The above video was recorded during a speech competition at our local club for humor speeches. I spoke about my experience working in a call center and how most of my customers were irate.
Back when I was doing my Engineering in Mumbai India, during one summer vacation, I joined a call center to see what the hype was. At that point in time the Indian economy was booming as the Americans were starting to outsource all the jobs to other countries for cheaper labor. In our world we called it "economical laborers" . My experience working for a company called "SPANCO" was quite a journey. We were servicing online orders for 'Yahoo' where back in the day, most mobile websites were linked to the yahoo backend for online orders and customer support. There were rules working in customer service for american clients.
1. Use an English name. Fortunately for me I have an English name. Most of my peers had to use fake names.
2. We had to tell our customers we were located in America, even though we were literally not. A blatant LIE.
Online service back then was not at its best, which meant on an average 70% plus calls that we got were from very irate customers. I lasted in there for 1 month after which I could not take it anymore plus I had to get back to my engineering. I am not sure I learnt much working in a call center, but today I have a chance to search through my memory and share some of my stories.
As far as my speech itself goes, for the most part, I rarely prepare for my speech thoroughly. Firstly, it consumes too much time, secondly it can cause unnecessary pressure. Thirdly, I don't focus on the content as much as the delivery. I focus on the things I am not comfortable doing on stage and work on those aspects each time I get a chance. This way, in the long run, I am working on building a dynamic character where I can engage the audience irrespective of the occasion.
My goals for this particular speech was to work on my vocal variety and role playing skills. Just by working on these two attributes of my speech, I was able to push a bit over my comfort zone.
As a rule of thumb, always work on things you are not comfortable doing. Over time they become part of your comfort zone thus expanding yourself.