Last week Online ran a feature about anonymous work bloggers which looked at why and how people write about their workplaces. It made for interesting reading and the author, Jim McClellan, interviewed a number of anono-bloggers about what they do.
Obviously, the interviews were condensed and cut to fit into the article as a whole, but since there are no limitations of space here on the web, we've decided to run the interviews in full on Onlineblog.
The first interview is with Wrapstar, who writes Call Centre Confidential.
Online: When did you start your blog and why? Were other blogs, in particular other job/workplace blogs, an inspiration?
Wrapstar: I'd started to write a memoir of call centre life when I stumbled across blogging. Anthony Bourdain's book 'Kitchen Confidential' was my inspiration. He managed to make chopping onions appear the most compelling profession in the world. I wanted to do the same for call centres.
Blogging is a form of micro-publishing. I've always produced magazines that have taken months to put together, at great expense and have been read by 50 people. Now, with the blog, it costs nothing, takes 5 minutes and is read by 500 people a day.
The first entry was published February last year.
O: What were you initially hoping to achieve with the blog? Has your blog (and what you write on it) changed as it's gone on?
WS: Call Centre Confidential has recently changed in tone as I've become more embittered. Initially, I was an invisible, participant observer of the absurdities of office life, nowadays it's a case of 'me against the world.'
O: What's reaction to it been like so far? Which kinds of entries are the most popular/draw the most comment?
WS: Reaction has been really positive. I expected some backlash following the 'Highly Commended' award from the Guardian's blog awards last year, but readers increased and the response remained positive. Some of the entries in the comments are better than my posts!
I'm always surprised and disappointed by which posts get the most response. I can spend hours composing a satirical masterpiece that gets ignored, while the 'pubes in the keyboard' entries that are knocked up in minutes are adored.
O: You blog anonymously - if you blogged under your real name, how would your blog be different?
WS: I stay anonymous because I'd be found in a local canal if I got found out.
O: Does anyone from your work read your blog? If so, has anyone guessed that you're behind the blog?
WS: A handful of trusted colleagues know about the blog. I don't shout about it because I'd only have to put up with 'this is one for you' every five minutes. Besides, they have to put up with me all day, why would they want to listen to more of my bobbins?
O: Do you see your blog as a purely personal thing - a way of dealing with the everyday frustrations at work - or does it have a more general, possibly political purpose - a kind of low-level whistle-blowing function - letting people know the reality of certain modern jobs?
WS: It's an entirely personal thing. A bit of my soul evaporates every day; this is is a means of topping it up.
O: Some people have suggested workplace blogs are a kind of rebellion against modern 'overwork' culture (in which people work longer and longer hours, in which work is seen as some sort of defining moral value, in which workers are under more and more surveillance and control, via audits, reviews etc). Do you agree?
WS: Are people in offices really over-worked? Generations of my family worked down a pit to feed their kids; these days people may worry 'does my boss rate me?', 'why does he have a bigger calculator than me?' and work through their lunch shuffling their in-box, but its to keep their kids in DVDs. Get a grip.
Surveillance, control and auditing keep me busy, don't knock it.
O: Why do you think people read your blog? To find out 'the inside truth' about a particular area of modern life?
WS: Regular readers seem to enjoy following the narrative of the characters. People have their favourites. However, I suspect that most readers dip in and out. I suppose it does give people an idea of what life there is behind the phone.
O: Is what you write on your blog 'the truth' about your job? Or do you sometimes find yourself embellishing slightly, to make the blog more interesting. Bloggers often say that, though they set out to write about the everyday reality of their lives, they find that they've created a kind of alternate persona, which both is them and isn't, at the same time. Perhaps another way of coming at this is to say that blogs can be like stories and, as you build up momentum/audience, is there a temptation to spice things up slightly to keep people hooked?
WS: CCC is more honest than true. The things that happen do happen, but not neccessarily in the right order.
The blog voice is different from my real voice. Many of the business-bull-shit sayings that I criticise in others, are things that I might say myself: I can 'push out the envelope' with the best of them.
O: Why are anonymous job blogs so popular now? Does it say something about modern work? Or does it say something about blogs and what people think they 're best at (eg personal accounts that take you inside a previously hidden world/correct big media assumptions etc)?
WS: I like to think that CCC has been an inspiration for some anonymous bloggers. The best blogs are focused, have a unity of voice and have pithy, unique insights.
O: What do you hope to achieve with your blog? A way out of your current job? A publishing deal?
WS: I'd love to see Call Centre Confidential in print (I conceived it as a book) but I doubt anything will happen, after all I've been in a stopgap job for 12 years. I'm hardly a man of action.
I'm in the throes of rewriting it as a one-man show to take it to Edinburgh next year. I'm not sure whether it will work it in a different format; my mate keeps reminding me of 'Porridge: The Movie'.
O: Is doing your blog still fun? Do you foresee a time when it might feel like another (unpaid) job? If that happened, what would you do?
WS: It's fun doing the blog. I'm worried about repeating myself. Call centres work in a cycle where the same pointless gubins rotates every year:
'Let's multi-skill' 'Let's specialise' 'Let's multi-skill' Rinse and repeat.
It won't go on for much longer.
I've got an idea about writing a blog about my nocturnal activities, what happens 'after hours' - I may even spawn a whole new 'blog genre' watch this space!
O: Do you feel a sense of responsibility to your readers? By which I mean I think a lot of people read job/workplace blogs and trust that they're telling it like it is about a particular job... Which is another way of saying - do you see yourself as a kind of journalist, with certain responsibilities as a result, or does the blog only have to please you/work for you?
WS: My motivation is to entertain my readers, I'm never going to let the truth get in the way, and I have made clear: when given the choice between the truth and the legend, I'll print the joke.
O: Could you explain your nom de blog?
WS: 'Wrap' time is call centre jargon for the time after a call when an adviser updates customer files.
