPHY

Y YOU

Z ZWIEBACK (pronounced swee-beck, it’s a kind of biscuit)