Call Center Giant Preparing for Bird Flu and Beyond

I?ve got two words for you: Moist. Towelette.

Convergys Corp, the world’s largest call center outsourcing company, which also provides human resources and billing services, considers the moist towelettes a first line of defense against the threat that?s yet to be: bird flu.

The company is buying the disinfecting wipes by the millions for use by employees of its 72 call centers across the world.

Of course, bird flu is and remains primarily an avian concern. It hasn?t taken that Michael Crichtonesque cross-species leap to human infection. But many scientists feel it?s not a question of ?if? but of ?when? bird flu will turn into ?bird/human flu? or ?hubird flu? for short.

Convergys wants to make sure it?s offering the most comprehensive line of defense for its employees possible. Hence the towelettes.

The Associated Press caught up with Convergys employee Mary Robinson, who uses the company-provided, antiseptic towelettes to carefully wipe down her entire desk and telephone headset both before and after her shifts of calling people with marketing research questions for clients. That’s now standard practice for all Convergys call center workers, who often share desks. Wiping everything down. With moist towelettes.

Other practices, such as not showing up to work sick or not conducting mad scientist experiments in the basement involving bird and human DNA, were not mentioned as alternatives in the Convergys story.