Cue a bored Scotsman in my ear.
“Hello this is Diamond Car Insurance, my name’s XXXX” I’ll interrupt this minor tale here to point out that his name isn’t really XXXX. It’s Dave. Anyway, where were we? Oh yes, Dave:
“I’m just phoning to thank you for taking out your car insurance with us. Do you happen to have a couple of minutes for me now…?”
I don’t really but I’m in the middle of something a bit dull and therefore I’m easily open to opportunities of a distracting nature.
“Will it be just two minutes?” I ask. He ignores the implicit question within my question and launches into faux concern instead:
“Was everything okay? Hmm? Did you get your policy documents?”
In my head, I’m making that collective noise football crowds make when a goal is, against all probability, missed. In other words, this is actually a bit of a sore point.
“Well, yes. It took an email, two phone-calls and some really, really sarcastic remarks but we got there. Eventually.”
A shallow laugh rattles down the line. Clearly this is not why he’s calling. I’m waiting for the gear change.
“Well you have it now so that’s good. Good. Now, do you have two minutes of your time to spare for a quick chat?”
I pause unsure and wonder if this is a two minute top-up on top of my original two minute window. It’s clunky, asking again, a conversational grind of gears but he recovers quickly, slipping down to second as he glides into full sales patter.
“Looking at your policy, I’m sorry to say there’s been an oversight. You don’t appear to have our courtesy car cover right now”
And there it is. A sales pitch that manages to be almost untraceable. He is both apologetic for THEIR sloppiness and, in the process, carefully re(under)writing MY original choice as nothing more than an administrative error. Clearly, I would be INSANE not to want it. The onus is on me, a clever tactic of the confidence trickster.
“Yup, your records are correct. I don’t want it” I reply. The line has been drawn but Dave isn’t having any of it. He reaches into his boot for the big guns, a verbal sledgehammer made of fear and, I dunno, yet more fear.
“Well, you really should! What happens if your car gets damaged? Lost or stolen or written-off?” He says this like he knows this is definitely going to happen. “We will give you a complimentary car rental for a full 21 days…”
“That’s okay, thanks. I don’t need a replacement car”
This turns out to be the red rag to the car insurance bull. Dave is genuinely outraged. I can hear it in his breathing.
“If you don’t need a car, WHY have you got one in the first place?” he blurts out.
Now, I don’t know much about car insurance salespeople, I admit, but I’m logging this question under “Cheeky” rather than “Necessary”
Then, just for a second, I imagine him sitting there, cooped up like a battery hen. A headset stuck to his face, an unhealthy pallor bleached under strip lighting, stuffed behind a desk, next to a desk, between more desks that concertina across an open plan hanger where targets are stated on boards and barely reached and calls are recorded and monitored by middle-managing secondary school leavers who silently pray that they’re not working the weekend, spotty and wincing at the static charge sparking from cheap shoes on industrial carpet…
But time is a marching on and I have my own dull things to do:
“The car's for social use. I work mostly from home”
Realising he’s pushed his theoretical two minutes to the limit Dave switches tack again. He’s like a really crap mentalist. I can feel his targets slipping away from him. And I feel a tiny pang of sad.
“But what if your car is written off and you need to buy a new one? You’ll need a car then!”
“Okaaay. In that case, I would go around the corner – TO THE BACK OF MY HOUSE - and visit the numerous car showrooms situated there. At the back of my house.”
“But are you sure you’d want to buy one from them?" You've really got to admire his stamina.
“Yes. I can honestly say I would definitely be able to buy a car I don’t need without the use of a replacement car I don’t need”
Defeated, Dave gives up. For a sweeping moment I feel sorry for him again. But it doesn’t last.
“Right, well, thanks for talking to me (BEAT) What about your breakdown cover… ?
His name's not really Dave. It's Stuart.
