My God, Mae thought. It’s heaven.
The campus was vast and rambling, wild with Pacific color, and yet the smallest detail had been carefully considered, shaped by the most eloquent hands. On land that had once been a shipyard, then a drive-in movie theater, then a flea market, then blight, there were now soft green hills and a Calatrava fountain. And a picnic area, with tables arranged in concentric circles. And tennis courts, clay and grass. And a volleyball court, where tiny children from the company’s day care center were running, squealing, weaving like water. Amid all this was a workplace, too, 400 acres of brushed steel and glass on the headquarters of the most influential company in the world. The sky above was spotless and blue.
Mae was making her way through all of this, walking from the parking lot to the main hall, trying to look as if she belonged. The walkway wound around lemon and orange trees, and its quiet red cobblestones were replaced, occasionally, by tiles with imploring messages of inspiration. “Dream,” one said, the word laser-cut into the stone. “Participate,” said another. There were dozens: “Find Community.” “Innovate.” “Imagine.” She just missed stepping on the hand of a young man in a gray jumpsuit; he was installing a new stone that said, “Breathe.”
On a sunny Monday in June, Mae stopped in front of the main door, standing below the logo etched into the glass above. Though the company was less than six years old, its name and logo — a circle surrounding a knitted grid, with a small ‘c’ in the center — were already among the best known in the world. There were more than 10,000 employees on this, the main campus, but the Circle had offices all over the globe and was hiring hundreds of gifted young minds every week. It had been voted the world’s most admired company four years running. (...)
After lunch and an elaborate tour of campus, Annie deposited Mae back at her desk, where a man was sitting, his posture rounded and serene.
“Jared, you lucky son of a bitch,” Annie said.
The man turned, his face unlined. His hands rested patiently and unmoving in his ample lap. He smiled at Annie. “Hello, Annie,” he said, closing his eyes.
“Jared will be doing your training, and he’ll be your main contact here at CE. Dan’s the head of the department, as you know, but your direct report is Jared. Isn’t he wonderful?” Mae didn’t know what to say, and Annie didn’t care. This was how she always talked, always had. “Jared, you ready to get Mae started?”
“I am,” he said. “Hi, Mae.” He stood and extended his hand, and Mae shook it. It was soft, like a cherub’s.
“It’s an honor.”
“Hell, yeah, it is, Jared,” Annie said, squeezing Mae’s shoulder. “See you after.”
Annie left, and Jared retrieved another chair, offering it to Mae. They sat side by side, facing the three screens set up on her desk. “So, training time. You feel ready?”
“Absolutely.”
“You need coffee or tea or anything?”
Mae shook her head. “I’m all set.”
“O.K. As you know, for now you’re just doing straight-up customer maintenance for the smaller advertisers. They send a message to Customer Experience, and it gets routed to one of us. Random at first, but once you start working with a customer, that customer will continue to be routed to you, for the sake of continuity. When you get the query, you figure out the answer, you write them back. That’s the core of it. Simple enough in theory. So far so good?”
Mae nodded, and he went through the 20 most common requests and questions and showed her a menu of boilerplate responses.
“Now, that doesn’t mean you just paste the answer in and send it back. You should make each response personal, specific. You’re a person, and they’re a person, so you shouldn’t be imitating a robot, and you shouldn’t treat them like they’re robots. Know what I mean? No robots work here. We never want the customer to think they’re dealing with a faceless entity, so you should always be sure to inject humanity into the process. That sound good?”
Mae nodded. She liked that: No robots work here.
The campus was vast and rambling, wild with Pacific color, and yet the smallest detail had been carefully considered, shaped by the most eloquent hands. On land that had once been a shipyard, then a drive-in movie theater, then a flea market, then blight, there were now soft green hills and a Calatrava fountain. And a picnic area, with tables arranged in concentric circles. And tennis courts, clay and grass. And a volleyball court, where tiny children from the company’s day care center were running, squealing, weaving like water. Amid all this was a workplace, too, 400 acres of brushed steel and glass on the headquarters of the most influential company in the world. The sky above was spotless and blue.Mae was making her way through all of this, walking from the parking lot to the main hall, trying to look as if she belonged. The walkway wound around lemon and orange trees, and its quiet red cobblestones were replaced, occasionally, by tiles with imploring messages of inspiration. “Dream,” one said, the word laser-cut into the stone. “Participate,” said another. There were dozens: “Find Community.” “Innovate.” “Imagine.” She just missed stepping on the hand of a young man in a gray jumpsuit; he was installing a new stone that said, “Breathe.”
On a sunny Monday in June, Mae stopped in front of the main door, standing below the logo etched into the glass above. Though the company was less than six years old, its name and logo — a circle surrounding a knitted grid, with a small ‘c’ in the center — were already among the best known in the world. There were more than 10,000 employees on this, the main campus, but the Circle had offices all over the globe and was hiring hundreds of gifted young minds every week. It had been voted the world’s most admired company four years running. (...)
After lunch and an elaborate tour of campus, Annie deposited Mae back at her desk, where a man was sitting, his posture rounded and serene.
“Jared, you lucky son of a bitch,” Annie said.
The man turned, his face unlined. His hands rested patiently and unmoving in his ample lap. He smiled at Annie. “Hello, Annie,” he said, closing his eyes.
“Jared will be doing your training, and he’ll be your main contact here at CE. Dan’s the head of the department, as you know, but your direct report is Jared. Isn’t he wonderful?” Mae didn’t know what to say, and Annie didn’t care. This was how she always talked, always had. “Jared, you ready to get Mae started?”
“I am,” he said. “Hi, Mae.” He stood and extended his hand, and Mae shook it. It was soft, like a cherub’s.
“It’s an honor.”
“Hell, yeah, it is, Jared,” Annie said, squeezing Mae’s shoulder. “See you after.”
Annie left, and Jared retrieved another chair, offering it to Mae. They sat side by side, facing the three screens set up on her desk. “So, training time. You feel ready?”
“Absolutely.”
“You need coffee or tea or anything?”
Mae shook her head. “I’m all set.”
“O.K. As you know, for now you’re just doing straight-up customer maintenance for the smaller advertisers. They send a message to Customer Experience, and it gets routed to one of us. Random at first, but once you start working with a customer, that customer will continue to be routed to you, for the sake of continuity. When you get the query, you figure out the answer, you write them back. That’s the core of it. Simple enough in theory. So far so good?”
Mae nodded, and he went through the 20 most common requests and questions and showed her a menu of boilerplate responses.
“Now, that doesn’t mean you just paste the answer in and send it back. You should make each response personal, specific. You’re a person, and they’re a person, so you shouldn’t be imitating a robot, and you shouldn’t treat them like they’re robots. Know what I mean? No robots work here. We never want the customer to think they’re dealing with a faceless entity, so you should always be sure to inject humanity into the process. That sound good?”
Mae nodded. She liked that: No robots work here.
by Dave Eggers, NY Times | Read more:
Image: Gabrielle Plucknette
