While doing a scan for cable problems, I stumbled across this gem: "Has hotixontalmlines on a channel". What the hell is that? It sounds like an infectious disease, not a cable problem. (6:13pm) A man in Texas was aghast that he received a bill this month. "I just sent them money last month!" (8:51pm) A caller to our health products company wanted to pay by money order. Instead of writing down our address, she wanted us to send the address to her in the mail so she could send us back a money order. She said she'd have to call us back when she had more time to get the address, though, despite presumably having more than enough time to give us her address. Not only was she too lazy to write the address down, she was too lazy to think up anything better. (8:56pm) One of the long disatance customers called in, having trouble placing a call to Honduras from her home:
A man in Mississippi called in (as many Mississippians did tonight) to report his cable out. I told him the same thing I'd told 100 or so people tonight, that the tech was out working on the outage and we had no estimated time of restoration. Unlike the previous 100, however, this was not enough and he began ranting about how his cable had been out for the past two hours. I listened for a few minutes and then said "The technician is working on the outage, sir. What else would you have him do?" He had no answer to that one, but he had plenty more to say about the matter, although I have little idea what about. The best I could gather was that he was trying to make some sort of correlation between the cable being out and being $1.00 short on his bill. Of course, while he's babbling, calls are backing up, so I tried to sum it up for him: "Sir, being $1.00 short and your cable being out are two unrelated events. As I said, the tech is aware of the outage and is working on it now. He'll have it back up as soon as possible." No such luck, sadly, as he fixated on me instead. "Unrelated? Did you say they are unrelated?" "Yes, I did." He repeated his question. I refused to repeat my answer. "What is your name?" I gave it, and spelled it for him. "And where do you live? What is your address?" That one really got me, and with a laugh I told him he was not privy to that little tidbit of info. "Okay, fine, I'll get it from the office tomorrow." "Sure you will, sir," I replied, still laughing as he hung up. (11:43pm) When asked for her address, a woman in Mississippi replied "My address ... You mean the location where I live?" (12:16am)
Cable technicians can be a source of great amusement, particularly if they start to screw around with you. In this one example, a tech obviously possessing caller ID thought he could avoid me by picking up the phone and immediately hanging it up again. Siwwy widdle techie-poo. As slow as tonight is, all you've managed to do is give me an idea for how to spend the next 10 minutes. Guess how that was? My reward was having a frustrated cry around minute 8 or so. Finally bored, I moved to the chief tech and let him know what was going on. He was somehow less amused than I was, and the tech checked in for his calls within 2 minutes. For some obscure reason, he didn't sound very happy... (7:58pm) A cable caller complained about being unable to get her local channels and threw the tried-and-true "afraid of tornados" reasoning at me. I blocked and countered with the "use your radio" line of thought. She thought she had the upper hand as she said, "I would, but I live in a part of the country where we don't have radio stations." "Ma'am, I'm sorry," I almost said, "you like in Oklahoma, not outer Mongolia." (11:05pm) A truck driver with a flat tire called his servicing company. Sadly, he chose tonight to do so, as the on-call for that company exceeded even my standards of let-down. Knowing (as I did, since there was a bulletine declaring it) that his company was going to be open up to and includin the 4th, he told me, "Hold that and fax it over to the office in the morning." I'm hoping thatt he person with the flat calls back so I can convince him to try and call another company. (11:33pm)
An old woman called our health products company to find out how to use the oregano she ordered. This would be understandable, except that she had not yet received the product, including a 100+ page book which tells one how to use those products for hundreds of problems. Nevertheless, she felt it was essential she know right now, this instant. (7:35pm) I made a fairly unsettling discovery at work tonight. While getting something out of a cabinet, I happened to spy a pair of silky, light aqua undergarments stashed there. I couldn't tell you if it was a bra or panties. There was no way in hell I was touching it to get a closer look. Instead, I stared for a moment to ensure my eyes weren't deceiving me and closed the door. I find myself unwilling to dwell on the reasons why someone would remove their unmentionables at their workplace. Unfortunately, however, my thoughts seem to insist on returning to how you can just go home and forget that you're no longer wearing them ... (9:53pm) A woman in Florida called, claiming she was experiencing a cable problem in that some of her channels were broadcasting with spanish audio. I told her how this was an audio feature found on her TV and not a cable problem. She initially responded to this with "I dunno how to change that!" When I suggested that she either use her television manual (am I the only freak in the world who actually keeps the instructions to her $500 toys?) or play around with her menu options, she instantly decided that it must be the cable's fault. Her reasoning? Only some of the channels were playing in spanish. She ignored my explanation that it was due to the fact that those were the only programs which currently possessed a spanish audio track. No, she just insisted the problem was with the cable, so I shrugged and told her to call the office when they reopened after the holiday, on Wednesday. "That's just unacceptable," she said. "It's gonna have to be," I replied with a chuckle, "they won't be open before then." At this point she began to demand credit. "...because a few of your stations have spanish audio." "Yes! I shouldn't have to pay for something I don't understand!" I had to bite back my comment about how she'd be paying for nothing but Nick Jr. if that were the case, and told her that would also have to wait until Wednesday. (10:49pm)
A guy called into one of our cable companies and when asked which city he was in, he replied that he needed the number for the local police department. The operator suggested that the caller try 911. Just as well, apparently this avenue of emergency contact never occurred to the man. I'd hate to see who he'd call if his cable went out. (9:15pm) A caller to our health services company inquired about the magnetic mattress pad. After being given the requisite information, she paused and asked "So, should I buy this?" I waited for the forthcoming discussion to be held with somebody else in the room with her and she asked if I was still there. I assured her I was, and she repeated her question, obviously talking to me. "Why not?" I asked, "I'm not busy right now." And indeed, she did spend $300 on the pad at my command. How sad. (10:25pm) A cable caller, after being asked his city, launched into a monotone recital of all his information, steady and sure, and ignoring all my attempts to get his attention. He apparently thought he had reached voice mail. After he stated the last of his problems, I said, equally monotone, "Thank you for your message. We will notify our technicians with your information." He said "Thanks" to the 'machine' and hung up. (10:33pm) A woman interested in the magnetic mattress pad called to inquire about the price. She started out fairly typically, refusing to relinquish that most precious tidbit of information, her bed size, while simultaneously demanding to know the price. She managed to worm her way out of obscure mediocrity, however, by laughing hysterically when I told her the price of the pad. She went on to insist that I was making it up. Now the things are expensive, yeah, but not THAT expensive. Even more peculiar was her instant drop out of hilarity to flatly say "Goodbye" when I assured her that I was quite serious. Prank caller? Pure truth? I'm not sure of anything, except that she was pretty lame, either way. (11:34pm) First day back and I'm greeted with late night pledge drive bullshit. One woman in Texas, after drilling me on the details for the Doo Wop 50s item, actually consigned to ask "Will the video have that little nigger boy on it?" Needless to say, the conversation didn't last long afterwards. (12:16am) Another pledger in Texas, this woman was arguing with me over her credit card number's expiration date of April 2000. She insisted that it was still good. Even defining "expiration" for her did little to pierce her wall of ignorance. "But I have letters from them saying I can still use it!" (12:24am) A pledge caller refused to pledge for some videos they were playing on the station because I couldn't tell her where they were recorded. Does it matter? I should have said Upper Mongolia and just listened to her brain sizzle. (12:24am) I wish I knew what was so difficult to comprehend about bed sizes. Yet another curious person called wanting to order a mattress pad, but when asked for the size, he had no idea. Regardless, he wanted to place an order for the twin size -- "I think that's something like it." I encouraged him to be certain before shelling out $250 for the thing, so he ran off to check. A few minutes later, he came back and reported "It didn't say." So he went ahead and delightedly gave me his credit card. Ahh, a fool and his money ... (1:07am) A caller to our internet hosting service was having problems with his site. Seems that after downloading a CGI script from his site, he opened it with Word 2000, just to have a look. He changed nothing, saved it in Word, and reuploaded the file to his site, overwriting the previous one. "I'm new to this stuff," he confessed. "Well duh," Nikki responded upon hearing the story. (1:15am)
Someone trying to order from our health services company proved more difficult to communicate with than your average brick wall. Observe: A woman calling to the health company wanted one of the mattress pads. She spent a good five minutes bemoaning how she'd spent thousands of dollars on products advertised through the station and nothing worked, and then spent another ten minutes whining that they required a credit card number to get the free trial. There were many utterances of "Oh my dear lord!" She was also most insistant that she had marvelous credit (something I couldn't quite figure out, her having no credit cards) and tried very hard to convince me to make an exception for her. I was fairly amused. (8:18pm) A man called in to report that he had no cable. When I asked to verify that his cable was completely out, he said "No, I just don't have cable" and laughed and hung up. It's been a while since I'd gotten a prank cable call. Not long enough, really. (9:30pm) When asked what product she wanted to order, someone calling our health services company asked "Are you talking to me?", even though she called ME. Later, when asked for the expiration date on her card, she said "Twelve months from October 15th." "You mean, October 15th of 2001?" I asked. "No, I don't like it that way," she responded. "It's twelve months from October 15th." Ooookay... (10:05pm)
A cable customer in Pennsylvania called, inquiring about how to get PPV. He sounded very nervous and all of about 12 years old, so I figured it was for porn. I settled back in my chair, preparing to have some fun at his impressionable young expense, but sadly, I didn't get far before I heard an adult voice in the background say something. My prepubescent friend, obviously very unnerved, scrabbled with the phone and managed to get out "I didn't call nobody! They called here!!" before hanging up. (11:35pm) A customer needed help ordering Pay Per View in Pennsylvania. Apparently this phrase was too much for his mind to comprehend: "Press the 'OK' button to confirm your order." (11:35pm) One of our companies must have had trouble in the past with ex-employees calling in and obtaining information, for they now require their employees to give a secret code to pick up messages that we are holding. This fact is mentioned three times in different parts of the account. Unfortunately, whoever set it up forgot to actually mention what the code is to any of us. So, the next time an employee calls and says "The blue camels graze at twilight," I'll have to respond with "Sure, that sounds good." (11:44pm) We have discovered the location of hell, and it is Florida. For tonight, we received a call from the Prince of Darkness himself. He may call himself a common name like Robert, but once you listen to his voice, you will know. Imagine how a two-thousand year old mummy would sound after gargling with hydrochloric acid. No, that's not even enough. This voice was so dry, so painfully crackling, that I thought someone was actually rubbing two pieces of sandpaper together very skillfully. Had I not been prepared for this, it might have been terrifying, but as it is, Nikki sent me the call and asked if I wanted to speak to Satan. As the voice grated on, a quiet sawblade cutting wood, I had to put a hand over my mouthpiece several times to block my laughter.Sadly, all of this description just does not do justice to The Voice. If there were one time I would have wanted a tape recorder at work, this would be it. (12:15am)
I can't quite decide if it's sad or amusing how badly some folks are out of the technological loop. Tonight I was harassed for five to ten minutes by a man in Texas calling into a pledge line for, of all things, John Denver items. Initially, the man thought that his $180 pledge would net him a VCR. Further discussion revealed that even if such were the case, he wouldn't have the foggiest idea what to do with it. Instead, however, I made the mistake of actually trying to enlighten the man: "No, you receive a CD and a VHS tape, not a VCR ... Right, you play it on your VCR. No, not the CD, the video tape. No, they're not the same thing. The CD you listen to -- no, there is a definite difference between a compact disc and an audio tape -- The video you watch. On your TV, right. No, put the VHS tape in the VCR and watch it on your TV. Yes, you would need a TV." At least five minutes of this shit. Finally, the man decided to leave me in some deranged state of peace. And, of course, as predicted, he pledged absolutely nothing. (12:33am)
A cable caller from Oklahoma, when informed that we had indeed received another outage call from her area, demanded to know who it was that had called in. I informed her that was not how it worked. "But I'm nosy and I want to know," she said, and seriously expected me to suddenly reverse course. When I again gave her a no-go, she remarked, "This is another example of how your service sucks." (7:40pm) Not only customers are freaking idiots. I just received this call from an individual for a 24 hour emergency service center for companies with fleets of trucks. A cable caller from Texas had spoken with the office and arranged to have someone come out to fix his cable on Monday. While sitting on the porch watching a tumbleweed or something, he had a brainstorm -- the techs could come out tomorrow. So, he called us and proceeded to claim that if the tech did not come out tomorrow to fix it, he would cancel his service. It doesn't go that way, but I noted down his message, hopeful that he would carry through on the promise and I wouldn't have to take a call of his ever again. (8:52pm) When told that a company's office hours were 8am to 5pm eastern time Monday through Friday, a woman asked "Are they open Saturday?" This sort of everyday stupid shit is really becoming wearing. (8:56pm) Another cable caller, this one from Pennsylvania, was having a critical problem. He needed his remote control replaced right away because he could not order PPV with it. That's correct, because he would have to get up every two hours to order a new movie at his cable box, he used the words "urgent" and "emergency." Truly a new low for cable calls. (9:02pm) A highly charming individual called during our auto financing flood (sure didn't miss THIS on vacation). When asked if he was calling to place an application he replied "No, I'm siting here watching your ad on TV, and I think you are so full of shit." "The feeling is mutal," I said before hanging up. (1:02am) Long ago, we had a cable caller from Indiana (a previous FotW winner) who barraged us with 40 calls in as many minutes. Tonight a daring man from Texas sought to usurp her position in our minds as Most Pathetic Human Yet To Commit Suicide. The man's cable was, of course, out, and had been for the past three days. While I can understand that this is irritating, he chose tonight to drive his point home by calling us every 15 minutes from 9pm to 1am. No, this is NOT an exaggeration. Now bear in mind that every cable company has a very specific set of instructions that we are to follow. In the case of this cable company, we are to page until 11pm, but not after that, regardless of what may be happening with the service. The supervisor for the night chose to risk the office's wrath by still attempting to page the technician at 1am, although we all knew that it was a completely futile gesture -- even if the tech DID check in (which let's face it, had a zero chance of happening), you wouldn't have gotten him to leave his snuggly warm house at 1am to go fix some guy's cable. But, as she put it, "he's calm and polite at least," so she went ahead. That in and of itself should make things better, and in a way it does, but that in no way changes or excuses the fact that that this is disturbing obsessive behaviour. Every 15 minutes, folks, almost on the dot. The guy must've had an egg-timer set up so he wouldn't miss his chance to speak with us again. I might even be able to understand it a bit more if he was an 80 year old man with only the TV for company. Instead, he sounded middle aged ... with only the TV for company. Which I guess is the real crux of this matter, it was a Friday night and he, quite literally, had nothing else to do with his time. Maybe this sort of creepy fixated behaviour drove off all his potential mates, because I would tend to say that this is an extremely unsettling personality trait. (8:59pm to 1:12am) I never ceased to be amused by people who attempt to use "buzzwords" and other such key phrases in an attempt to expidite their problem, or even intimiate us lowely operators into handling their call in a different manner. It never works, of course, but it is indeed amusing. Tonight I fielded a call from yet another Texan. This guy was bored with nothing else to do (his admission, I don't even have to infer this time), so he decided to flip through all his channels. All was going well until he came upon one that was not coming in. He called the cable company to see if he was supposed to be receiving channel 42 or not. UPDATE: The obsessive freak from Texas called back after an hour and a half or so of silence. He must've nodded off and missed the egg timer. As was his MO, he immediately asked for the supervisor. A few minutes later she passed along that when she said she had stopped paging the technician at 1am and that he would have to wait until the morning as she would not start paging again until then, the calm and polite demenor was shed, leaving something out of Dante's Inferno in its wake. She was privvy to several minutes of extremely vulgar abuse and threats to her person before he violently hung up. And I wonder why he only had the TV as a friend? (2:57am)
A caller to our adoption hotline, in addition to sounding like a young boy, also spoke some tongue I'm not familiar with. After attempts to speak English failed, I tried other avenues, asking in the respective languages if he spoke French or German. Nothing. I then said "¿Habla español?" There was silence. Then the boy screamed into the line and hung up. This was a weirdness I did not need so early in the evening... (8:44pm) A man called into one of our cable companies inquiring about receiving PPV on Sunday for a wrestling event. When I was unable to find his city in our directory, I asked if he was certain he'd called the right company. Turns out that he was a customer of a completely different company altogether. "So you won't give me pay-per-view?" "You're not serviced by this cable company, sir. You need to contact your service providers." There was a pause before he spat "Fine, bitch," and hung up. (10:42pm) A man dialed into a video ordering line demanding assistance with some software he had purchased. When told he had the wrong number, he insisted that I give he the correct one to dial. Now bear in mind that not only is this a video company that has absolutely nothing at all to do with software, but he had yet to reveal anything at all about said software, including its name. Still, he felt very strongly that I should be able to provide him with all the answers to life's mysteries, demanding to speak with my non-existant supervisor and generally being much more unpleasant that he had a right to be, considering he had erroneously called me in the first place. (12:02am) The man from above called back, amazed that this was still the wrong number. He said he'd verified it with some other, unknown source, and then asked me why they'd give it to him if it was incorrect. "I have no idea, sir, perhaps you should pose that question to the ones who gave it to you in the first place." (12:09am)
What inherant part of humans demands that they become slathering demons obsessed with a niggling little detail? Last night I dealt with this freak, but he irritated me to the extent that I could find no humourous way to portray his exploits. Tonight, however, I find myself able to mock him with abandon. As indicated from previous calls, the first thing required from cable customers is their city. That should make logical sense, so I won't insult those at the head of the class by explaining it. This should be a very simple, clear-cut question, which is part of why it's so unbelievably frustrating when it isn't. This man in particular took irritatingly obnoxious behaviour to the next level. EVERY SINGLE QUESTION I asked him last night required 3-5 minutes of preemptive debate. Eventually, quite sick of him, I told him that if he couldn't answer my next question directly, I would hang up on him. He didn't. Thankfully, that was the end of him that night, but he's apparently come back with a vegeance tonight. Not that I allowed him to get far enough to piss me off this time. He immediately answered my query of "Which city are you calling for?" with "I already told you!" ... so I hung up on him. I did the next time he called with that answer. And the next. And the next. About the fifth call, I just started putting him on hold (a fate worse than death with that music). As anticipated, he didn't hang on long. We played that game a few more times before I wrote down his phone number from caller ID and stopped acknowledging him altogether. Nikki don't play. Mike, on the other hand, always loves toying with the weak-minded ...
Did Nikki mention that he was rude? He swore like it was going out of style and used "shit" like he got royalties on the word. Over the course of several calls, he continually attempted to argue with me, whether about what my job duties were, about what the techs would do, or anything else. He continually lost these arguments as well. (It's easy to argue with someone who usually counters with "That's bullshit.") At one point, he tried to argue with me about what his name, address and phone number were, despite giving me this information in a previous call, and the caller ID system verifying his number for me. After it became apparent to him that he was completely outclassed (and again I stress this was not difficult), he decided to simply hurl insults. "You guys are so full of it. You are a crappy answering machine. All you do is give messages!" Sadly, this is a direct quote. He later said that I should be out there fixing the cable instead of taking calls. When even pathetic insults failed, he condemned himself as only the most sad can, by vowing to call all night long and torment us. Most pathetic of all, he didn't even call back. (10:20pm to 11:20pm)
An irate pledge caller said she pledged $180 and didn't think the operator was going to send her the gift after charging her the money. As proof of this, she said, "She didn't get my name, address, credit card or anything!" "Well how would you be charged then?" I asked. "I don't know!" she snapped. I checked the system for her name, and sure enough, her entire pledge was there, gift and all. I reread all the information back to her. As I read over her name, she said "I told her it was with an 's', not a 'th'!" (12:48am)
Another pledge caller wanted to give $40, but only if he could ge a certain CD. I told him he could have the audio cassette. He said was on disability and wanted to have the CD. I expressed my sympathies and said he couldn't. At this point, he got confusing. He asked what he could get for less, and I said for $35 instead of $40 he could get a (lousy) membership. He took it, so the man on disability paid $35 of his $40 offer, only to walk away with no music whatsoever. I have to assume it was a mental disability. (12:55am)
I can think of no good prelude to this one. (1:50am)
Female pledge caller: Will you have sex with me?
Me: I'm afraid that's a very high pledge.
FPC: Will you?
Me: Sorry, I don't think you could afford me.
FPC: Oh. Because I--
Me: Good night.
A woman in Texas called in to report that one channel was out and some others had bad reception. Her stupidity began to shine through when she answered my question of "What is channel 5?" with "What do you mean?" At the end of the call, I told her I would get her complaints to the technician. "And what about the bad channels?" she asked. Last time I checked, that was included with the plural "complaints", but apparently not. "I imagine they'll fix that problem too, ma'am." "'Imagine'? You should say 'All these channels will be fixed immediately'!" I should also say "You are a stupid bitch," but I won't say that either, you ninny. You clearly don't want an honest answer, merely a puppet to regurgitate whatever little placating comments you deem necessary on demand. In which case, you dialed the wrong number. (7:52pm) A man in Colorado called reporting his cable out. At the end of the call he asked if I'd had any other reports. I told him that I hadn't and he exclaimed "Yes you have, I called in and reported it out an hour ago!" (1) That was the office and (2) WHY THE HELL ASK ME A QUESTION YOU ALREADY KNOW THE ANSWER TO?! Maybe with your cable being out you have nothing better to do with your time than ask redundant questions, but I assure you there are millions of things I'd rather do than waste my time with this shit. I've been at work all of 17 minutes and I already have two OSB reports. This does not bode well, folks. (8:02pm) A woman called to say that after 16 years of using the same cable box and remote (she said her previous box "melted" on her TV set), she got a new one. However, despite her extensive experience with remotes, she asked how one would change the volume of their TV with one. When I asked if there was a button labelled "VOL" or "VOLUME" on her remote, and she sounded like I had asked her to describe her DNA in detail. Ultimately, we verified that her remote had no such button and that therefore she could not use it to change the volume. She wanted me to have the office give her a call to discuss what other models of remote controls they had available. I should have just given her the address to the cable company so she could come down to their showroom and take one out for a test drive. (9:35pm) A cable caller in Oklahoma, when informed that his cable was out due to a train derailing, crashing and taking out several poles, showed the true compassionate nature of man by saying "Yeah, but I want to watch HBO!" (9:58pm) Another caller, this one in Pennsylvania, said he didn't have his phone number because his wife wasn't home. Apparently, she didn't let him have dangerous knowledge like that. He said one of the cable boxes was not working. When told someone would be out ASAP but possibly not tonight, he had a fit and demanded credit. When told that only billing could give credit, he said that either I would personally give him credit or he would not pay his bill this month. I rarely laugh at callers, but I did this time. He ultimately walked away a very disillusioned little man. (10:04pm) Someone called about a cable offer they saw on television that was good through August 30th, then asked if it had expired yet. (10:20pm) I understand illness. I know that old people in particular have it rough, especially when dealing with cancer. But at the same time, I have trouble dealing with those who refuse to either help themselves or, when unable to do so, will not heed any instructions or advice given to them by those they seek help from. In this instance, an elderly woman had been instructed by her doctor to go to the emergency room. Not once or twice but three times. Eventually, the doctor stopped dealing with her altogether and gave us intructions to tell her that she needed to go to the ER. The woman refused to listen to the doctor's advice, saying that she was too sick to go to the emergency room(?!). She had no good answer when I suggested she call an ambulence. Now I can understand her reluctance to go to the hospital -- personally, I loathe the place and would likely resist going in if one of my limbs had been torn off ("Just stick a band-aid on, it'll be fine!"). But I certainly wouldn't call and harrass my doctor for an alternative solution and then cry "I feel like I'm being thrown to the wolves! He won't treat me!" when he has no other recommendation. If an oncologist says go to the emergency room, YOU GO. End of story. Consequently, my compassion, already at a low where callers are concerned, ran dry at an alarming pace. (11:35pm) A caller to our auto financing company wanted to get a new vehicle. His monthly income was a none-too-kingly $1200, and when asked if he wished to make a trade-in said that he did, his 2000 Ford Explorer. Raising an eyebrow, I asked if it was paid off, and when told that it was not, I dared to ask what the balance was. "About $21,000." (12:40am)
Somebody please explain to me what is so difficult about the following: To order PPV, you must first know which channel the movie or event you want to see comes on. You then dial the phone number that corresponds to that channel, sit back, and enjoy. This man could not comprehend these instructions, no matter how elaborate or dumbed down my explination of them. After several minutes of trying, I decided he was just too stupid for PPV and moved on. (7:54pm) Tonight, power was out in one section of Florida. As with their cable, Floridians proved to be rabid about electricity (due to not being able to watch the television? Who knows, maybe they're just abnormally angry people.) One operator in particular had a fun caller. The man was demanding that his power be restored because his wife was on oxygen and had about an hour and a half left in the tank. Now I understand this is a stressful situation, but sadly, we can't just snap our fingers and make the thing come back on. The operator expressed that the tech was working on it as fast as he could (unlike our cable companies, this power company is very much on the ball with highly reliable technicians) when the caller began yelling that the operator wanted his wife to die. Needless to say, the operator didn't respond favourably to this. As it turns out, the man in Florida (or "hurricane fucking central" as the operator later described it), with a critical need for power, had no generator and lived 45 minutes from a hospital. With one and a half hours of O2 left, the operator suggested that the man and his wife head to the hospital, to which the man replied "I can't afford that!" Nice priorities. Looks like somebody may want the man's wife to die, but it sure isn't us ... (9:17pm) A caller to our health services company complained that his magnetic mattress pad was defective and demanded a replacement. He was quite agitated at this shoddy craftsmanship. It turns out he had used the pad to pack out a suitcase, including video tapes he had taken on vacation. Can you guess how this gentleman's mattress pad "malfunctioned"? (9:17pm) An expectant mother reported her due date as "the 19th of the first of January". (10:49pm) A woman interested in the magnetic mattress pad asked if she would have to assemble it. Huh? "Why yes, ma'am, first you must brave the yeti to pick your magnets from the sacred magnet tree ... " (11:01pm) Tonight a woman wanted to order the magnetic mattress pad. Unfortunately, as so many people are, she was quite unprepared, and made me wait on the phone for five minutes or so while she berated her husband for not knowing where his credit card was. She used such endearments as "dumbass" and "fucking moron." To double the amusement, she thought I was a male (a common mistake, my voice is very deep), and after a minute or two-long rant about the stupidity of males, spent the next 30 seconds or so needlessly apologizing for offending me. Still, on the bright side, I got to listen to the movie they were watching. (Five minutes of "Tell me where you are, Josh!!" Whee.) (11:06pm) A cable caller complained that they had left their VCR to record TV while they were gone, and the channel had gone out. They wanted a tech to come over and fix the matter, even though the channel was working again. I verified this, and they confirmed that the channel was working. They wanted the technician to come over and fix the fact that they had recorded static. They wanted the shows restored to their tape as though the channel had never gone out. I had to break it to yet another cable caller that techs could not warp time and space. (11:10pm) Another cable caller said that his cable had gone out at the end of American Beauty. He wanted -- nay, DEMANDED -- that a tech call him back right away. "Everyone dies," I said. I have no idea what American Beauty is about, but it sure sounded good. (11:28pm)
A caller to our health services company from Canada was complaining that the prices were American dollars and that he would have to pay more in Canadian dollars. "But that would be $250 plus 40%. You see, eh?" he snapped. Hey, it's not my fault that money from your country is worth less than mine. Don't make out like the company secretly discriminates against Canadians ... (12:24am) Another caller to the health services company did not know what kind of credit card he had, despite the fact that both Visa and Mastercard logos have their name printed on them. He later asked me if it burned the skin, "like acid." He asked if it burned like that when you put it under your tongue, since he thought it would burn warts away acidically. (1:18am) A cable caller from Mississippi complained that his cable kept going in and out on all the channels. He said that he worked on his computer while listening to the cable, and this problem was costing him productivity. He threatened to make the cable company pay him the money he was losing if the problem continued. Yeah, okay. (1:54am)
A man in Texas called in to report that CSPAN was out. He wanted to watch the Republican convention in Philly. He swore that the Democrats had taken over the cable company and were deliberately depriving him of CSPAN. Oh, how I love this country. (8:52pm)
