Call Centre drama takes the Office to new heights

TV Watch with Dave O’Connell

Those who reckoned that The Office could only ever have been a figment of Ricky Gervais’ vivid imagination have obviously never heard of Nev Wilshire, peacock-proud CEO of the third biggest call centre in Swansea.

Nev makes David Brent look like a cartoon character, because he is the looniest, most lovable, un-PC boss on the face of the planet – and he has surrounded himself with a cast of similarly doolally staff.

The Call Centre started out as a fly-on-the-wall on BBC Three and is now getting a well earned re-run on BBC1 – and it wouldn’t be any funnier if it was scripted by the team from Father Ted.

Nev himself is a balding, podgy 53 year old proud Welshman, who bases his management style on Napoleon and makes it his business to know the ins and outs of the call centre workers’ professional and private lives.

Born and bred in Swansea, he’s a big fan of Swansea City – and of John Wayne, who was one of the good guys as he puts it.

Key to the drama is the fact that Nev believes only ‘happy people sell’ and he has developed a unique approach to managing his young workforce – keeping them smiling and the sales rolling in.

This stretches to organising blind dates for those on a barren spell, and being utterly politically incorrect almost every minute of the day.

And yet it would be hard to take offence to Big Nev, who only has the best interests of his workforce at heart – quite a job in itself as his call centre has gone from eight staff sharing three desks just three years ago. He now employs 700 people at 250 desks.

With all due respects to those who work in call centres, it’s not a career choice you’d make for yourself as a lifetime ambition – and yet the staff at Swansea’s third largest centre couldn’t be happier if they worked for Apple or Google.

Their actual work seems to involve cold-calling customers to try and sell them cavity wall insulation for their houses, but that’s almost a backdrop to their lives – because this is a hot-bed of hormones and high jinks, led from the front by Nev himself.

Call centres can provide rich pickings for inter-staff relationships – there are now over a million people working in UK call centres, with an average age of just 26.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Sentinel.