Tag: people

When copywriters code

I’m a hopeless romantic, if I have to say the least about myself. Robert M. Pirsig, in his Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, classifies people into two types: romantics and classics. I’m the romantic. In the bluntest of terms, romantics are creative thinkers and classics are logical thinkers. Of course both types would have interchangeable qualities, but on a macro level, romantics dream up while classics drill down.

Now that I’ve established a basic, arguable nonetheless, definition of the term, let me emphasise. I’m a romantic, and I’m hopeless at that.

Romantics don’t think like machines. We learn to look at nature, to observe what’s around us, and interpret them in the most beautiful way, or in the most natural way. Classics, on the other hand, learn to look at something and analyse why something appears some way. We appreciate how a flower’s stem balances its five petals whereas classics calculate the stem’s ability to bear the petals. It’s a slight difference when you put it that way, but a much more alarming one when you look at it in a real workplace scenario.

I am a copywriter surrounded by software engineers. I’m a romantic in the midst of classics. I write stories, and they write software. We co-exist to help customers do better business. Now that’s a nice picture. But the real problem arises during a conversation, when the programmers talk about parse and encryption and my mind’s thinking about prose and enchantment.

It didn’t take long for me to realise I was out of place, and I had to learn to code to feel in place. I didn’t have to become a developer—I knew I never could—but I had to develop basic knowledge of how programmers use language. And so I began. I sat with a developer while they wrote a piece of program, and I observed in their eyes the frantic whizzing in their mind. They spoke to the screen in front of them, reasoning out the flow of script. The first line of code would run once before moving on to the second. Swapping the order of the lines would disrupt the entire program. Replacing a semicolon, adding an extra colon or an extra space would topple things in the most inconvenient way. (“Yay!” I yelled. “It’s the same with writing,” though the developers weren’t as excited.)

After a few days under development, I concluded that we romantics don’t learn to think the way computers do. Regardless of all technology innovations, computers don’t and won’t think like humans. As a non-developer I could see how I had to alter my way of thinking and approaching a problem to explain it to a computer. For a logical flow that I take for granted, the computer needs a line of script. When I think I’d fetch water, my mind knows I’d drink it. But if I told a computer to fetch water, it’d fetch it and keep it aside until I tell it—again—that it should drink half of it and save the rest.

We romantics don’t condition our minds to think one step at a time. That’s why it’s hard for us to learn programming at a later age. We think in blocks of actions, in phrases, in groups of words, and instructions. We read poetry that distributes one meaning in five lines. We process a poem as a whole to understand its meaning. We’re clustered thinkers because it’s ingrained in our minds. Classics, however, think in a sequence. That’s what a degree in computer science gives them. They take actions one step at a time. They’re more organised thinkers because that’s what’s ingrained in their minds.

My eureka moment: With enough practice, I could start thinking like a programmer, too. It felt like I had opened the door to a whole new world. I could speak to any computer, and tell it what to and when to do. The thought awed me, and terrified me at the same time.

Perhaps classics would feel the same way if they spent a few days reading Shakespeare.

Fragrance

Drenched in sweat, Mike walked in with a smug face. Waving, he walked over to the pool table. Laying his backpack on the floor, he high-fived Mark, Paul, and Rud one at a time.

As always, they looked at him in jealousy. “Woah, you smell of sand and water. Where?” Rud asked passing him a beer.

“Oh, just a small hike,” Mike took a large swig before adding, “32 miles.”

The others looked inspired, and he cherished each second. Rud whistled. “Wow, man. Hiking, swimming, bushwalking—what a life!”

Mike smiled. All thanks to the girl down at the fragrance store.

Welcoming change

Spencer considered. He could accept his gay son’s donation and endure shame forever. Or uphold his faith—and die as he lived.

He had lived his days arguing, demeaning, and devaluing anyone who challenged his belief. He was the nasty old man everyone avoided.

He hadn’t lived much, though.

As the gates of his heart valves opened to accept blood from the son he’d condemned sinner, Spencer imagined his fellas’ reaction.

“Lord’s gates would close on you!”

But Spencer no longer cared. Despite everything he had done, his son had forgiven him, and Spencer had seen nothing more god like.

Another day at work

It looks like the morning after a campfire. Here and there people lift their heads from the confines of their laptops and hard wood tables. The day had dawned, and they had to all go home, get some sleep, and return later in the evening for another night-long gig as customer support representative. I, however, remain here until my rep returns for work. I remain, his faithful telephone, ready to serve whenever he is.

We’re almost 22 hours ahead of our customers, living in the other corner of the world, picking up calls and answering emails when customers are awake and our families are asleep. It’s all part of the job description and sleepless nights aren’t a problem for us anymore. We even have fun.

As the day wanes and darkness embraces the glass building we live in, the day-shift teams head out eager to spend the night cuddling in their beds. We, on the other hand, wire up, preparing to take on calls that would soon enough rain upon us.

“Hello there!” My neighbour has already received her first call and she sounds like this customer would have their problems solved in a jiffy. While I observe her in silence, I feel a vibration crawling up my wires. It feels like an agitated customer wanting answers. The next second, the vibration reaches my speaker and I blare at my partner. He smiles before picking up my receiver.

“Hello, you’ve reached our company. How may I help you today?” It’s a good start to the night, I realise as I hear a gentleman raising his concerns in a soft voice from other side.
The rep in the cubicle behind us was having a lot less luck, though. He muted his call, and in a tirade, explained to us that his customer was looking for something beyond our scope. Pity we had to turn a customer down, but that wasn’t the most pitiable part. Not only did the customer demand an explanation, but they also swore at our rep. In return, our rep muted the call and began swearing on his own. The whole team laughed out loud, appreciating an inside joke that only the support team understands.

Every day, customers call in to test the nerves of our reps. But despite all that, we laugh and celebrate the end of the week by ordering take out. We’ll do anything for sincere customers, but when rotten customers show up, we know how to handle them. It’s not part of the job description, but it is part of the job.