SI25 Broadcast 5: Protocols For Bad Customer Service

Radio Worm - Protocols for Collective Performance - Week 5

In this week's radio performance, we use protocols —those rules and procedures commonly found in bureaucratic and corporate systems— as a central theme.

Concept

For Radio show number 5 we setup a fictional call center who refers to itself as The Company. The Company's main objective was to sell the Experience of the Product. One host was a call center worker who manages multiple calls. Another host covered the role of a supervisor, and other two acted as callers. Contents, questions and discussions are as generic and non-specific as possible.

Setup

Performance setup

A phone at WORM, being broadcasted through jitsi

A phone at WORM, being broadcasted through jitsi

Roles

• Claudio/Charlie
• Wyn
• Zuhui
• Fred
• Eleni

Structure

Pre-recorded intro script written and performed by Zuhui.

About 10-15 mins of hold music.

...

A caller calls in.

Caller gets annoyed at worker and insults him.

The worker calls his supervisor for help "I will put you on hold".

The supervisor keeps the worker down and tells him to watch again the Training video.

A new caller calls in and she is greeted by an AI assistant.

...

Outro script by Zuhui.

1.1 Prototype

This radio show tried to explore the power dynamics in call center systems through a series of role-play conversations. It inspired by Sound Jamming (VCV Rack!!), we had a role play in last show, and has different standpoints while our group member read the interview, leading us to rethink the relationship between language, identity, and system. The confusion and questions we encounter reflect the gaps between protocols and real human needs. The conversations, advertisements, and system responses emerge as layers of bureaucratic communication. During our group meeting, we were inspired by shared experiences with customer service. Since the theme of protocols was central to our discussion, we created a fictional call center to examine how language operates within systematic constraints. We wanted to explore how agents serve as mediators rather than power holders, caught between system limitations and customer needs.

1.2 Design

How can we reveal the power dynamics in automated systems? How do protocols shape human communication? How do we structure the tension between human needs and systematic responses? It reminds us of the concept of interpretative labor - agents must constantly interpret between rigid protocols and fluid human situations. The system transfers both problem-solving and emotional labor onto agents, who must absorb customer frustrations while lacking the agency to resolve systemic issues. We collected stories from Reddit and classic film scripts about call center experiences, creating four role-play scenarios that demonstrate this double bind, focusing primarily on the user's dilemma within the system.

Sound Techniques:

A. Role-play Dialogue

Character development

Emotional progression

System interruptions

B. Sound Elements

TTS

Lyric Jungle

Hold music

Phone call effect

C. Narrative Structure

Multiple scenarios

Advertising breaks

System messages

D. Tension Building

Growing frustration Protocol limitations Human-AI interaction

1.2.2 Material

We selected and adapted stories highlight the relationship between humans and automated systems. The dialogue serves as a backbone to explore how people are conditioned by machine expressions. The system sounds create an institutional atmosphere, expressing the cold, automated environment of call centers. Music and advertisements add ironic commentary on the commercialization of human interaction.

1.2.3 Sound Source(parts)

Role-play Scripts Four scenarios based on real experiences, showing how customers and agents navigate system constraints.

Phone System Elements Automated messages, hold music, and system prompts that interrupt and shape human conversation.

Fake Advertisements Inserted phone advertisements that highlight the human-AI relationship.

Protocols

Redaction protocol

“Secrecy is another by-product of administrative power.

‘Every bureaucracy seeks to increase the superiority of the professionally informed by keeping their knowledge and intentions secret’, wrote sociologist Max Weber.

Visual representations of ‘official secrets’—as Max Weber calls them—can be found in the form of redacted documents, both for legal, financial, or security purposes. A request for government documents can produce pages full of blacked-out lines, as if it was abstract art. The stupidity and irra- tionality of bureaucratic reasoning as someone within the adminis- tration painstakingly has to go over the text line by line, rendering information useless.” - CAPS LOCK, Ruben Pater

Protocol sheet

using the script of <CALL CENTER TRAINING: PROPER USE OF TONE OF VOICE & VOLUME>

Scripts

Audio

▲All the audio files gathered and created for the show are here

Debrief

Claudio ex machina at the debrief

The pad