One could understand the state of Louisiana's call center system being a tad swamped these days. Still, 15,000 calls a month into the state Department of Revenue’s call center going unanswered is a lot.

As a result, the state will look for help from a private firm, according to The Advocate: "Revenue Assistant Secretary Jarrod Coniglio told the state Civil Service Commission on Wednesday that the agency would soon seek proposals to see if an outside vendor could answer the phones better."

To see if an outside vendor could do a better job? My friend, leaving 15,000 calls out of 42,000 a month unanswered is setting the bar pretty low for anybody doing it better.

“This is about improved service, to have more calls answered than we have now,” Coniglio told The Advocate, which added that "some of the 35 employees whose state jobs could be affected told commissioners that they need better equipment and said extended hours of operation would help."

And the employees may have a point: “If you send out 40,000 bills to businesses that have not paid taxes in 10 years, what do you think is going to happen if you only have 65 phone lines going into an agency?” employee Kathy Williams asked, no doubt rhetorically.

Recently TMC's (News - Alert) Juliana Kenny found a very different problem with a government call center across the pond: Call center employees in the UK are demanding improvements in their work lives and environments.

"UNISON, Britain’s largest public sector trade union, is calling for the government to implement a Call Center Charter which would demand new policies for call center stations and the employees inside of them," Kenny said.

Specifically, she noted, "The Charter dictates that employees must remain harassment-free while at work. While harassment is illegal in Britain, it goes largely ignored by many British call center employees as they are in constant fear of losing their jobs, and a significant portion of employees consider it 'part of the culture'.”