Health company. The caller, when asked which product she was calling for, answered with the name of the company. I confirmed that this was the correct company, and asked again "Which product are you calling for?" The response was "I don't understand your question." (9:13pm)
A cable caller said "I can't figure out how to set the clock on my digital box for daylight savings time. Should I sit up until 2am to see if it changes by itself? 'Cuz if I don't, the TV will be all messed up in the morning." The operator, feeling in the mood to play with the weak minded, said that it might be automatic, or perhaps a tech went to each house individually in the wee hours and set each box by hand. The customer concluded with "Well, I'll just wait up and see what happens." (9:54pm)
Maternity customer in Alabama. Customer did not understand what company she was ordering from, did not know what the order numbers for the products she wanted were, and was not aware that she was reading a review on the product from a magazine. I eventually got her information to send her a catalog, which she will probably mistake for a style magazine. (10:11pm)
Long distance company. The customer, not of this country, had a particularly awkward last name. We're still debating on how it's pronounced as I write this. When the operator requested the caller spell his 14-letter last name, he clicked his tongue in irritation and spat them out, as though the operator was a moron for not being familiar with his native tongue. (10:56pm)
Cable in Texas. Customer reported their cable out (after spitting out their information in one, breath-exhausting stream, always a sign that this will be a fun call). I said that I would report the outage, and the caller asked me when it would be back on. I replied with my usual "We don't even know what the problem is yet", which is often enough for most callers. Not this woman, however.
Caller: You don't? Me: No. Caller: You have no idea why my cable is out. Me:No. Caller: Is there an outage in my area? Me: Nope. Caller: ..... Me: (for the second time) I'll get your outage reported for you. Caller: Will you get it reported? Me: That would indeed be what I said. Caller: I said my cable is out. Me: Yes, I know. Caller: You didn't know? Me: Yes, I knew. We established that at the beginning of this conversation, and it's not that difficult a concept to grasp. Caller: ..... Me: So, again, I'll get it reported. Goodnight. *click*
Tonight, we get a glimpse of that which is surely the bowels of hell and the slavering demons that populate it: wrestling fans. For tonight, loyal reader, was Wrestlemania night. Sadly, technology again failed us when we needed it most, to serve as a purgatory-like buffer zone between we, the damned, and the spawn of satan who who wanted ... nay, NEEDED to see overweight men in spandex grappling with one another. The asshole quotient went WAY up tonight, and we were so busy that it was literally impossible to document every individual who deserved mention. Which makes this bloated listed of crap we dealt with tonight especially impressive. Read, and weep for us.
Cable in Louisiana. Like most everyone in the country, this caller was not able to receive Wrestlemania (for those not in the know, this was due to some colossal screw-up between satellites and cable receivers, all being blamed on daylight savings time. I wouldn't necessarily believe this, but the fact that multiple, unrelated cable accounts were saying the same thing gave me reason to put at least a little stock in it). I explained to him that the entire nation was suffering, but he seemed to hear "we are spitefully depriving JUST YOU of your wrasslin'." When told that everyone was aware of the problem and that every tech who could possibly do anything across the US was working on the problem but could not provide an estimated time on when it would be fixed, he said:
Caller: Wait, wait. When will this be fixed? Me: As I already stated, there is no estimated time. Caller: Yeah, I know what you already stated. Me: Well, then, that would be your answer.
I will never cease to be boggled by people who supposedly already know something before they ask you about it, as they hold out some thin tendril of hope that MAYBE if they ask enough times, you'll change your answer. Hm. I should do that one night for a lark. (8:31pm)
Cable caller ranting about wresting. When informed that there would be a replay of the event later, he said "Will that be live too?" I considered telling him that The Rock's performance was supposed to be even better the second time they did it, but held my tongue. (9:27pm)
This customer's accent was so thick that I could not understand his city, so I asked him to spell it. He repeated the city. I again asked him to spell it, he said the name again. Getting more than a little frustrated by this stage, I attempted to explain that I could not understand what the caller was saying and that I needed the city spelled. In a relatively clear voice, the customer said "You can't understand me? What do you mean?" I guess communication truly is a one-way street. (9:38pm)
Caller in Arkansas wanted to get new cable service. Now. This in and of itself is quite ludicrous and worthy of a "What planet are YOU from?" bonk, but this was, in fact, her second call. The first came in at 9:55pm, and she was told, by me, to speak to the office in the morning. This is actually amusing under less stressful evenings, as I just calmly take their information again, and then spring into "Yes, well, as I told you the last time you called..." They get all flustered, I feel superior, and that's A Good Thing. Tonight, however, I was just irritated, coupled by the fact that the woman took 10 minutes to find her phone number for both calls. (10:24pm)
Health customer wanted to inquire about a magnetic mattress pad. I told her that it was regularly $398, but the discount price was $298. The conversation degenerated from there.
Caller: I'm showing the pad for $298. Me: Yeeees, that would be with the discount, as I said. Caller: But on the radio, they said there was a $100 discount. Me: Right. $398 minus $100 equals $298. Caller: .......ohhhh.
Not included but should've been: "Ma'am, forget the pad, could I interest you in this home lobotomy kit?" (10:37pm)
This health customer wanted to know how long it would take for his check to clear. When I said that it depended upon the his bank, he gave me the name of said bank, as if we had a list of all financial institutions across the country and their process times. (10:53pm)
Cable customer in Florida called, raving and cursing up a blue streak because his cable was out. He demanded a credit for his time without cable thus far. All 10 minutes of it. (11:39pm)
Cable customer in Texas. She was fed up with her service from the company, not that I can blame her. However, she claimed to have called about a problem at a wrong time, stating that the customer service department would not help her. This was odd, because I took the call she described. I ever remembered her (there aren't that many "Kyra"s.) She then stated that she was fed up with the service and wanted to change cable providers. She asked me for the number to call the nearest cable competitor. If I were entitled to do so, I would have arranged for her to have an unexpected communication with the local branch of the Church of Satan. As it was, I merely stated that I didn't have that information, and that if she really wanted to know from this cable company what number to call to contact someone in financial competition with them, to call back during office hours. (11:41pm)
The cable in a semi-major Florida city went out at approximately 11:16pm. Over the course of an hour, we had fielded about 100 or so outages. One such lady called (again) to report what we aalready knew. As this was her third call, she also knew that we knew, but obviously, that was irrelevant. In any case, the caller was an exceptionally rude old woman, and after two to three minutes of blatant verbal abuse, I was no longer in the mood to just let her comments slide away without some of my own.
Caller: Well what do I have TV for? Me: I give up, what DO you have TV for? Caller: To watch! To be entertained! Me: Well, guess what? It's out right now, which means you'll have to find some other method of entertainment this evening. Caller: I don't want to! I can't think of anything else! Me: Sounds like this could be a blessing in disguise then, ma'am. A wake-up call to get a life, perhaps? Caller: But I want my cable ON!! Me: Yes, and I want peace, harmony and freedom from idiots, but sadly, I left my magic wand at home tonight, so I'm afraid I just can't wave it and give us both what we want.
The caller then attempted to resort to threats so I would tell her when the cable would be back up. As I had no idea and refused to quietly be her new form of entertainment, she said she would report me to the FCC. I wished her good luck and hung up. (12:09am)
A man called into a hair restoration center to be mailed information. All was going well until he decided to share details about his toupee experiences, including how he was on a date last week and his hairpiece fell off because he was sweating so much. Gosh, I can't imagine why he's still single. (12:28am)
The cable company in Florida, where most of our huge assholes reside, is run almost entirely by idiots. Don't get me wrong, I think it's heinous to treat another person the way we're treated by these companies' customers, especially when one considers that, ultimately, the callers are asking for our help in getting their service back. So while I have precious little sympathy for them, based upon their sub-human treatment of me and my coworkers, with a staff of equally stupid people in the cable office, I can appreciate their frustration.
The major Florida city with an outage mentioned earlier possesses such a company. To illustrate, the cable went out about 11:15pm. Come 1:44am, we were still getting a high volume of calls, and were still unable to reach a tech to work on the problem. We had an on call (Tech 1) listed and paged him. When 45 minutes had elapsed without a response, we paged the backup (Tech 2). Tech 2 checked in and told us to page Tech 1 again, and to notify him (Tech 2) if Tech 1 did not respond. Tech 1 didn't. Surprise surprise, neither did Tech 2. We then moved to one of the tech managers (Tech 3). He finally checked in and told us that we had the wrong on call and backup, and to page two other guys (Tech 4 and Tech 5). We did, with no luck. Tech 3 called again and said that now, miraculously, the previously unmentioned Tech 6 was responsible for problems tonight (which are still piling up, remember), and told us to contact said Tech 6. Tech 6 responded and said that he did not service the outage area. Tech 3, still hanging around and shooting orders but refusing to take any outage reports, called once more and this time claimed that the original backup, Tech 2, was really the one on call. We told Tech 3 that Tech 2 had checked in hours ago and told us that Tech 1 was responsible. Tech 3 disagreed, and insisted that Tech 2 should've been Tech 1 and that we page him (Tech 2). as of the time of my writing this (1:55am), a mystery Tech 7 that we've never heard of before has called in to say that he's working on the outage.
There, now wasn't that simple? And then customers wonder why their cable's out for weeks at a time.
Caller from an unknown location dialed a wrong number for, say, Dave's Computers. That's not the name, but surely you didn't expect a real one, did you? "Dave's Computers, this is Mike, may I help you?" I asked. "Who is this?" the man asked, sounding confused. "Dave's Computers," I repeated. "Oh, because I was looking for Jamie's house." "This is not it. This is Dave's Computers." "Oh. What do you do?" the man asked, and I considered very briefly pitching him an offer for a top of the line 6086 power PC capable of a million (!) instructions per second, but relented. "We do computers." I said. "What about them?" "We manufacture them." "Oh." At this point, the man lost interest and probably went off to dial another wrong number in his quest for the ever-elusive Jamie. (2:27am)
UPDATE, 2:40am. It turns out that nobody has been working on the Florida outage, and Tech 2 finally checked in and asked me to relay the outage addresses to him. All 89 of them. When I had finished, Tech 2 stated "I don't see a problem." Even I see the problem with 89 outages between 60th and 80th streets. T2 said that he was going to hold all the calls until tomorrow. When I queried this, making SURE that I had heard him correctly, the tech said that he had no idea where these outages were located. He knew, however, exactly where 40th street was. This apparently did not provide him enough of a starting point. I asked T2 what exactly he wanted us to tell the customers then, but T2 apparently lacks in both the intuition and creativity departments, as he could not think of a thing. When I told the tech that I would call his tech manager (Tech 7, it turns out) to confirm the instruction to hold all calls, the tech quickly offered to call the manager for me. I said that was fine, but I wanted to hear from Tech 7 myself. T2 instead said that he would call me back, and hung up before I could dispute this.
Not long after, T2 called back and said that T7 had said that it was perfectly alright to leave all the calls until the morning. I asked if T2 had passed along my request to speak to T7. T2 burbled a bit and said no. So I hung up with him and called T7, who, yes, had said that the calls should be held. I posed my query to T7, in that case then: What were we to tell these screamingly angry customers who gave not one wit to time as far as their cable is concerned? T7 told me to tell the customers that they were working on the problem. Confirming that the manager had just told us to lie to the entire company client base, the tech said "Yeah. There are internal conflicts at the office that the customers don't need to know about." Yes, apparently.
A customer called to report that his power was out. Throughout the call, the customer acted as though I were an enemy agent interrogating him for his nation's secrets. Every bit of information gathered was like pulling a lion's tooth, and the caller finally snapped during his phone number, exclaiming "I'm not making this up!!" (9:08pm)
A tech checked in for a cable outage and told me to hold it for tomorrow because he was "not set up to work at night." This tech has been on call on alternate weeks for well over a year, and all calls that he could possibly be notified for would involve some degree of darkness. If he didn't feel like going out, he could've surely thought of a better lie that than. (9:10pm)
A man in Louisiana wanted to get in touch with his wife who was taking night classes at a local college. After stating that it was a dire emergency, any sympathy I had for him evaporated quickly, as, after being informed that the college's office was closed and inaccessible to phone, he proceeded to light into me about how it was a federally funded institution and so on and so forth. Persons of this nature are the cause for high tuitions, for he was surely of the opinion that all doors should be open and monitored by a guard, and that every phone should be manned at every hour. Ironically, by the time he was done with his rant, he could have driven to the college and found his wife... (9:05pm)
A cable caller in Oklahoma could not understand "What is the nearest street to your house?", but COULD respond with no problem to the query of "What is your 911 address?", providing not only the street name I was looking for, but her house number as well. And critics say our American school system merely teaches its students to regurgitate facts? Pshaw! (10:04pm)
A cable customer in Oklahoma said he wanted to hear from a technician tonight about his problem. When informed that the technician might not need to go to his house, the customer declared that the tech would need to go to his house, because that was where the problem was. "What is your cable problem, then, sir?" I asked. "My cable is out," he announced. Well DU-UH. "Do you know why the cable is out, that the technician has to go to your house?" "Well, I don't know that. I'm no technician!" Shaking my head, I made a futile attempt at reasoning. "Then the problem might be somewhere other than your house." "Isn't that what I just told you?" At this point, I told him I would get it reported, and simply terminated the call. (8:26pm)
A cable customer reported her cable being out. I told her it appeared to be an area-wide problem and I would report it to the tech for her. She then proceeded to try to threaten me to get it back on, then changed tactics and tried guilt. She claimed that there were tornadoes in her area, and she had to have her cable back on immediately or risk death. When I amicably suggested she listen to the battery-powered radio that I knew she had (being in a tornado-prone area and all) to hear pertinent weather bulletins until her cable was restored, there was a long pause and she hung up. I love it when logic prevails. (9:08pm)
A cable customer in Texas called to report his TV was broken. Not his cable--his television set. The caller wanted the cable company to fix the TV, because he heard last week that while he was out of town, there was a cable outage. (9:15pm)
Cable in Mississippi. This caller (on her third call to the company in about 10 minutes) had bad reception on some of her channels. The call started out poorly when I asked "Which city are you calling for?" and the woman insisted that she lived in one place and received her cable in a completely different city. The caller then spent the next few minutes telling me that her reception was bad on some channels and how the office had assured her that someone would be out today to repair it. I apologized and informed her that the office had now closed, but that I would let the tech know she still had this problem. Four times, I explained this to her. Finally, the woman asked me "When you say you'll report it, how will you do that? Will you tell him face-to-face?" "No," I replied, "I'm in a different state, so I wouldn't be able to." The woman became agitated. "Well! HOW will you tell him then, huh?!" "We have this wonderful device called 'the phone,' and I'll use that." Believe it or not, the conversation degenerated from there. Even more astonishing: she's a school teacher. Speaks volumes, doesn't it? (10:16pm)
Cable customer wanted to know how to change her digital cable's screen saver. The operator informed the caller that a digital cable box had not yet reached the levels of a PC, and that the company had not yet installed facilities for each customer to have a personalized system. (11:13pm)
Cable customer in Florida reported that some of his channels were out. They had been for over a year. Talk about procrastination. (11:29pm)
A lady, when pressed for her physical address, was finally able to tell me "Apartment 11." Mental Response: "Ahh! Suddenly, your location is crystal clear to me! THANK YOU!!" When asked for, perhaps, just a teeny bit more info, the caller said "Oh, I don't know, it's a government thing." ??? Are you in the Witness Protection Program or something? And if so, isn't cable the least of your concerns? (11:33pm)
Cable customer in Arkansas. To start, the woman swore up and down that she lived in a post office box. Seriously. ("No, ma'am, where do you actually LIVE. Where is your TV set located?" "PO Box 194!" "So you LIVE in your post office box." "Yes!!") After a few minutes, when I managed to get an answer that made sense, the caller could not understand what she would need to call tomorrow to speak to the office. Or, rather, she couldn't understand what I meant by "Call this same number." Absolutely no comprehension to be found here. None. (12:38am)
Caller was complaining about how long it was taking to receive the free catalogue she had requested. Some people don't seem to quite grasp the concept of free. (1:17am)
A cable customer in Nevada wanted to express her shock at having her cable turned off after being late with her payment for a mere three weeks. (1:42am)
A cable customer called in to complain about the PPV movie they had just finished watching. Apparently, the feature they had ordered was an animated sex flick and not your regular live-action porn. THIS movie was, in the caller's words, "ick", and she wanted a refund for the movie. My own personal "ick" factor? The additional female AND male viewers I could hear in the background. (2:35am)
Cable caller in Florida wanted to let us know that he could only get either one channel or a blue screen on his set. After a lengthy discussion, it became clear that his problem was due to using a television remote instead of the cable box remote. You would think this would be simple enough to explain, but this person apparently did not realize that his extra remote was actually more than a table decoration. As I was missing some good stuff on TV at this point, I took down the man's problem for a technician to try to explain the next day. (2:40am)
A seemingly-stoned cable caller in Kentucky was insistent that I give her specific details regarding how her outage would be handled, using the argument "We're having a party!" as some kind of leverage tool. I politely rebuffed her efforts to goad me, and after lengthy discussion and explanation that I would report it for her, she claimed that she was an employee of the cable company and that she would report me for not giving her the information she requested--information given to us by the employees of the cable company. Hopefully she wasn't too upset that I remained unmoved. (3:05am)
A technician, when told of a cable outage for a customer, asked "Did they say why it was out?" Well, no, last time I checked, that was YOUR job to figure out. (7:43pm)
A cable caller in Texas, rudly reporting his cable out, wanted to know just why he had to leave his name, address or telephone number to get it looked at. I had to break the news to him that our telepathic technicians didn't work on weekends. (7:48pm)
A cable caller trying to get in touch with the main office admitted that he knew the main office's lines had been forwarded to us, but was trying to reach them anyway. When I confirmed that the lines had indeed been forwarded, he said he would keep on trying to call and get through. I wished him the best of luck, for he would most certainly need it. (9:26pm)
A pledge drive caller complained that after watching all of "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat," the station cut off the credits and she couldn't see who played Joseph. As a result, she refused to pledge to the station. First of all, Donnie Osmond played the part, and I'm perplexed as to how you can watch the whole thing and not figure that out. Second, if you watched the entire program, who played which part should be meaningless as compared to the acting job they did, and you already experienced that. So unless the credit sequence is a vital part of one's enjoyment of the show, I still can't see the problem. (9:35pm)
The following transpired between an operator and a "gentleman" in Pennsylvania:
Caller: I want to rent an x-rated movie. Operator: We have the Spice channel. Caller: Is that like hot and spicy movies? I want sex sex. You know, like I'm a man and you're a woman, hot and spicy sex and no freaky stuff. Operator: Well, the Spice channel shows adult movies, I can give you that number. Caller: I don't want just modeling, either, I want hot sex. Give me that number, I need a movie.
I think the caller needs much MUCH more than a mere movie. (11:24pm)
A woman called into a child abuse hotline. She said that she wanted to talk to somebody about "these feelings I'm having." I told her that there were no counselors available at midnight, but that I had the phone number for child protective services in her area that I could give her. The woman shot back "I'm not a child!", which was bleedin' obvious, but I gave her the number anyway, stating that perhaps they would have another place for her to call. The caller balked at the number, saying that it was long distance, and she had no intention of calling long distance. The only other option I had for the woman at this point was to leave a message for the morning, but she said she couldn't wait. When she began to insinuate that I should play shrink, I apologized and said that I was the furthest thing from a trained counselor and that there was absolutely no way I could fill that role, adding that if she did not want to leave a message and refused to call child protective services, I was out of options for her. The woman then started to become irate, and asked me "What if I just got in my car and drove, huh?! What would happen to me??" Trying very hard to keep my cool by this stage, I again urged the woman to call the Bureau, but once more, she refused and hung up when I told her that I was unable to call them for her and tell them to call her back.
A few moments later, the woman called again, sounding completely composed and devoid of all hysterics. "Oh, sorry, I forgot to scatch you off my list," she said, and hung up again. I'm still puzzling over exactly what happened here. (12:15am)
A customer tried to place a credit card order. When asked what kind of card it was, the caller replied "AT&T" and was unable to find a Visa or Mastercard symbol on it, due to not having the foggiest clue of what to look for. The operator asked the caller to go ahead and read the number, which they did ...
Caller: 806-- Operator: 806? Not 4 or 5? Caller: Oh no, it's part of my phone number, and then I give you my pin number...
The operator was sorely tempted to take down this "credit card" number and then contact a few lost friends in Abu Dabi. (6:00pm)
A cable customer in Texas was reporting a service problem in her city. Being fairly large, the city had been split into directional groups (north, south, etc.) I asked the customer in which she lived, and she replied "I don't know... Don't you know where Texas is?" (8:59pm)
A health products company we answer for requests a self-addresses stamped envelope for written information requests. A caller actually expected me to waive this requirement because he didn't have any paper on hand to write down the address to send the SASE to. This was not outrageously rude or stupid, but it was quite pathetic. (9:49pm)
A man applying for a technical job, when asked in which states he was licensed, replied "You can only be licensed in one state at a time, the DMV only keeps one on record, you can't have multiple licenses." (10:50pm)
Someone calling from Louisiana to fill out an over the phone application for contracting positions. Everyone on earth knows what contractors are for, except this person, apparently. "How many years of experience to you have?" "About a year, counting the time in the nursery." ... "And your craft?" "Helper." The conversation continued on until the final question. "Name the last two or three contractors you have worked for." "Building Blocks." I thought it was a pretty cute name for a contracting company, but the question was for two or three. "And Building Blocks was the only contractor you've done construction for?" "Construction?" "Yes, contracted for construction?" "Building Blocks is a daycare, I didn't build anything there." "...Okay. Well, I'll give this information to the contractors who are hiring, thanks."
Lord help this woman if she ever touched my child. (12:39am)
For those still not in the know, one of our major clients is a cable company servicing approximately 400 cities. My nightly responsibility, from 8pm to 11pm, is to monitor this company for outages and report problems to the technicians who are on call. I also pretty much have to do whatever the main office tells me to as well, and in this case, that was to page on the glut of work orders they were too lazy to send to the tech's truck before closing. It's been some time since I've had to do this, but I wasn't too concerned... Until I tried to input the orders into our system.
The critical detail to remember here is that my information comes from the OFFICE. The headquarters of operation for this company, and the ones that you would just expect to be on the ball.
In this disorganized mass of work orders, I found perhaps five total that I could actually page on. The rest consisted of some odd mixture of alpha-numeric characters in some encrypted message which I, without my Secret Decoder Ring, was unable to decipher. Oh, I had a customer name and address, but the sense stopped there. What's more, of the comprehensible orders, I had such stunning reports as "on channels 13 and up" and "channel goes in and out," which were lacking in those critical aspects of English grammar that would give either myself or the tech SOME clue as to the problem. Even more fun was the order from the office which listed the customer's address as a post office box, with such physical location assistance as "house one story sits on hill." That's it.
Oh well, at least a tech and I had a good chuckle over it... (8:00pm)
Someone called an alpha pager with the message "You left your pager here." (8:57pm)
A caller to the health company, when asked which product he was interested in, demanded to know my name. It took me three attempts to convey it. After my name was established (and even then he had it as "Vicky"), the caller told me that I would tell him the name and the phone number to the company's president. I apologized and informed him that I did not have the information he was asking for, but that I could give him the number to customer service, and perhaps they could help him. The man informed me that was an unacceptable answer, and again told me to give him a name and number. "I cannot give you that which I do not possess," I told the frothing man, who then threatened to report me to... I don't know, God or Bill Gates or some other supposed higher power and hung up. (10:58pm)
A cable caller did not know what number he had called, nor his cable provider. He wanted to know if I knew who he paid his cable bill to and what their number was. Normally, I try and come up with some witty riposte here, but this speaks for itself. (1:52am)
A cable caller in Texas, in addition to being completely unable to tell my gender, felt the need to repeat his cable problem to me no less than nine times: "They're not showing the local weather on The Weather Channel." "Yes sir, so you said several times. I'll let the technician know." "Yes ma'am. And The Weather Channel, they're not showing any local weather." "I'll make a special note of that to the office, good-night." (2:12am)
A customer purchasing health products, when given a choice between the courtesy of being automatically shipped his products at regular intervals for $24.95 per bottle, and having to call in each order on his own for $29.95 per bottle, had to ask which method I recommended. Pity for him that the product he was ordering was not one designed to enhance intelligence. (7:42pm)
In her urgent desire for assistance, an expectant mother calling an order line to reach customer service, thanked me for my help and hung up before I could actually give her the number for customer service. (7:51pm)
An expecting grandmother, placing an order for a gift of maternity clothing, when asked if her city was Cheyenne, replied "No, Cheyenne." (10:00pm)
A cable caller staying in a hotel almost 2000 miles from his home wanted to know how to order PPV from his home cable provider. (10:08pm)
A woman in Texas, while reporting her cable out, tried to refuse giving me any information by claiming "It's out in the whole area!" She relented when I insisted, and when, at the end, I said that there was indeed an area outage, she exclaimed, in all seriousness, "Oh, there is?!" (11:23pm)
Received a call for a web hosting service whose customer was experiencing a problem with his page. "The red pixel-y thing isn't moving and it's supposed to move." After some probing, I was finally able to discover the pixel-y thing in question was an animated gif. Then man asked how I knew this, and I had great difficulty in explaining that the file name extention of .GIF and the fact that it moved were the key hints. He was quite impressed. When the man was told that there were techs available to receive the message that I would send 24 hours a day, he responded with "Really? Is there someone available now?" The cherry on this Stupidity Sundae: his site was a psychic one. Oh, I was soooo tempted to ask why he couldn't figure any of this out for himself. Perhaps even more tempting is the fact that I just visited his site and it's ripe with mocking potential. (11:36pm)
An elderly cable caller wanted to know how to pay her bill. Despite having many, many years of check writing experience under her belt, the combination of billing statement, blank check and return envelope was apparently too much. To further matters, she wanted me to guarantee that they would not reject her check (they had apparently done so in the past). I could make no such guarantee, not having anything at all to do with billing matters. She complained bitterly that there shouldn't be a help number if people couldn't help. As a coup de grace, when given the daytime hours she could call, she responded with "What, when I've been sitting here all day? You're a dope," and hung up. The feeling, ma'am, is mutual. (11:48pm)
Night of the Internet Idiots. A woman having difficulty in accessing the e-mail service provided by our client was unable to give me anything even closely resembling assistance. She had no idea what her ISP is (I have my doubts she even understood my question), did not know how she actually connected to the net (but knew she didn't just turn her computer on and become connected, so we've got a mystery step somewhere), and could only tell me that she used Outlook Express. I think that says a lot right there. Though, to her credit, she DID know the program she used. I'm reminded of a call some time back, whereupon the caller, experiencing some browser difficulty, had no idea which browser she was using. I was reduced to asking if it had an "e" or "a little ship wheel." Thank you, AOL, for making the net user-friendly. (11:50pm)
My psychic friend called back. He asked to speak to a tech directly (had a name this time and everything) and could not understand that the procedures that I had explained to him on his first call an hour ago were still in effect. (12:36am)
Guess who? I wasn't aware of this, but apparently when you call somewhere and don't like what they have to say, if you hang up and call back about 5 minutes later, the laws of the universe shift to give you a favourable outcome. I guess that's how things work in Psychic Land. For those of you curious, all his mighty psychic resources were devoted to reobtaining the red pixel-y motion of this: (12:40am)
Cable caller from Texas called to find out what time a program running at 11pm eastern time would come on in the central zone. I did the difficult 1-hour subtraction for him. He then wanted to know how long the show would last, and I told him I did not have that information and referred him to either a TV Guide or the office in the morning. This took an inordinate amount of time. Five minutes later, he called back and asked me to connect him with someone--anyone--in New York. He believed the entire state's population had knowledge of the show's length. (1:29am)
You'll note a decided lack of reports for today. Digital cable systems were out nationwide, and thus, the volume of calls was staggering. Amazingly, however, when I was finally finished dealing with my cable company and actually started to take calls, people, as a general whole, were NOT that bad. I had more than one ripe idiot, but rarely got the time to note it down, and by the time it had quieted, I'd forgotten the details. ...Okay, I also admit that I had my nose buried in my Game Boy for most of my shift, so my mood was nicely buffered with the idea of animated violence, but that's another matter altogether.
The health company we do a lot of business for is changing something to its order form. Now, before we close a call, we are required to read a script which offers the lucky caller the chance to enroll in some legal consulting thingie. The pitch? You get the first month free, and a free will! I shouldn't have to tell you how horrible this sounds to have to spout out. Not only do you know that 98% of the orderers will not be in the least bit interested, but I feel like I might as well be saying "You're in luck today, sir/ma'am. I know you're old and going to die soon, so how would you like a free will with the health products that you're desperate spending hundreds on in a pitifully vain attempt to stave off the inevitable?" Some days, I feel like I haven't progressed from "Do you want fries with that?" at all. (7:45pm)
When told of a nationwide cable out, a caller in Florida asked, "Which nation?" (8:40pm)
A cable caller in Mississippi complained that twice the tech was supposed to come out and hook up her HBO and had never arrived. Ironically, the only address she could provide me with was "Route 2." Personally, I'm stunned that the technician didn't devote his entire day to figuring out which home on a potentially 50-mile stretch of road was missing HBO. (9:20pm)
One particular client of ours is more irksome than perhaps any other, due to its very nature. They run television ads at 12 or 1am, claiming to sell automobiles to pretty much anybody. They then flash their number (which comes to us, of course) for the duration of this 30 minute infomercial, and we're deluged with callers from that intellectual mecca, Mississippi. This used to be my Friday and Saturday nightmare, but for several months now, it had been blissfully quiet. Not so tonight, as it's ugly head resurfaced. The following are but a few snippets of stupidity:
When asked for gross monthly income (which, incidentally, I had to modify with a definition of "gross" due to 1 or 2 out of 100 callers actually knowing what I was asking for): "I make $500 a week."
Gross monthly income? "$35,000."
Gross monthly income? "I don't have any money, I thought they'd just give me a car."
What is the name of your employer? "What do you mean?"
What is the name of your employer? "Welfare."
Your address? "I live in some five-story building."
It wasn't long after that I began to tune out. I mean, they'd already made me miss most of "The Iron Chef" ... (12:30am)
A cable customer in Texas accused the operator of running programs with S&M and other such depraved sexual acts on that most fiendish of stations, USA. The operator was to be held personally responsible for this station using these tools of the devil to corrupt today's fresh-faced, innocent youth, all of whom, of course, are glued to USA's "Up All Night" at 9pm on a Saturday. (9:08pm)
A cable caller in South Carolina defined his problem as "all lower channels are shot." Upon examination and discussion, the reality was known: there was poor audio on channels 3, 4 and 22. (9:22pm)
A customer called to complain that she had to return her magnetic mattress pad. Apparently, no one had told her that it was unsafe to sleep on the mattress twenty hours a day. Last time I checked, it wasn't good for you to sleep on anything twenty hours a day. (9:30pm)
A call came in on a software development line asking me to retrieve one of his passwords. Of course, it took me several minutes to determine that was what the caller wanted, not being fluent in "unintelligible mumbling." I told him that I would have to take a message for him and leave it for the office to receive on Monday, since my suggestions to check either the user's manual or the online web site were met with the same pliant flexibility as a wall of steel-reinforced concrete. His final response was to call me a "completely fucking useless bitch" and hang up. (10:20pm)
A cable caller in Pennsylvania tried to order PPV, and it told her that the phone number in her account did not match the one she was calling from. The caller quite snottily dismissed all the possible reasons for this that I offered her, and as I couldn't send it to her anyway, I told her that she would need to speak to the office during business hours tomorrow, and that she would be unable to receive the movie tonight.
Caller: Sooooo....? <expectant pause> Me: Sooo, you won't get to see pay-per-view tonight and you'll need to speak to the office in the morning. Caller: Well THANKS for being so HELPFUL, bitch !
I just love nights like this. (11:04pm)
A caller inquiring about the aforementioned magnetic mattress pad seemed to have an unhealthily obsession with weight. To start, she asked "How much does a thirty pound mattress pad weigh?" When I later informed her that the pads were actually between 20 and 25 lbs, distributed between the four sizes, she was insistent upon knowing the exact weight for each size. She said she didn't want to purchase one that she couldn't lift. I have my doubts that she had her strength capabilities worked out to individual pound. (11:12pm)
The police department for a Texas town called in. I was extra-attentive, as the police usually call the cable company to report lines hanging dangerously low and presenting safety hazards. Not this time, however. This time, they were reporting a cable outage... For somebody else. When I inquired as to the reason why the individual called the cops instead of the cable company--which I thought was quite logical--the cop in question said "Oh, well, he works here, so..." and then trailed off. You know, I still can't decide if this town's police force are that effective that crime is at an all-time low, enabling them to pursue entirely other avenues of public service, or if they just suck. Either way, I'm scratching this town off my list of potential relocation sites. (11:27pm)
A caller attempting to find out where to send a check for her health product required two separate explaining attempts from me before she understood that the address I was giving her, "Health Care Company, 666 Devil Lane, Purgatory" (changed for security reasons, of course) was a postal address and not "healthcarecompany@666.devillane.purgatory." I think the Internet has gotten a little out of hand when someone tries to toss their checks into cyberspace. (8:08pm)
A customer inquiring about the price of a power air filter complained about its cost. While I agree that the unit in question is overpriced, the customer's ridiculous complaint stemmed from the fact that while he thought a smaller unit priced at $299 was reasonable, the larger unit, which processed twice as much air, was a rip-off at $349. I wonder how much cheaper he expected to get the thing for. (9:27pm)
Cable caller from Mississippi was complaining that he couldn't order his wrasslin' on the PPV without a phone. He even went so far as to say he never ordered it with a phone before. He said he had no phone. When I asked how he was speaking to me, he paused and said he borrowed a neighbor's phone. Shaking my head, I informed him that I would let the office know and moved onto another, more intelligent call. (10:16pm)
A caller wanted to know if oregano oil that we sell would help him with an accident he had
suffered. Having been exposed to a high amount of rust remover and its fumes, he was suffering from blurred vision, shortness of breath, and loss of feeling in his feet. I advised him to seek medical attention, not a quick fix through something he heard about on the radio. In retrospect, I may have upset the Darwinian chain of survival of the most intelligent... (10:50pm) This report sparked a memory. See The Cretin Chronicles for more information.
When asked for the call letters for the radio station the caller was listening to when he heard of the company, he replied "I can't tell, it's dark in here and my radio doesn't have a light." (11:10pm)
A cable caller asked for the number to dial the PPV adult channel. "Which one?" I asked. "It doesn't matter, I just need sex." I gave him the number, which he voraciously began to dial before he even hung up the phone. (11:13pm)
We were blessed with multiple calls from a man whom I dub as "The Stupidest Man in the World." This is not a malicious insult, merely a statement. During repeated calls to a cable company's billing department he made such statements as "You were supposed to come pick up my flag on Saturday" and "It's dark outside. I have a flashlight." (both statements refined from their less intelligible original utterances.) Amidst numerous "uh"s and ramblings on every topic under the sun, we eventually dispatched the man a third and final time, the collective useful result of his calls being a message for the billing department to the effect of "I sent my bill for $900 for an additional account. I wrote my name really big on the back so you know it's my account. The little truck will pick it up tomorrow." (12:30am)
A cable caller in Florida reported a problem with channels going in and out ... For the past year. A pressing concern, to say the least. (9:59pm)
A customer inquiring about a magnetic mattress pad wanted to know if A) We would cut one in half so he could pay less to use it; and B) If it would help the bones in his neck regenerate. He apparently broke them by falling out of his cot which rests one foot off the ground. (10:00pm)
A cable customer in Colorado, after much exaggerated huffing and puffing as I gathered his information, exclaimed most irritably that one of his channels was out. As I attempted to explain the situation to him--a problem had occurred with the satellites--he would repeatedly interrupt my explanation with such poignant comments as "There's chinese shit on my goddamn hockey game!" The call ended when the customer hit me with the witty rejoinder "Fuck you!" and hung up on me. I understand his abuse, of course. Seeing as how there is absolutely no way in the world one could find out about a sporting event, outside of seeing it live on cable. (10:18pm)
A cable caller in Texas called to complain that her cable was out. Nothing unusual there. However, most callers don't choose to gripe and moan about their outages after they have cancelled their service that same night. She pointed out to me the cancellation, too, as if her redundant actions were something to be proud of. (12:50am)
A caller to the health company was asking a series of medical questions that we do not have the answers to. I told her that she would need customer service in the morning, and she cut me off, exclaiming that her question was amazingly simple and that even an imbecile such as myself should be able to answer it. This woman was obviously not an imbecile of a high enough caliber, and I again explained that as I merely took orders and was not a trained medical professional, I was not qualified to answer medical questions, and she would need customer service. The caller then started bitching that she had the product's book, and was her answer there. "As you have a copy of the book and I do not, you'd be the one most likely to know the answer to that." Eventually, I was able to get the number she needed through to her, and even managed to hang up and move on with my life, being such an extreme imbecile and all. (8:36pm)
A customer who had fallen behind on his bill decided to reward me for the office paging him by putting his still-beeping pager next to the phone at odd intervals. Hopefully, his cable went out later that night. (8:38pm)
A woman called into the maternity clothing company to place an order. To start, she tried to give me her area code for the item number. Most stunning of all, however, was when she caller attempted to pay for her phoned order with cash. "Oh, sure ma'am, just read off that serial number and we'll send it right out to you..." (9:09pm)
A customer who accidentally dialed the number for the Spice channel was given a warning that to complete the order, she would have to call a number they gave her on the screen. Instead of just forgetting the matter, she called the confirmation number to say that she did not want the channel. She then had to call another number altogether when she realized the stupidity of her act, and reached me. Actually, she didn't realize it, even after my repeated slow explanations of what "confirm" meant. I should have given her an additional number to call to confirm that she did not want to order... (9:13pm)
A customer reported her cable out and, as usual, I told her I would report it. "Should I wait?" she asked. "Yes," I said, "thank you." That usually means "Good night," but apparently not here. "Good night," I said, driving the point home. "I thought you were going to contact the technician?" she asked. "I will, ma'am, as soon as you are off my line." "But I want to know what the problem is!" "The problem is that your cable is out and that the technician has not been notified by me. When he has been notified by me, your cable will be one step closer to fixed. I am going to inform him now. Good-night." (9:20pm)
A caller for cable in Oklahoma wanted to cancel her digital cable. She raved and yelled about how she wanted more channels than it provided and that she was thoroughly disgusted. I made a notice to the office to cut off her digital service. Ten minutes later, she called back. explained that she had been "a little upset," and she hadn't realized she got the Sci-Fi channel on the digital cable. She asked me to repeal her previous request. Hope this woman never has children. "Send it back! I don't like it!" Followed shortly thereafter by "Oh, I didn't notice that freckle, I changed my mind." (9:45pm)
The health company received yet another interesting call. After placing an order for about $230 worth of vitamins, the woman wanted to add the vitamin's book--a $4.95 value--to a different credit card. (10:32pm)
A caller, when told the company he had reached was a long distance service, said "What do you do?" The reply of "we provide the service of long distance" didn't help much. The penny finally dropped, and after listening to my explanation of the 7-10 day account set-up process, said "Can I call long distance tonight?" I sincerely hope that the company has an intellectual requirement. (11:24pm)
A highly irate cable customer, on his second call in 15 minutes, reported his cable still out. I explained--or rather, TRIED to explain--the problem to him and encourage him to call the office during business hours to complain about the outage regularity. Several minutes of shouting elapsed, during which time the only thing I managed to make heard was "I'm trying to explain, if you would let me speak." "I'm not interested in anything you have to say!" he bellowed back. "In that case then, this is a pointless exchange, goodnight," and hung up. (1:44am)
The irate caller above called back, except not quite so irate. He lodged a complaint about my co-worker (and fiancee) being rude. Knowing her and having heard her half of the conversation, I knew her purported rudeness was no more than called for at the moment. With these elements in mind, the man's eloquent attempt at revenge on someone who did her job was useless. When told I had been sitting next to her, the gentlemen told me I should smack her. At that point, I shut him out and explained that he should call the office during their hours. (1:56am)
A caller in Mississippi wanted to apply for vehicle financing. When asked his gross monthly income, he replied "I make $350 a week." Now, this is simple math, even for one as numberly impaired as myself. As I've not been in a good mood today, so I repeated my question: "And how much is that per month?" Much "uhhh" and "hmmm"ing ensued, and finally my Einstein replied "About 1400..?" "1400?" "Uhh, yeah... I think so." Ahh, America and her educational institutions... (2:06am)
A cable customer in Florida called to report his cable out, surprise surprise. After giving me his information, he became anxious.
Caller: You're not gonna call me at home, are you?! Me:I'm not going to call you at all. Caller: Well, nobody else will need to, will they?? Me: I dunno. I can tell the tech that you don't want to be called. Caller: Yeah, yeah, cuz... You know, it's 4am!
Ooo, I was soooo tempted to make comments about how he obviously cared little about the time of day ... (2:47am)
It's hard to believe this from the majority of reports on our site, but obnoxiousness is not reserved for cable customers and other such dregs of society. Tonight, a registered nurse and presumably well-educated individual proved to be every bit as abusive as even the worst Texan missing a Cowboys game. A call requiring her services came at about 1:30am which she was paged on. Repeatedly. Sadly, the only number we had for her was the pager, so after no response, we notified the doctors who had called in the original message. They said they'd call the office in the morning, but we kept paging anyway, hoping she'd check in. The handling of the call was out of my hands at this point, but apparently, the operator taking care of it had gotten her home number from somewhere and called her. The next thing I knew, she was ranting and raving that the first time she'd been paged was at 5am (interesting, since 5am was 2 hours in the future) and saying that she'd be damned if anyone would call her at 3am again. This is, of course, completely contradictory from the instructions given to us by her bosses (call homes first, then page, etc.), which we would've done if she'd kept us informed as she is supposed to. I am, to say the least, curious as to how this will turn out... (3:02am)
One of our own co-workers, usually brighter than the average bulb, put the number of a competitor in the to-call section of a client's account information. I don't know how long ago the act was committed, but it made me laugh when I heard about it, so it gets mentioned. (8:00pm)
A cable caller in Nebraska wondered why she was being told to call an answering service to order Pay-Per-View when in fact the answering service could not help her. This is not the kind of reasoning we are privvy to, we only know that we can do nothing and that any such caller in question is SOL for the night. I told her this, in nicer terms. She grunted and hung up. A moment later, she called back, and asked the same question again. This time, my explanation was not enough, and she demanded someone in charge. When told that person was not available, she claimed, "I'll wait. as long as necessary." Smiling, I put her on hold. She hung up within three minutes and was not heard from afterwards. (9:32pm)
My biggest gripe thus far this evening is for my "esteemed" co-workers and their own inability to exhibit even simple problem solving techniques. Now I grant you, it is confusing to have multiple cable companies under the same name, let's call it Crappy Cable for the sake of argument. So when a tech calls our check-in line and reports that he works for Crappy Cable, the novice may indeed become a little unnerved. However, we have all been in the same situation, and if some can learn what simple steps to follow, ALL can. In theory, anyway.
Now, hopefully everyone reading this page would leap to the same, logical conclusions here. A tech for Crappy Cable checks in. You see multiple account listings for Crappy Cable in your directory, so you try the first. This displays a very long list of all the cities covered by that particular Crappy Cable office. You ask the tech for the name of one of his cities, you type in the answer, and see if it's there. If yes, viola! You know what to do with the call. If not, you go back to the accounts listing (a step requiring the push of two buttons) and try the next Crappy Cable account. Lather, rinse, repeat. Given the proper equipment, my hamster could follow this procedure. But we of the so-called Master Species draw a blank. Tonight, one of the computer techs, temporarily forced into doing work instead of just sitting on ICQ all night, had to ask me for help on every single step. Nice linear thinking there, pal. Good to see all that supposed programming you do night after night is helping the proper synapses fire on cue. (10:10pm)
After reporting his cable out, a customer asked the operator "Are you going to call me and keep me entertained while my fucking cable is out?" The operator replied "Sure, I tell you what--get in the corner and stand on your head and stay there until I call back." (11:38pm)
A caller placing an application for car financing was asked "Will you be trading in a vehicle?" She said she was, but getting any information about the car was like pulling teeth. Finally, had to I flat out ask "And what model is the car?" "I don't know, what kinds do you have?" Turns out, surprise surprise, she never really listened to the question. (12:40am)
More financing. Obviously, the ads appeal to a highly select audience - those with horrible credit, sitting at home at 1am on a Friday night, too stupid to answer a few simple questions. Observe some snippets of an application I just took:
Me: And your evening number? Caller: Is that where I work?
-- It's wherever you can be reached in the evening, dumbass. I don't give a shit where it goes.
Me: How long have you been at your present job? Caller: On and off for four years.
-- Oh yeah. Quality human here.
Me: Your gross monthly income? Caller: Monthly?
-- No, per minute. I was trying to trick you, but you saw through my thin ruse, you intellectual pillar.
Me: Do you have a secondary income? Caller: Social Security. Me: ...Social Security? Caller: And child support.
-- Now I'll be the first to admit I don't know everything Social Security is supposed to be paid out for, but it was my understanding that it was primarily for retirement... To receive both it and child support is both disturbing and freakish.
Me: How much do you have for a down payment? Caller: How much do I need? Me: I don't make those determinations, I just place the application. If no, I note that. If yes, then how much. Caller: If I have any, it's $1000.
-- IF you have any? What, do you only have $1000 on Tuesdays? Will you have to check under your pillow in the morning to see if the Down Payment Fairy visited?
Me: Are you trading in a vehicle? Caller: Yeah, I'm looking for an SUV.
-- Not only did she miss the question entirely, but she managed to confirm absolutely everything about herself I'd been considering during the call.
The sad thing is, she'll probably get the financing, too. (1:01am)
A caller for a company which provides remote long distance asked to be patched to the home of an employee as if it weren't the middle of the night. This act is doubly annoying because he did it once before a while back and his assured voice fooled me into thinking him an employee and patching him through. Not so, this time.
No, most definitely not so this time. I received this individual on his third call within a five minute period. He interrogated me as he had done with both Mike and the other operator unfortunate enough to receive him, attempting to bully me into putting him through to somebody's home at 3am. I told him that I would not do that under any circumstances, and that the tech had been paged, which was all I was authorized to do at that stage of the call. "I've been paging him too, and he's not called me back yet," the man said. "Well then, when he can, I assume he'll respond to at least one of us," I replied. He hung up.
On his fourth call, the man seemed quite familiar with our procedure and struck right to the point of asking us to break it. After being informed that we would not call the technician at his home until a reasonable amount of time had passed he began to badger me about the definition of "reasonable amount of time." At this point I was quite tired of him, and Nikki seemed willing to handle him once more, so I turned him over to her tender mercies.
Almost immediately, I was privvy to a slew of threats and supposed guilt trips. I heard many mentions of the world "sue." The man demanded a call back within the next 10 minutes or he would take his business elsewhere. Apparently, he is the god of the long distance world, as he assured me most vigorously that his leaving would be A Very Bad Thing Indeed. I listened to his ranting for a good few minutes, and when the tirade had ceased, I once again informed him that we, as the company's answering service, had a set of instructions which must be followed. The office had not once expressed that this individual was exempt from those procedures, so he would have to wait for things to progress like everybody else. The man told me that those procedures stank and that I should tell the office to change them. As it is not the answering service's place to tell the office what it should have the answering service do, I suggested that he present these ideas to the office on Monday. He was not amused. Neither was I at this stage, to be quite honest. After some more ranting, I once again attempted to explain that this particular section of the universe is ruled by order instead of chaos and that he wasn't anywhere near charismatic enough for me to even remotely consider breaking procedure, but sadly, he hung up on me before I could get that far. Interestingly, not long afterwards, it was indeed time to call the tech at home. Which I did, and after waiting 3 to 5 minutes for said tech to become coherant enough to understand me, was told to call somebody else. I did, but not before shaking my head and grinning quietly to myself about the whole thing.
On his fifth call, our friend asked if there had been any progress made, in a tone of voice which indicated he clearly felt there wouldn't be, which leads one to wonder why he called in the first place. I placed the man on hold to find out the call's status, and when I picked him back up again, I informed him that we had reached the point in procedure where we called the tech at home, and that someone should be contacting him soon. My reward was several seconds of silence, which even my prompting for a response could not break. So I hung up, and that was the end of him, thankfully. (2:50am to 3:17am)
Someone called a control valve manufacturer and, even after having the company's profession explained to them, insisted that I take their hotel reservation cancellation, despite telling me the name of the hotel, which sounded nothing at all like the name of the company she called. (8:02pm)
Cable caller in Texas. I was gathering his information, which was apparently deeply and personally insulting to the man. When I asked for his physical address, he responded with "Well you are a goddamned piece of work, ain'tcha?" I was actually quite taken aback by this, it was so unexpected. The caller then launched into some kind of babbling about his problem (all quite redundant without his address anyway), and I repeated my request for his location. To this, he said "Is there anything else you want to know?" in a very snotty voice indeed. "Yes, how about the information I've already asked you for?" "You're a fucking crazy--" "Do you plan to give me the information I'm asking for at any point in this conversation?" "Fuck no--" "Goodnight, then." (8:50pm)
A cable caller from Mississippi hung up on me. Then she called back and said that she "accidentally put the phone down on the hook." Oh, please. This is just so pathetic I am beyond the words to respond to it. (9:05pm)
A cable caller from Kansas decided, out of the blue, to mess with the cable wires running into her trailer. Surprise, surprise, she wasn't getting all of her channels afterwards. She also was nice enough to crank her country music up to about 9 on the volume and then claim that there was nothing playing in the background. (11:09pm)
An elderly woman called our health product center and, after discovering the price for an item, laid the guilt on with a trowel, noting that her husband had just died and that her money was all tied up. She said she would have to "let it go for now and suffer in pain." She then paused, no doubt waiting for the water from my tears to short out the phone connection. Sorry, but no item yet has been invented that will cure old age, but when it is, I suggest they put this woman near the front of the line, or put her out of her (and our) misery now. (12:20am)
Call me crazy, but when I call someplace to report something, I want on and off the phone ASAP. I have other things I'd rather do with my time, after all. Not so for this woman, I suppose. She felt the need to argue or contest EVERY SINGLE QUESTION I asked. For example, when I did not have her city listed and asked for the name of another close to her, she said "How close? 10, 15, 30 miles?" How hard is that question? How about you say the first name that manages to survive the trip from your brain to your mouth and we'll go from there? I asked her name, and she replied "Whose name? My name, or the name on the bill?" What does the question What is your name? mean to you? (1:15am)
A customer, when asked which size mattress pad she was interested in, said "What size is the twin?" (3:18am)
An operator paged a tech many times for a major outage in Missouri. When the tech finally called, she copped an attitude, screaming and demanding to know why she had never been paged for the calls in her account. The operator explained that the tech had been paged, and three times at that. The tech wanted to know what these supposed three times were, and when the operator replayed them, called her a liar, stating that her pager recorder said she was paged at 7pm. "I thought you said you hadn't been paged?" the operator asked. "...bitch," responded the tech, who then hung up without getting any of the outage information. So the operator called the woman's chief tech and passed along this little exchange, along with all the customers whose cable was out. Needless to say, he was none too pleased with his underling. Ahhh, sometimes, there IS a justice of sorts. (7:40pm)
A caller for our health products company wanted to placed an order. He didn't know what the product was called or what it did, but the radio program he listened to was so effective, he wanted to get it anyway. I steadfastly refuse to pitch products, so we talked for a time before settling on some oregano, although with this customer's naivete, I could've sold him edible gym socks that cured cancer... (8:12pm)
A cable caller from somewhere. He did not know what city he was in. This is a rather vital piece of information when dealing with a cable problem. He said he would call back when he found out. I wouldn't be surprised if he just called back immediately, thinking that someone else more competant than I could help. (9:01pm)
A customer who had put his money order for a magazine subscription in the mail three days earlier wanted to know where his magazines were. I didn't have the heart to tell him that our mailbox gnomes had Easter weekend off, and his magical instant magazine delivery would instead take the standard 4-6 weeks after they recieved payment. (9:38pm)
A customer ordering a mattress pad first tried to pay for it with a bank identification card ("What do you mean, what are the rest of the numbers, son? There are only 10 on the card."), then folowed up with a phone card and a Texaco gas card. I was expecting his Mickey Mouse Club membership card by the time he gave me an actual, valid Visa number. (10:15pm)
A customer called to get an address to send an SASE to. She decided to write it down while driving her car and using her cell phone. I could actually hear people honking at her as she did this. At one point, she muttered, a little louder than she probably thought, something about them shutting up. Ten to one odds that she was driving an SUV, too. (11:00pm)
A caller for our health products company was either terminally stupid, a crank caller, or both. After repeated attempts at explanation, he still did not understand that would need to send a self-addressed stamped envelope to receive written information about the products. (The reason being that people waste the company's money by requesting free literature and then ditching it when they see the outrageous prices, however our standard response to complaints is "It's company policy." Ahh, bureaucracy.) He then decided to tell me about some indian herb he had taken in his youth and how it gave him "sexual erection" and whether or not I knew where to get it. All in all, a fitting cap to a night full of idiots. (3:20am)
A cable caller complained that she received a letter about an unpaid bill from November. "That was six months ago, what year is this??" she demanded. "2000, depending on who you ask. You paid this bill six months ago, ma'am?" I asked. "No, I didn't pay it. But that was six months ago!" "I'm sorry, ma'am, but the Statute of Limitations is seven years. I can take your information and request the billing department call you back..." "No, that's alright, I'll call again." Somehow, I don't think she will. (8:20pm)
A cable caller in Arkansas, after reporting poor reception, was told it would be reported, said "Okay" and the call was terminated, as the process goes. A few moments later, he called again. "We got disconnected!" he exclaimed with obvious surprise. "The operator suddenly came on and said 'If you'd like to make a call...'" I told him that he wasn't to actually WAIT, which seemed to be quite a shock to him. He wasn't obnoxious at all, just said "Oh, okay" and moved on with his life, but I couldn't help but shake my head at such quiet, unassuming stupidity. (9:35pm)
A cable customer in Pennsylvania called to inquire about having cable installed for her mother. Everything was progressing smoothly. I told her she would need to speak with the office and that I would leave a message for them to call her in the morning. When I asked for the address of the cable installation, it turns out that her mother lives in Georgia. The woman became genuinely confused when I told her that she would need to contact a cable provider in Georgia. I could just imagine her saying to herself "But I'll be paying the bill..." (9:45pm)
A woman in Florida called to complain that both the Spice channel and the Playboy channel were showing on her TV. I can understand how this may be alarming, but apparently this was genuine cause for concern, as these channels being on meant the woman's conscience would not allow her to leave her children to be babysat by the TV as per usual. I told her than the office would need to fix this and they were closed until tomorrow, but the woman refused to leave any information, saying that it only happened at night, and therefore, would be pointless to report for the daytime. However, she expected the office to magically have the channels off by the next night without a clue as to who this woman is or where her service is located. (9:58pm)
We have a famous cable customer. This person calls so much for their cable that most people learn his name, address and phone number by heart. In a business where one handles a sub-clientele of tens of thousands, this is an accomplishment. Previous actions by this person include shooting at the technicians he requested come out to look at his cable and calling up to a dozen times per day. Today, to earn his way here, he called five times. Each call was to request a tech come out to his house tomorrow. I shouldn't need to expound on a repeated request for a deadline which has not yet passed... (9:55pm)
A cable customer in Mississippi called to report a problem. A problem requiring a great deal of effort on my part to determine. Follow at home and see if it takes you as much time as it took me:
Me: And your service problem? Caller: <changes her address> Me: <after address change> And your service problem? Caller: It's under <changes name> Me: <changes name> And your service problem? Caller: My cable was reconnected today. Me: .....oookay. And the problem? Caller: What? Me: What is the service problem? Caller: What? Me: Why did you call this number? Caller: My cable was reconnected today. Me: Riiiiight. You said that last time, but that's usually a good thing, so I'm puzzled as to your reason for calling. Caller: I cain't see nuthin'. Me: But your cable was reconnected today? Caller: Yeah. Me: Are you certain? Caller: I mailed my check today. Me: So you put your check in the mail today to pay your overdue balance and the reconnect fee, and you still can't see anything? Caller: Yeah. Me: Well, your cable probably wasn't reconnected. Caller: Why you say that? Me: You not seeing anything is a big hint.
I should've invoked the Mailbox Gnomes, but it probably would've just confused her more. (10:15pm)
A person interested in a magnetic mattress pad called and actually asked me the question "How does it work?" You put it on your bed and lay on it, there's not a whole hell of a lot more can be done with such an item. (11:22pm)
A cable customer in Texas called to report her cable out. I told her the tech was aware of the outage and that he hoped to have it up sometime tomorrow.
Caller: So, in other words, there's no technician out here and there never was, right? Me: No, in exact words, there's nothing else the tech can do about the outage at midnight, so he will return to work on it when he gets up in the morning. Caller: Well what's the problem with it?! Me: He didn't specify, he just passed along that information to us to tell you. Caller: Why the hell don't you KNOW?! Me: Because it's not my job to interrogate the technicians, my job is to take down your report and pass along whatever information I have, which I have done. Caller: Well it's not your job to be a SMART ASS, either! *click*
We clearly have contradicting ideas on what it is that I do. (11:55pm)
A cable caller from Nevada complained bitterly that she could not get a monthly cable guide sent to her from the cable company, even for a cost. She had gone so far as to orgnize the majority of her 125-population town to show that they were indeed numerous enough to warrent the trouble of distributing guides. I was severely tempted to ask why they didn't just get off their butts once a week and buy a TV Guide and save themselves some money. Another case of people with too much time on their hands. (12:58am)
A woman in Texas called to complain that when she called the cable office to order "the movie channel", she received The Movie Channel and not the HBO she wanted. Perhaps of greater amusement, it took her two weeks to realize this. (7:58pm)
A man called and snottily said he wanted the health company we represent to send him some infromation. I calmly informed him that he would need to send an SASE to our address first. "You're not going to send me anything?" he asked. "We certainly will, after you send us an SASE." "Well, damn, forget about it then." I can tell that the customer was just dying to get this information... (8:00pm)
Night of the Laziness. A woman calling to locate a maternity store near her was shocked that the closest store was a whopping 17 miles away. She asked for a catalog instead. When told that we did not have one, but sport that nifty online invention, the website, complete with ordering capability, she couldn't be bothered to write the URL down. (8:04pm)
A cable caller from Texas complained that, of all things, baseball was showing on her ESPN. How dare they show sports on a sports network. She was told there was no one in the office because they closed at nine.
Caller: But it's ten o'clock, where are they? Mike: They went home an hour ago, it's after ten. Caller: What time is it there? Mike: After ten.
Later... Mike: I'll report your problem to the office and technicians. Caller: Well, if they're not going to fix it tonight, don't bother. Mike: Did you say this was a recurring problem? Caller: Yes, it'll happen again tomorrow night. Mike: But you don't want it reported if they can't fix it tonight? Caller: That's right. Mike: Okay.... Caller: And let me tell you, I have lived here for 50 years and during all that time I never had any problems with the cable until these last two companies took over.
I somehow doubt that her backwater 12-population residential town in 1950 even had television, let alone cable, which wasn't even introduced until about 20 years ago... (10:05pm)
A woman called, trying to get help on ordering the Spice channel, which she first erroneously called the Playboy channel (since both exist, stating the wrong one can be a problem). I finally managed to explain that one can only get that channel on the weekends unless they subscribe to it monthly, an act which can only be done when the office is open. She then told me she wanted to order Blue Streak and gave me the channel number which plays Spice "accidentally". When I called her on that, she got what I can only assume was the proper channel for it. She then could not remember her pin number, which she needed to input to order PPV. With the subtlety of a jackhammer, I finally made her understand that the pin number could also only be retrieved during office hours. At least, I THOUGHT I made her understand... (10:20pm)
Our oversexed friend from above called and I was fortunate enough to field her. "Remember me?" she opened the call with. "No, should I?" "Yeah." "Well...I don't, so give me a clue." She then gave me her name, and while by now I knew she was in fact the same woman that Mike had just gotten off the phone with, I felt like playing. "I don't have the foggiest who you are, no." I think she was still convinced that I was just being coy. I listened to her bitch and moan at not remembering the pin code that she had just created earlier today, I grew bored, and told her that she'd need the office tomorrow, just as she'd been told a few minutes ago. She kicked up a bit of a fuss, but she was dispatched poste haste, none the wiser of her pin number and wholly without porn. (10:26pm)
A woman in Nebraska called to report her cable out. I informed her that it was a planned outage for cable upgrades, and she asked me if the cable system was out more than it was on. I thought initially that this was a rhetorical question, but it turned out she really wanted to hear my answer, so I told her that as I had never before set foot in her area, let alone have cable service there, I had no idea. She went on to ask me who she would need to speak to for billing credit. I told her that would be the billing department, who would be open again in the morning. "That's useless, they don't give me credit. I deduct it from my bill and send them notes with my check, and then they charge me late fees!" I was going to tell the woman that people can't just arbitrarily deduct from their bill at their discretion, but didn't bother to waste my time. Instead, I reminded the woman that she had asked me who she would need to contact, she had received my answer, and that she couldn't possibly be doing anything more useless by talking to billing about her bill than trying to convince the answering service to give her creidt. (11:11pm)
A customer requesting information from our health call service, when told of the standard policy of sending an SASE, expressed some concern. He apparently (and may I re-iterate for those who may doubt from time to time, none of these tales are made up) did not know how to send a letter. If it couldn't be done over the phone or on the Internet, he was lost. Looking at this, I'm reminded of the vision Bill Gates had where all media is electronic, no one knows how to write, or turn the pages of books... (2:40am)
A woman called a construction company asking "Is this the school?" When told she had the wrong number, she asked "Do you know the number for the school?", as though there were but one institute of learning in this country. (8:54pm)
When asked for his street address, a caller in Texas said "I don't live on a street, I live at the corner of XX and YY." Later, he inquired as to how the channel ESPN "worked". "Well, sir, you turn your cable to that channel and watch. Enjoyment is optional but recommended." (8:57pm)
A woman working at a prison said her cable was down. "The inmates are getting restless, so I'd like it fixed as soon as possible." First of all, I'm one of those believers in prison being more like, well, a prison then a hotel suite, so my sympathies for those murderers, rapists and thieves who couldn't watch the latest "Wazaap" commercials is understandibly limited. Secondly, if I were a guard or a warden, I'd rely a lot more on my gun to mollify any prisoner's rage than cable television. I mean, I wonder how they survived the onslaught the day Elian Gonzales was taken away... (9:25pm)
Another cable caller in Texas wanted to check the price for adding digital cable ("That extra channels thing") to her service. She had been quoted a price of $50 by the office, but a complete stranger in another city that she mentioned this to told her they were lying, so, with no regard for common sense whatsoever, she believed the woman who knew nothing over the trained, paid professionals working for the cable company itself. I should have said "No, THAT woman was the liar. And she's SATAN to boot!" She might have actually believed me... (10:14pm)
I had a crank caller (or a very elaborate wrong number). The individuals really wanted to chat to me, as it turns out they were Australian and had never spoken to anyone in America before. They were quite delighted, asked me if I surfed, and wanted me to tell them all about my Baywatchian, Simpsonsesque life. They were nice enough girls, if a little worrying, however after having listened to my own Australian and her accent for hours on end, their thrill was not so enthusiastically reciprocated. (10:42pm)
Remember that huge tech fiasco from a while back? Techs 1-6 and Mystery Tech 7? If not, go try to find that report and read it before this one, as you will have a better understanding. The cable went out here again. Once more, no tech wanted to assume responsibility. When one of them, the backup, finally responded, he could not understand why we paged him, despite our informing him that the office's very specific instructions were to page both the on-call (o/c) and backup (b/u). "Those rules are stupid, change them." Sure, you go to the office on Monday and fax us an official change of procedure and we'll change it in a heartbeat, but I somehow doubt they'll accept the reasoning of "But I don't WANNA go out at night and fix the cable!" Anyway, eventually the true o/c checked in (I did not speak to him) and shortly thereafter, the b/u called to check on the o/c. I relayed the report that the o/c had checked in, and the b/u proceeded to interrogate me about the checkin... "Did he get this, say that, did his breath smell," etc etc. I told the b/u (who couldn't be bothered to take any of these outages he was purporting to be so concerned about) all I knew: the o/c had just checked in and whoever he spoke to reported a delivery of the outage calls. At this point, the tech asked me "Do you have his pager number? I want to make sure you're paging him." My brain had trouble downshifting to this level of idiocy, so I asked him to repeat his question. Yup, sounded just the same. I told the b/u that I assumed we did, as the tech somehow magically knew we needed to talk to him. The b/u seemed confused by this bit of logic and hung up. (11:11pm)
A cable caller in Colorado reported her cable "sucks" but provided no other details, except to inform me that "one week has passed since last Friday." Wow, really? (11:20pm)
This spectacular jackass was annoying when he would have been just amusing because he kept me from seeing the scoring on "Iron Chef." He claimed to have enrolled in some program whereupon he received airline tickets and other gifts. Never mind that I had never heard of any such offer. He told me of a 24-hour number that was disconnected. I knew naught of that, either. "Alright, you'll need to call customer service during their office hours--" "No, I need to call you." "No, you need to call customer serivce--" "No, I need to call YOU. Did you hear me?" "Yes, I did. You have called me, and I cannot help you. So, you need to call customer service. I can give you that number and the hours." "Your name." "Mike. My operator number is XX." I gave him the phone number and hours and he said he would call it. I don't doubt he will, if only to report me for whatever inanity his mind can conjure. (12:55am)
The continuing adventures of Friday Financial Fun. More losers calling to get car financing with but a brain cell to share between them.
A man said that he needed special financing because he had filed for bankrupcy, but he only wanted it for a Corvette, no older than 97 or 98. Ever hear the old addage "Beggers can't be choosers?" Learn it, live it, love it, my Chapter 11 friend.
When asked for her social security number, a woman asked "Am I allowed to give that out over the phone?" I actually had to laugh out loud at that. I realize that some people have a serious issue with giving their SSN out at all, but then to ask if she has permission to do it over the phone ... What, do you think I'm actually an undercover police officer, and by uttering those 9 digits to those you call, I'll send in a unit to collect you?
A man gave his cell phone as his daytime number, and then when asked for an evening number, said he didn't have one. Okay, it was possible that he had to turn the phone in at the end of the day or something, but just in case, I clarified, "There's no number where you can be reached at night." He confirmed, and as I moved to the next question he interrupted me with "Well, there IS my work number ... or my cell phone."
The same man answered the query about secondary income with a claim that he did something with horses. I asked him how much he received for that monthly, and he said that it depended upon the number of horses he worked with. "Estimate," I told him, so he did: "About $400." "Okay, $400 per month..." "No, per horse." Like that means anything to ANYbody but this lone, sad, car-less man. He should stick to horses, at least with his intelligence or lack thereof, he'd have to try really hard to hurt others.
Stay tuned, it looks like every Friday for a while will be diluged with callers such as these. Joy. (12:32 to 1:08am)
UPDATE: A good one and a half hours after it was reported that he checked in, the o/c mentioned a few reports back called. You see, the b/u had been bagering me most of the night, so I finally went and paged the o/c to request a status report on the outage. Not surprisingly, it took him all that time to respond to the page. I asked him how the outage looked, and he said that he was going out to look at the problem now. "You're JUST going out?" I asked incredulously. "Yeah, I just found out about it." I told him that we had a report of him checking in and picking up outages around 11pm, and he denied that he had done so. However, he seemed to know where the problem areas were located and didn't ask me for a scrap of information from the callers, not to mention denying that he had been paged all this time by me for a checkin, and yet somehow managing to call our checkin line in the wee hours of the morning and knowing what it was I was paging for. Interested, I asked the person who had spoken to him at 11, and she said that the caller very clearly confirmed who he was. I'd say those internal problems are still very much evident. (1:26am)
Upon calling a tech at home, I was greeted with a very loud and drawn out "WAS-SAAAAP!!" I paused for a beat and then asked to speak to the tech. The phone was rapidly handed off to the party I needed, and I was amused to hear much embarrassed laughing and "Oh my god!"ing in the background. (7:57pm)
A cable caller in Texas reported her cable going in and out. There were tornado warnings in her area, so I asked if she had a radio to listen to in the meantime. "Why should I?" she asked. (8:30pm)
Cable caller in Florida, purchased a cable box and was dissatisfied with its performance, as it didn't seem to be giving him the extra channels he ordered. "The cable going into my TV is fine, works great, but the cable box is junk." "Are the cables connected securely to the box?" I asked. "What, I have to run my cables through that too?" (8:44pm)
Chairman Kaga seems to have cursed me, two nights in a row my Iron Chef viewing has been interrupted. this gentleman began by asking my name, inquiring why I wouldn't given him a last name. After the matter of my personal privacy was settled, he began to tell me his grandiose ideas for how our health company could reach a massively greater audience. Never mind that his idea--to take thousands of copies of brochures for every product the company sold, and provide them to every radio station that airs its ads--would send the company into financial ruin. Never mind that the shows are all recorded and not live anyway. Never mind that I was but a lowly peon and no one who had any control over the company whatsoever. After many, many minutes of his unstoppable preaching, I gave him an address to send his ideas to and hung up, still completely in the dark about what this individual stood to gain from any of this. (12:05am)
A cable customer in Illinois called a cable provider in Louisiana to complain about his HBO clicking in and out during a movie. He informed me that he would be getting HBO free that month and that the cable company would reimburse him the cost of that same movie when he rented it at Blockbuster the next day. (1:18am)
A woman watching "channel 50" on her television caller her cable provider to try and get the number for an exercise product featured on an infomercial there. Of all the information we at the after hours service would have, this would be pretty far down the list. After explaining that the only way for the woman to get the product number was to watch the infomercial again on that channel, she said "So I should stay put until they show it again." "Well, if you have other things in your life, you may want to do those." "I don't understand." And she probably never will. (2:15am)
A woman with a familiar problem called into a cable company, let's use the moniker of Crappy Cable once again:
Me: Crappy Cable, may I help you? Caller: Is this channel 50? Me: No, this is Crappy Cable. Caller: I need to talk to channel 50. Me: Then you would need to call another number. Caller: What number is that? Me: I don't have any idea. Caller: This isn't channel 50? Me: No, it's Crappy Cable. Caller: How do I call channel 50? Me: I've no idea, ma'am. Caller: Would operator assistance have the number? Me: You'd need to ask operator assistance, not Crappy Cable.
She mumbled a bit and hung up. Personally, I don't think that her body muscles are the ones most in need of strengthening. (2:28am)
A caller to our health products center. A man laid off and having trouble paying his rent, considered the purchase of a $250 mattress pad. Even if common sense did prevail, the mere consideration of such an act was ludicrous. (3:07am)
A woman calling into the health company wanted to know more about the product she had just heard on the radio, but could not tell me a product name. The only details she could give were that it contained calcium and magnesium. In the 100+ products the health company deals with, nary a one I was familiar with focuses on calcium and magnesium, so I asked the woman to provide more details so I could help her. About this time, she became abusive, insinuating that my intellectual capabilities were sub-par because I did not automatically know what she wanted. Trying to brush her comments aside, I tried a different tactic, asking her what she would take the product for. "It's CALCIUM, are you too STUPID to know what you take CALCIUM for?!" Having crossed my line of patience some time back, I told the woman that she would need to call customer service tomorrow. The woman would not stop telling me how dumb I was long enough to get the number, so after asking if she had any plans to actually take down the information I was trying to give her and still receiving a string of insulting babble, I hung up. (9:47pm)
There is no length to which a cable caller will not go to try and magically get their cable back. Never before have I encountered such a heinously-placed guilt trip as this evening, when a woman in Colorado pointed out that she was handicapped, that the television was her only companion, and asked me "Do you know what it's like to be told you're going to lose your leg?" My soft-hearted side won out and I refrained from my first impulsive response: "Just like being told you're going to lose both legs, only half as bad?" People who bring their irrelevant problems into situations like these are even more pathetic then everyday idiots because they know better. (10:35pm)
A customer verifying the address to the health company that his wife had written down said he would have to call back. He could read her handwriting perfectly well, but could not figure out how to say the words. (11:31pm)
A pizza delivery person at an apartment complex called that complex's office (receiving us) to have the security gate opened. This must be done by the person in the apartment they are delivering to. The pizza woman did not understand this. When comprehension finally sunk in, she asked, "I have their phone number, can you call and ask them to open it?" "Why, don't you have a phone?" "No, there's no phone anywhere around here." (11:36pm)
A caller locating a clothing store in her area, after verifying its location, asked if they would accept cash. (11:46pm)
A man in Texas called his cable company. Observe the following conversation.
Me: Your name, please? Caller: Channel 13 ain't got no picture. Me: Okay, and your name? Caller: Channel 13. Me: No, your name. Caller: Channel 13. Me: So your given, birth name is 'Channel 13'? Caller: Yeah. Me: <disbelieving> ...your name is Channel 13. Caller: OH!! ...Channel 13. Me: <sigh> Sir. Your NAME.
Finally, the penny dropped and I actually got a name. Of course, he then tried to tell me his phone number was "Channel 13"... (11:48pm)
A woman called from Colorado. Checking the computer records after the call was completed, we discovered it was the same woman Mike had spoken to earlier. She reported again that her cable was out, and I told her the same thing Mike did - that I would let a tech know and that was all I could do for her. The woman responded by telling me to take money off her bill to cover the seven hours she had been without cable. I replied that I could not do that and she would need to call the billing department tomorrow. Or, rather, I tried to. She interrupted me part way through, yelling "YOU WILL DEDUCT THIS TIME FROM MY BILL!!" "No, madame, I cannot do that for you. You need to speak to billing." A moment passed and then the woman said "You know what? You are a stuck-up little bitch!" I complimented the woman on her stunning wit and hung up. Still, I was quite taken aback. I know myself well enough to know when what I'm saying could legitimately be interpreted as "rude", and in this case, I wasn't even close to that. Brr, scary old handicapped woman. (12:04am)
A customer ordering something from our health service insisted on spelling every bit of her information, even the word "box". Even she realized she was taking it too far when she got to her box number. "That's 'six' as in six..." (12:25am)
This is not limited to this caller, merely that she was the 10th person to say this to me today, and I've had enough. When calling the health company for information on the magnetic mattress pad and asked which size they are interested in, these brainiacs reply "I don't know, I don't know anything about it." Do you know your bed size? Do you know anything at all about the item you spend $500+ on? Sadly, in many cases, the answer to both of these is "no", but I'm stunned by those who know they have a queen-sized bed, but can't make the connection to ask about a queen-sized mattress pad. (12:54pm)
A caller to the health company was interested in the magnetic mattress pad. One of his many questions was "Where are the magnets made?" Now perhaps one more knowledgeable in the ways of magnets would consider this a perfectly reasonable question, but me in my ignorance can only mock. "Well, sir, these are very special magnets, harvested from the sacred magnet trees of Tibet. We must send out teams of magnet ranchers routinely to replenish our stock. Many are killed by yeti along the way. When they finally arrive at the gates to the magnet grove, they must battle the fearsome order of monks to gain access. This is why it will take up to four weeks to receive your mattress pad. Will you be using Visa or Master Card?" (1:20am)
Health company. The caller, when asked which product she was calling for, answered with the name of the company. I confirmed that this was the correct company, and asked again "Which product are you calling for?" The response was "I don't understand your question." (9:13pm)
(12:40am)