A person calling to request a free brochure and video from a company refused to give me her address. (9:10pm)
It never ceases to amaze me when cable callers tell me they are calling to cancel their cable and expect me to beg them to stay. I take their calls all night long about how awful their service continually is. I couldn't come up with reasons for them to stay if I tried. Someone cancelling their service today actually asked "Is that it?" after I cheerfully informed him that I would tell the office to cut off their service. "That's it," I said, "thanks for your patronage." Nothing like playing your trump card only to find out it's the wrong suit. (9:13pm)
A nursing mother placing an order for clothing could not figure out when she would receive an order placed today when told to expect it "within 3-4 business days." As the song goes, "pity the child" ... (9:58pm)
A woman in Louisiana reporting her cable out grudingtly gave me her address when asked for it. Afterwards, however, she angrily asked why I wanted it. "Well, the technician can't very well go out there to fix it if he doesn't know where it's located, can he?" The woman intelligently replied "Oh...", this bit of logic clearly never causing a single synapse to fire. (10:06pm)
A caller to our health service asked, "Are you the people runnin the ad on the radio?" to which I replied "We do run ads, yes..." The man then stated "Good, just wanted to make sure I dialed the number correctly," and hung up. What, was this a requirement in his daily class for menial household tasks any moron should be able to do? (10:08pm)
My friend Channel 13 called back! Joy! And he still didn't know his name! (11:26pm)
A woman calling into the health company wanted to know how to return an item she was dissatisfied with. I listed the instructions for her, but even though she understood all the information and still had all the materials necessary to correctly process the return, she wanted to talk to customer service. She had obviously called before, as she knew the office hours, but complained bitterly that she was working during those times. She waned me to check her order, and did not grasp my response of "I have no access to customer records." Every possible avenue of recourse I suggested was shot down, including her calling during a break or lunch hour (which she must've received several of in her 15 hour work day). "There's no place private I can call from" was her response. Finally, having enough of listening to her insinuations that the company's operating hours of 9am to 5pm were "convenient" (sarcasm included) and set up with the expressed purpose of preventing her from calling, I disconnected the call. (11:34pm)
The return of the World's Stupidest Man. This time, he regaled me with the tale of how one of his checks to the billing department got lost between the door of his house and the mailbox. Also included were comparisons of his mother to the president of the cable company, and how he intended to buy "one of those new cars they just came out with, those '99 models." (3:02am)
A customer needing their records pulled up was informed that customer service was closed. She would need to call a different number between 8am and 5pm. She thanked me and hung up. A minute later, she called back, on the number I had given her, despite me making the "am" part of "8am" very clear. Even if she had possibly misunderstood that, we had already verified in her last call that it was 6:45 in her time zone and customer service would not have been open at that time, regardless of morning or evening. (7:42pm)
The on-call for a towing service, when notified of a customer in need of assistance, bitched about how he had only taken three bites of his dinner. He then paused expectantly, presumably waiting for some kind of sympathetic reaction from me. I dug deep and came up with "Yeah, life sucks like that sometimes." You get paid to be bothered at all hours, pal, don't expect me to cry for you. (8:05pm)
A cable customer in Pennsylvania called, trying to report that she had ordered one movie on PPV and received another. This apparently upset her highly. However, when I asked her what movie she had wanted to see, she could not tell me. She had no idea. Sounds like she was just dying to watch it. Okay, fair enough, she's just dumb, right? Except she calls back a couple minutes later to tell me that she remembers that the movie started with an "S", and after more prodding from me, she stated "It was Stigmata or something." "And what movie did they show instead?" "I don't know what it's called." "Do you know what it was about? Know anything about it?" "...it cut off. I don't know." "...Okay... Well, I'll request that the billing department not charge you for Stigmata, then." "Okay, thanks."
Before I can even get a line of this conversation down in our trusty notebook, she calls back again to tell me to cancel the transmission of Stigmata to her, even though she apparently wasn't receiving it anyway, and I'd already said I'd request they not bill her for it.
Now, is it just me, or does all this just not seem kosher to anyone else either? (2:02am) This report sparked a memory. See The Cretin Chronicles for more information.
A cable caller in Florida complained that a single show on a single channel did not come on as scheduled. Cry me a river. My sympathy, such as it was, was ground to dust as she refused to accept any reasoning other than it being the cable company's fault. No, TV Guide could not be mistaken. No, the station which broadcasts its signal to the cable provider couldn't get it wrong. To top matters off, she wanted someone in the office--all of whom had gone home--to call her personally and explain the travesty of not being able to watch "Millionaire". I gave her a dose of reality, and she labelled my performance "entirely unsatisfactory". (8:10pm)
A weight-loss company has a new product which promotes weight loss depending upon your blood type. A woman called in and wanted to know how in the world she would ever solve this Sphinx's riddle and gain insight as to her blood type. So stunned, was I, at the question, that it took me a moment to mentally gather a myriad list of locations to have this done and deliver it. The woman seemed amazed that she had so many options and hung up. Personally, I think weight loss is the least of her concerns. (11:14pm)
A cable caller wished to have her cable box picked up after ordering seven Pay-Per-View movies in a week and receiving none of them. She was sick of the box and wanted it taken away. Why it took any person seven attempts to decide that PPV was not working is beyond me. (12:15am)
A customer of one of our web hosting clients called, stating that he'd received an E-Mail from one of the company's administrators, stating he had 24 hours to remove questionable content from his site that she had warned him about in the past. This apparently surprised him. Imagine that, a web hoster being able to tell you what you can put there and enforce it. Then he tried to tell me it would take 72-96 hours for his FTP to be able to access the site. FTP is usually instantaneous, and if the company had time-delay restrictions, they most likely would not demand a time frame they knew could not be reached. (12:25am)
Friday Financial Fun. Yup, more Mississippi idiocy.
A woman, when asked her gross monthly income, replied "I dunno ... Five-something." Is that five dollars, five hundred, five thousand..? That makes a considerable difference.
A woman claimed to have a secondary income. I inquired as to the nature of the income (particularly curious, since she claimed to not be employed, yet stated an income of $1400/month) and she mumbled something unintelligibly. Trying to extract an answer, I asked "Your spouse?" "No, my husband," she replied.
After three-quarters of the phone application had been placed (leaving us with such probing questions as "Where did you hear about us?"), a woman stated that she thought the application would be mailed to her and was quite shocked to discover us knee-deep in the process, despite the initial question of "Are you calling to place an application?", to which she answered affirmative, and countless queries into her financial background.
The ever-trapping question about gross monthly income. This individual answered that he made $30,000 per year. I explained exactly what monthly meant, and he gave me the answer of $12,000. I confirmed this no less than six times, even going so far as to say "So your gross monthly income from a $30,000 per year salary is $12,000 per month. You bring home $12,000, twelve times per year." The man was quite insistant. What the hell he was doing calling this back-waters car dealer with an income like that, then, is beyond my meager contemplation.
Odd as it may seem, a towing service does, of all things, tow vehicles. In this instance, the state police requested we tow a vehicle from one location to another. Routine, but shortly after the call was dispatched, we received another call to the company. This one was from the vehicle's owner, who had been notified of the tow by the police who had called it in. She was calling the towing company to find out why they were towing her truck. Now, maybe it's just me, but when someone calls me and gives me news like that, the first word out of my mouth would most likely be "Why?" and not "Oh? Who's towing it and what's their phone number?" (2:30am)
Apparently, wonder of wonders, the woman still couldn't figure out what a towing service actually does. I guess she figured the tow truck cruises around at all hours, just searching for opportunitistic cars to tow. I repeated my advice - call the police who wanted it towed in the first place for the details. We can but hope she finally understood. I'd hate to meet this woman in a public transport situation. (2:42am)
Scanning for cable outages, I came across this message left by a co-worker. It made me laugh, and I thought I would share. Bear in mind that all messages we take are faxed to our client, and we are supposed to be a professional company: "Says that he is not happy camper. For 2 weeks got more than 16 promises, nothing has been." (5:08pm)
The number of people who, even now in the 21st century, do not know how to hang up their phone, is staggering. It is not at all unusual for a customer to hang their phone up, and miss the hook, leaving me connected. They then proceed to scream, yell, and even spout lies to the other people in the room. Tonight, a gentleman failed to hang up on me successfully, then turned to his (presumed) wife and explained what I was going to do--except that he told her that I was not going to do anything, when I had expressly informed him that I would let the technician know. I might have enjoyed continuing to listen to the line he was giving her, but sadly, he moved to another room. (9:08pm)
There's something moderately satisfying sometimes with stupid co-workers. Especially ones who act like customers. Because I'm under absolutely no obligation at all to be polite to you, and when the simple method fails, I have every intention of unleashing the big guns. Such was the case tonight. One of my particularly dim witted fellow employees was repeatedly badgering the manager about an outage in one of the cities serviced by the cable company I supervise. The outage occurred before I came in, and when I started my scans, the tech had already been paged. There was an alert (a "special") placed in the account to notify the operator that the tech was working on the problem so they could tell the callers. All should have proceeded smoothly ... except for this one girl. The manager, tired of telling her the same thing repeatedly, directed her to me.
Girl: Page somebody for this. Me: A tech HAS been paged. He's working. Girl: Well you need to page him again. Me: For what purpose? He's working on it. Girl: He just needs to be paged again. Me: Let me spell it out for you: He is working. Do you not see that in the special? Girl: He can't be working, it's been out all day and-- Me: Are you a technician? Girl: No. Me: Do you know the first thing about fixing cable? Girl: No. Me: Then you have no idea how long it takes to repair cable, and as such, it's entirely possible that he's been out working on it all day. Girl: Well, this woman said she saw a cable truck drive by. Me: Do you have plans to go out there and help the tech fix the cable? Girl: No. Me: Well until such time, I suggest you focus on your job--answering calls--and let the techs worry about theirs, and cease wondering who is driving around in what truck. He is working to repair the problem. What more would you have him do? Girl: <silent look> Me: Alright then. When you actually have something constructive or insightful to say, come back and talk to me.
A few moments later, she must've been whining to the manager about my treatment of her, as I heard him say "Yeah, Nikki's mean like that sometimes" and then go about his business. As for myself, I just smiled quietly and reached for my notebook ... (9:54pm) This report sparked a memory. See The Cretin Chronicles for more information.
Customers who simply must prove that you do not know everything about a product are a particular annoyance. A lady inquiring about a magnetic mattress pad this evening pressed every avenue of questioning, trying to find my weakness. In the process, she sounded quite the fool herself. "They mentioned some measurement of magnetic power," she noted. "Yes, that's the gauss." "Gowse. How do you spell that?" "G-a-u-s-s." "Right, got it. And what's their gauss rating? I want to make sure they're strong enough." How would you know, you old bat, you don't even know gauss from gauze. Instead of speaking my mind, however, I simply answered her barrage of questions until she finally stumped me on what materials were mixed to create the foam in the pad. After this, she was more reasonable, although she nearly had an aneurism when I told her I don't vacuum my mattress on a regular basis. Martha Stewart would be so disappointed. (11:20pm)
After taking up 8 minutes or so of my time placing an application for car financing, a man exclaimed (at the "How much do you have for a down payment?" question) "Oh, I have to get a car?" For this, I missed the judging of the bamboo shoots dishes on Iron Chef? (12:57am)
One of our web hosting companies received a call for a particular individual. I informed the man that there was nobody here by that name and asked if I could help him. He snottily repeated his request for this one individual, and I repeated my previous statement, word for word. The man then identified himself as Doctor So-and-So, which I guess was designed to impress or intimidate me on some level. It did neither. Once more stating my role and function in this conversation, I was able to finally being compiling a message for the techs. I asked the man his first name and he refused to give it, claiming that everyone knew him. I inisisted and was granted the initial "B". Ooo, helpful. Still, I think the "B" stood for "Boring", which he was steadily becoming, so after his phone number, I asked for his domain name. Again, the man refused to give information, claiming that his domain name was irrelevant to his domain hosting problems. "Sir, I need this information to pass to the techs--" "KISS MY ASS!!" I never cease to be amused by calls such as these, where an individual bucks so fiercely against providing a few necessary bits of information that the call takes them 5x longer and often ends in nothing at all happening to solve their problem. (1:08am)
A cable customer in Nebraska, when informed that ABC's outage was due to a problem with the network, said with evident disbelief "A network problem. When an excellent program is on." I couldn't help but chuckle as I explained to her that life cares little for program quality. (8:50pm)
Partway through gathering the information for an order, the customer became violent, screaming unintelligibly and claiming that I was obtaining his address with the expressed purpose of selling it. It took some time, but I was finally able to convey the necessity of his address in getting his order to him. (9:55pm)
A man called into the health company.
Caller: Hello? Can you hear me? Me: Yes. Caller: You can? Me: No.
<eye roll> (12:21am)
A customer for the healthy company, after thoughtlessly plunking $100 down on some vitamins, called back an hour later to have me explain the nature of a guarantee.
Caller: And she said there was a money-back guarantee. Me: Yes, where you get your money back if you are not satisfied. Caller: But what if I take it and I don't notice any change? Me: Then that would fall under the category of "not satisfied". Caller: It would? Me: Would you be satisfied with paying this money for something which accomplishes nothing? Caller: Well, no. Me: There we are. "Not satisfied".
Looks like a fun night already. A cable customer in Kentucky called to report bad reception on some of his channels. I told him I would report is to a tech and then he threatened to call the public service commission after talking to me. I invited him to do so and he spat "I will, BITCH!" and hung up. (7:48pm)
A cable caller from Texas, after reporting his cable out, said the cable had been a repeating problem even since the tech who wired it caused his house to explode... .... .... Now I don't know about you, but if a cable technician blew up my house, if I still thought that having C-SPAN2 and the Golf Channel was worth it, I'd seek a different provider. (9:47pm)
Another cable caller, this one in Florida, complained that only channel 4 of her cable had bad reception. "But only channel 4 is like that! None of the others!" "That's good, right?" I asked. "No, they should all be like that!" "You want bad reception on all of your channels. You want them all to look like channel 4. This is what you want." "Yes!" "I'll let the technicians know of your request." "Good." (10:17pm)
While Nikki and I were watching The Daily Show, one of our most annoying co-workers, an ochre-nostriled busybody, felt the need to turn down the television, which he clearly felt was too loud for our callers. He then proceeded to snap open trash bags he was about to insert into nearby cans. And did this so loudly that we both had to ask our callers to repeat themselves several times. Yup, thanks for looking out for me, fellow operator. (12:55am)
This woman achieved a rare feat by testing my patience. Never before has imparting a phone number been so difficult.
Me: That's 5-5-5... Caller: Okay. Me: Then 6-6-- Caller: Wait, let me get a pen. <time passes> Me: Ready? It's 5-5-5... Caller: You said 6-6-6 before. Me: I'm saying 5-5-5. Caller: You said 6-6-6. Me: 5-5-5... 6-6-6... 7-7-7-7. Caller: That's too many numbers. It won't let me dial that. Me: Trust me, they will. Caller: No, they won't. Me: Ma'am, what number did you call to reach me? Caller: 9-9-9 9-9-9 9-9-9-9. Me: So, they let you dial that much. Caller: Oh. Okay. Me: What number did I give you? Caller: 5-5-5 6-7-6 8-7-8-7. Me: No, no. Scratch that and repeat these numbers to me one at a time as you write them down.
Using this method, I finally got the phone number to this biddy. It would have been easier for me to fly to her home and dial it for her. (1:49am)
A cable caller complained that a basketball game was not showing as advertised on a certain channel. The cable company, anticipating the customer complaints, put up a special bulletin to us operators, stating which channel it would acutally be on. I informed the man of the proper channel. Inexplicably enraged, he refused to turn to that channel and called me a fool for not having it on the one advertised. (7:51pm)
Kudos to the office for the cable company I handle. They were considerate enough to send us updated on call listings (considering that some lists are current through to August of 99, this is an achievement ... of course, those were not the ones updated, but I digress). These details lists, crowded with names, numbers and dates, were faxed over on sheets of paper that were smaller than the size of some children's books I had in my youth. We're talking memo-pad size here. Yeah, THAT will help, thanks guys. Now I can't even read the tech's phone number to dial and get bitched at because he's not on call this week. (8:03pm)
When asked if he had an E-Mail address, a customer for our health products company said, "Yes, but I'm illiterate, so I don't know what it is." (10:36pm)
A cable caller from Missouri informed me that she had waited all day for her cable to be hooked up after moving and it had not been. She then told me that this routine of just waiting all day for her cable installation had been going on for three weeks. I wonder what she did to amuse herself without the TV? (9:17pm)
A customer who had recently received her magnetic mattress pad called to complain that she was only sent half of it - the mattress pad was fine, but there was no motor included. (9:56pm)
A cable caller needed to speak with the billing department urgently. It seems that after signing up for cable, getting a cable box and all, they started sending him bills. He could not fathom why. (10:10pm)
A cable customer in Arkansas called to report that she could not order Pay-Per-View through the digital cable. I apologized and told her that as we were not in the office, we could not send the movie to her. The woman complained that she had company at her house and that due to this inconvenience, their entire night was ruined. I prefer a bit more flexibility in my friends, personally. (10:40pm)
A caller to an internet hosting company's help line was having difficulties. An online friend of hers was doing some work on her site and said that he needed her to give him permission to be on her FTP server. Her problem? "I wrote out my permission, how do I get the paper to him over the Internet?" (11:02pm)
Amid a flurry of cable outages, many -- surprise, surprise -- were assholes. Of particular note was the man who refused to give me a physical location, claiming that he'd been calling late at night for seven years and never needed to give one before. I replied that I'd been actually been working the lines for four years, and yes, he did. Exclaiming that he'd call back and talk to someone else, he hung up ... and got me again. Twice. He eventually gave up and reported an address the tech could use, and I smiled at a small victory.
The other standout caller was a woman most upset that she reached the answering service. Nothing ever gets done when she reaches us, it seems. That would have nothing to do with the fact that if she reachs us, it's after hours, but anyway. Anxious to move onto one of the other 15 calls waiting to be answered, I invited her not to leave a report if she doubted our abilities, and she said that she had no other choice but to leave one. "Sure you do - not to leave a report." She went ahead after much grumbling, and things went relatively okay until we got to her phone number, at which time she refused to give it. Having been fielding idiots non-stop for hours, I was in the mood to be disagreeable. I insisted on the number, thoroughly sick of people who want help but refuse to give any. Speaking of which, she refused again, saying that I would never ever get it ever. Two can play at the immature game. "Then you were right about one thing, neither will the office be getting this report from the answering service." I marked the message as "will call again" and moved on to the next spark of brilliance. (12:03am)
A woman in Florida wanted to get a partial credit on her order of the Spice channel. Apparently, she and her boyfriend got so worked up, they had sex and missed all but the last seven minutes of it. First, calling this in was totally stupid and shameless, but even more importantly, isn't that what it's there for? (12:14am)
A man in Nevada called his cable provider. When asked what his cable problem was, he cried out "I don't know, don't you?" I attempted to explain that as I was not there looking at his set, I had no earthly idea. We went around this for far far too long. Finally, he said "Look, my cable is out. That's all I know." I was overjoyed that I would finally note something down and continue my life's progression. Apparently even a question so simple as "Why are you calling?" is beyond the scope of this man. (12:32am)
A cable caller in Florida claimed that her service was awful, especially considering that she always paid her cable bill on time. Then she told me how long she'd had the cable: one month. Clearly an amazing financial feat. (9:20pm)
An operator, passing along a customer question, asked the room if our health company sold any product that acted as an eye shield, protecting vision from the sun. One operator replied "Sunglasses" and another said "Yeah, they're called 'eyelids', you just close your eyes to activate them." (9:36pm)
A woman in Texas called to complain that her cable was out, but only when she viewed it through her VCR. When that was turned off, she had a crystal clear picture. I had a devil of a time explaining that the cable was not a selective beast that could just choose on a whim to show on one part of the connection chain but not another if it didn't feel like it. I told her that the problem was likely with her TV and/or VCR settings or connections. Her disbelief was aided by the fact that she had just finished watching a tape on her VCR and could see it perfectly. I love the technologically simple-minded. (11:16pm)
A cable customer called expressing some problems with the Pay-Per-View he had just ordered. For once, the customer was not at fault. A particularly stupid co-worker (who also that evening forgot to punch out from lunch and forgot to log out of her computer when she finally left) gave him a completely wrong number to call. One which, when dialed, consigns the caller to purchasing a PPV movie for the following morning. It was up to me, of course, to try to explain to billing what had happened with this man's account. (10:20pm)
A cable caller from Arkansas forgot to remove the golf balls from his mouth before calling. I was unable to find his city, "Hiflorgbrusht Gahelth" in our directory, so I asked him to spell it. This failed because he pronounced each letter as either "rorsach," "flagler," or "bigdelshnedlitz." I eventually found his city through a combination of luck and trial and error. If I never get a call back from this person, it will be too soon. (11:12pm)
An operator, after picking up a call to the health company and going through the introduction speech, asked which product the caller was interested in. "Are you talking to me?" the caller replied. Later, when the order had been placed, the caller reported her credit card's expiration date as March 1001. I'm sure there were a great many wonderous items to be purchased on credit at the turn of the first millennium. (4:32pm)
A cable caller, clearly distraught at his cable being out, answered my query of his phone number with "I don't know. Why are you making me think?" (7:47pm)
A cable caller in Mississippi spent five minutes explaining why it would be a waste of time for him to take thirty seconds to give me his personal information. (8:05pm)
Someone ordering a magnetic mattress pad was hoping it would help his back pain, which had been causing him trouble ever since he broke it. Unfortunately, magnets, while attributed with many properties, do not magically impart common sense. (9:10pm)
A caller to the health company informed me that he had "heardened it on the broadfordcast." Oh yeah, we're in the deep south now. Hark, is that a banjo I hear in the distance..? (9:24pm)
A cable customer in Pennsylvania was calling to report that the PPV event he had ordered had not yet come on. I asked him what time the even was supposed to come on, and he told me "in about 15 minutes." "Perhaps you should wait until the event is supposed to start, then," I suggested helpfully. (9:47pm)
More interested parties in the cursed magnetic mattress pad. This man wanted to place a credit card order and tried valiantly to do so, but to no avail. To start, the number he gave me was invalid, but before I could ask him to repeat it, I was going to get his expiration date. Initially, he told me it expired in March of 1991. When told that card had expired, he intelligently asked "Huh?" to which I replied "Yeah, well, '91 was some considerable time ago." So he tried again. This time, he told me "oh-three oh-oh," and I had to pass along the bad news that it, too, had expired. "Why?" "Because it's now zero-five of 2000." His solution? "Just call the credit card company, they'll sort it out." (9:56pm)
We were besieged with calls from an irrational, unreasonable and demanding cable caller in Indiana. The cable in this area had been out for over 24 hours (Although after checking through our computer records, we had no reports of a cable outage in that area last night, which I find a little difficult to believe knowing the cable-obsessed customers we deal with, but anyway), and this is understandably annoying, but none of the other thousands of cable viewers in that area felt the need to be as unrelentingly badgering as she. By "besieged," I am referring to the 30-40 calls placed by this woman in the space of forty minutes. During this time, she informed us that we would call our bosses at home at midnight, that we would patch her to the execs of the cable company, that we would have her cable fixed, and that she WOULD be satisfied.
Such claims always amuse me, personally. And I laughed in her face when she tried them on me. "No, I won't," I replied through gufaws, and when she refused to let me get a word in edgewise as to exactly WHY she would get nowhere with this attitude, I shrugged and put her on hold. She hung up almost immediately (I don't blame her, the hold music is atrocious), and it was then that I knew I'd found our solution - as soon as we realized it was her, put her on hold. I spread this method around to the rest of the staff (all three of us), hence her managing to make 40 calls to us in as many minutes. I might grudgingly conceed that she's tenacious, but I also conceed that she is a freaking looney.
The woman refused to take the hint. She would call, be put on hold, hang up, call, be put on hold, hang up, call again... The woman was like a moebius strip, seemingly without end. Among her interminable faults:
She had no sense of reality. I should have asked to speak to the cable gnomes instead.
Belief that telling us she was recording the conversations would scare us into doing what she wanted.
Inability to accept the fact that the reason the cable company hires us after hours is so that their staff can go home. Yes, this includes the company's mangers.
Complete lack of any life whatsoever. "If you were without cable for twenty-four hours, wouldn't you be upset?" "Yes, ma'am, but I would realize that calling the company thirty times in a row would not make my cable come back on."
Terminal stupidity. Getting desperate, she called us, claiming to be a friend of a person in the afflicted city. Giving us THE SAME NAME she had been giving all evening. "Ah, so you're Mrs. Joan Smith calling for your friend, Joan Smith?" "Right."
Eventually, however, even she began to wear down, and as our call volume was slowing, we decided to have some fun and actually start taking her calls. When it was my turn, she told me, yet again, that her cable was out.
Me: I know. Bitch Demon: And what are you going to do about it? Me: Same thing I told you at least 10 other times tonight - report it. Bitch Demon: You know I'm going to keep calling all night until it gets fixed. Me: That's fine. When we get bored with you again, you'll just find yourself continually on hold. Bitch Demon: I don't care. I'm going to keep calling. Me: Suits me, ma'am. If you have so little else going in your life that you have to call the cable company every five seconds, you go right on ahead.
She hung up on me without a word, and when she called back and got the third operator, she said she was going to bed and did not call back. Hallelujah, lady. Maybe sleep will fix that personality problem of yours. (12:15am to 12:57am)
A towing service we answer for received a call from AAA. Quite possibly the rudest AAA representative I've ever heard, at that. After finding out she was talking to the answering service, she spat out all the pertinant information in one rushed, unintelligible breath, and tutted with great annoyance when I asked her to repeat herself more slowly. Getting her name and number, she told me to tell the on call to call her back. I asked if this was in referance to call that had been placed earlier (I can hardly call the o/c and tell him "Hey, call AAA, no idea why, later.") "Just have him call me for a tow, whenever I give the information to the answering service, you people mess it up." "I'll be happy to request him to call you ... after I get the information. What is the vehicle's location?" She hung up on me.
You know, a week ago today, on an absolutely horrible night, Mike and I left work at 4am to a dead battery in my car. For the first time in the three years or so we've paid for AAA, I used them for something other than TripTix and hotel discounts. I did not get home until 7:30am, after having been put off repeatedly by the company (albiet in a very polite and pandering way, which makes sense, as I am the paying customer, but I still know putting off when I see it, no matter how nicely they tell you they're doing it). When all was said and done, they apologized profusely and explained that service times vary according to area, and we were just unfortunate enough to live in a sucky one. I bought this, as I feel the same way about my area, but after dealing with this woman, I REALLY have to wonder where the fault lay that night... (8:06pm)
A cable customer in Texas called to report her cable out. I passed along the message that the bad weather was the cause and that the tech would begin work when the storms had passed.
Caller: Well when will THAT be?! Me: I don't know, ma'am, I'm not a meteorologist. Caller: What? Me: I'm not a meteorologist, I have no idea when the storms will end. Caller: I didn't ask when the storms will end, I asked when the cable will be fixed!! Me: And I said he will begin work once the storms are over, so your cable will obviously be out until some time after that uknown point. Caller: ....oh.
(8:11pm)
A caller trying to locate a maternity store was informed that the closest store to her was 1800 miles away. "How far is that?" she asked. "1800 miles," I responded. "How long would it take me to get there?" (8:37pm)
One of our most annoying accounts is an Internet service provider who expects an answering service to field all manner of tech support questions using the trouble shooting contents of perhaps a single sheet of paper. This is a lot like being handed a Pooh book and needing to make a comprehensive presentation on bears for the Audubon Society. Two spectacularly stupid actions put them here tonight. Firstly, on their automated support service, their message states "If you are unable to send or receive E-Mail, please leave an E-Mail for our technical support department at WeAreFools@big.ones." Secondly, in the highly unlikely event that the sheet of crap they have provided us is insufficient to solve the caller's problem, they ask us to get all the customer's information and problem details. For this, they provide 78 characters of space. (11:45pm)
A cable tech in Oklahoma, when presented with nearly 150 cable outs, demurred on going out because he had a singular line hanging low in another city which he felt the need to work on first. Of course, had there been nothing else going on in areas, you know damned well he would've remained where he was, with his ass firmly planted in his Laz-E-Boy. (6:28pm)
A customer experiencing the cable outage mentioned above (which now has almost 250 outs reported), deemed himself knowledgeable enough to tell me with certainty that the tech was not working on the problem. He was right, mind you, but his reasoning was "I haven't seen him yet," which, considering he admitted that he had no idea where the problem was and that it spanned three major cities.... (8:39pm)
A while back tonight, I took a call for a commercial roadside assistance account (flat tires on 18-wheelers, that sort of thing). I delivered the message to the on call as per usual, but the number the man left to reach him at was no good. An hour or so later, the man calls back and I let him know that I need an actual valid number. "I've been sitting here waiting, he should've let me know something," the man grumbled. "How do you suppose he could do that when you leave a number that doesn't work?" Oddly, I received no answer to that. (2:28am)
A cable customer in South Dakota was calling for ... well, a cable problem, I assume. We never got that far. To start with, the caller could not be bothered to stop gnawing on a pork chop long enough to talk on the phone like a civilized human. Overwhelming grossness aside, observe the rest of the conversation:
Me: Your name, please? Caller: <gives first name> Me: And your last name? Caller: <mumbles something around smacking> Me: Spell that, please. Caller: <give first three letters then pauses> Got that? Me: ...it's not hard. Yes, I do. Caller: <gives rest of letters> Me: Your address? Caller: You don't need my address, here's my account number. <rattles off number> Me: That will not help me. I need your address. Caller: No you don't. Me: Yes. I do. Caller: This is bullshit. Me: Do you care to leave a report about your cable? Caller: Yes. Me: Then I need your address. Caller: Well you're not getting it. Me: Goodnight, then.
I heard him call back while I was writing this and talk to the manager with similar results. I'll never ever understand why people in need of assistance are so incapable of answering even the most basic of questions to expidite that problem's resolution. (10:47pm)
Twice, a caller for a public television pledge line said she needed to call a "friend" and for us to hold. Of course we didn't, because we have better things to do (like watch the Iron Chef), and we're entitled to hang up on these people. Not long after, we started getting calls on the same account, which when picked up, connected us with a phone sex line. Thankfully, whoever was kind enough to connect us to that wasn't able to push the number that would get us past the advisory messages. (11:59pm)
A man from Arkansas called complaining of snow and fog on one of his channels. After lengthy discussions, it became apparent that his cable was new, and a friend had told him to call whenever he saw any snow on his channels. The kicker? He was watching the Weather Channel. The second kicker? He really was that stupid. (12:13am)
Our old friend, the auto financing service. Tonights highlights:
Woman: I'm unemployed. Me: Do we have permission to run a credit report? Woman: Why? Me: It's necessary, ma'am. <woman agrees> Do you have a down payment? Woman: No. Me: Do you have a trade-in? Woman: No.
I bet she gets her pick of the lot. Oh yeah.
Man: I heard your ad where you pay $5 for each mile we drive to you on our trade-in. I just drove over from Spain. Me: You drove from Spain. Man: Yeah. Me: Across the ocean. Man: Yeah.
Doing my regular cable scans, I came upon a call in need of dispatch. Checking the on call sheets, I discovered a slight problem. While the dates listed were uncharacteristically correct and conveniently extending through to the end of the year, this week, there is no on call listed. By this, I mean that the dates for this week are listed, but when you follow the listing up the page, there is naught but a completely empty box to greet you. Thanks, office. THESE calls were get handled in a timely manner. (8:10pm)
A caller to our health services wanted to order cold, hard magnetic "bricks" to sleep on instead of the soft foam mattress pad. (9:30pm)
The 12:00-1:00 hour on Fridays and Saturdays is becoming something of a bittersweet period, the beginning of the end of the evening and the time of Iron Chef, yet also the running time of the accursed auto financing show. Today, down payments were the confusion du jour.
Man: I've only got $4000 for a down payment. Think that will be enough? Me: I'd assume so, but I don't make the determination. Do you have a trade-in? Man: I didn't know people could trade in houses. Me: Your car. Trade in your car. Man: I can trade my car in toward a house? How much will they give me for it?
As it turns out, the man thought the "auto" financing company was for home financing.
Me: Do you have a downpayment? Woman: Yeah. Me: How much? Woman: How much do they need? Me: I don't make the determination. How much do you have? Woman: Depends on what car I'm getting. Me: I don't know that. What is the most you would have available? Woman: Like I said, it depends. Me: Fine. Do you have a trade-in? Woman: That depends on-- Me: Someone will call you back.
A cable caller from Florida ordered two PPV events and wanted one struck from her bill. But she wouldn't give me her name, address, phone number, or any other information. There should be an anonymous "I ordered porn but don't want anyone to find out" helpline. (2:15am)
Some co-workers stand a breed apart from all others. Today, Mike and I watched a girl sitting next to me turn her chair away from the rest of the room in vain effort to shield her activities and start playing with her cell phone. When she got a call on her board, she turned to look at it and then watched as it bounced off her screen to another operator. Finding these calls irritating, she turned off and returned to playing with her phone. Afterwards, when she had returned to her supposed work, she watched another call bounce off while she fished around in her bag for the Milk Duds she smuggled into our food-free work area. The icing on the cake? She exclaimed with much distress "Why am I getting all these calls?!" (7:58pm)
An elderly caller to our health services company was unable to write down the address to send an SASE to because she was "legally blind." She wanted me to call back and leave the address on her answering machine. I told her we could not, but customer service might be able to. As I went to give her the number, she remarked, "Wait. Let me get a pen." (8:07pm)
Tonight it was my "pleasure" to deal with a seemingly rabid old woman calling for information about a brain-enhancing product. She seemed largely incapable of coming to any kind of logical conclusions, so her product choice was a good one, but she could not seem to break through the brain-dead haze to take advantage of it. She asked how much came in each bottle. "Each bottle is a two month supply," I replied, but she wanted to know HOW MUCH EXACTLY. Not having anything more specific, she began ranting. I'm still not wholly sure what about. She then wanted to know if it came with an eyedropper, and when told that the product was in powder form, she regressed further into her dark and twisted mind, trying to bridge the insurmountable gap between powder and eyedroppers. Ultimately, the woman decided that I was a thoroughly unhelpful and malicious person after I grew tired of answering the same question, rephrased three different ways and told her so. ("Madam, you can rearrange each of the words in your question an infinite number of times and it will not even remotely change the correctness and certainty of my answer." Maybe she just got angry that I used multi-syllabled words.) After a long speech presumably engineered to strike fear into my heart or solicit some kind of apology (it did neither), the woman threatened to report me. "Okay," I responded cheerfully. "My name is Nikki, and I'm operator 30. That's three-zero." This was apparently a mistake, as it launched us into a five minute bout of utter confusion as to exactly what "three-zero" meant. It did not mean 3030, nor did it mean 33030 or 362 or 251 or any other obscure numerical sequence the woman pulled from the bowels of her cerebellum. Even such statements as "No. Listen carefully. The number is 30. It is the number between 29 and 31. It is a two-digit number. Those two digits follow immedately: Three. Zero." "230291?" Some days, it would be preferable to be on unemployment. (11:58pm)
One of the companies we answer for is a child abuse help line. A fairly serious account, we are required to patch people in need to the councelors on call until 8pm. I received such a call just before 8 and tried to notify said on call. There was no answer, so I moved to the backup. I was greeted with the third degree -- "It's almost 8, why are you calling me? Why didn't you call the on call? Well, take a message for tomorrow, I don't feel like talking to anyone." Reassuring to know that there are still helpful folks out there dedicated to their jobs, isn't it? (7:57pm)
The "history" feature on our message-taking system is an enlightening wonder. Through it, one can find all the flubs and foolish mistakes a co-worker has made. Like tonight, for instance, when a fellow employee paged someone at an electric company for a problem. When the paged individual checked in with the operator who had paged him, the operator gave him a message which had already been delivered, ignoring the message he had paged for in the first place. (8:48pm)
A cable customer in Flordia initiated a conversation by saying "Page a technician for me." "Uh-huh. And you are..?" It turns out this was a customer who had been disconnected for non-payment and had since paid his bill, but had yet to be reconnected. The man was practically foaming at the mouth, demanding that techs and supervisors be paged en masse for his deadbeat ass. When I refused to be pinned down to any specific course of action, he hung up with a mighty bull seal-like bellow of "GET MY CABLE ON!!" Of course, he'd been so enraged that he'd neglected to leave any address or phone number, so I guess the poor dear will have to continue to be cableless. (8:52pm)
Another example of how obtuse an individual can possibly be. A woman in Arkansas called to report something wrong with her cable. She wasn't sure what. She also did not know if she had a digital cable box or, indeed, if she had any kind of cable box whatsoever. She just kept repeating "I guess I cut the line," but could not say for certain. "It's usually fairly obvious to tell if a cable line is in two pieces or not," I said in an attempt to relay some kind of reliable detail to the techs. No luck, however, and in the end, I was forced to leave the report "Cable is 'messed up'. Could not be more specific. Thinks she cut a line but is unsure." (8:55pm)
A cable caller in Texas asked me immediately upon initiating conversation, "Do you know what my problem is?" When I said I did not, he decided to withold all information and call the office tomorrow, presumably when the telephatic operators would be available. (8:17pm)
It's always fun when the power goes out. As Nikki suggests, "Perhaps their brains are directly linked to the electricity." Witness what the grip of panic -- induced by losing your power around 7 o'clock at night -- can do to one's reasoning...
Me: Did you hear anything unusual before your power went out? Man: The phone rang and the lights flickered. That's unusual.
Me: Do your neighbors have the same problem? Woman: I don't know, I just got home. Me: Alright, I'll let the technicians know. Woman: Could they hurry up? The power's been out for two hours.
Man: My neighbors up the street have power. Can you explain that? Me: I do not know, sir. Man: Because, you know, they're right up the street. Me: (to self) Maybe the electricity just likes them better.
The cable office actually made an attempt today at keeping us current, faxing over eleven new on-call listings. Of course, nothing from them can emerge unscathed, and while paging a tech, I noticed the addition of a new number, for the tech's mobile phone. Right below the number was the message "this is personal cell not to be given to the answering service." I'm soooo tempted to call and try to deliver these outages ... (8:41pm)
You know, in this job, you enter into every call with at least marginal expectations of rudeness from customers. From CUSTOMERS. Not from techs. Tonight, I picked up a call which the manager had parked to me; a technician from Missouri. This tech was in a rush to call an 800 number for the office to leave a voice mail report before 10pm. I apologized and informed her that I only had numbers to on-call technicians and nothing else. That's when things started getting nasty.
Tech: Well I've called up there to you people before and you've given me the number. Me: There's no number that I can see. Do you know who you spoke to? Tech: I have no earthly idea. Me: I don't either, then. Tech: Let me talk to your supervisor.
(Meanwhile, the manager is in the background saying "Is it that bitch? Hang up on her!") Me: You just came from the manager. I handle dispatch, which is why she sent you over to me. Tech: Well what number she SHE dial? Me: What number did she dial? She didn't dial ANY number, she's sitting four seats away from me. Tech: Well someone gave me the number. Me: Perhaps so, however that in no way changes the fact that I don't have the number you are seeking. Tech: What is your name?? Me: Nikki. N-i-k-k-i. Tech: I can spell, bitch. <click>
OH no. To start, don't even try to pretend that there aren't copious spellings of my name and you just mystically knew which method I had chosen. Secondly, do not cop that attitude with me because you left your work until the last minute and now can't get it done in time. But you know, that's okay. Because we've gotten techs fired for being less rude, and they'll have a nice juicy report waiting for them on Tuesday. (9:45pm)
Two calls to the health company were made by this one crotchety old woman. During the first call, she demanded information for the product she'd just heard on the radio. That was, of course, all she knew of the product. No name, no ingrediants, no reason for taking it... She was adamant that I know what she wanted by her repeated, insistant claims of "It was just on the radio!!" Having little desire to perpetuate a conversation with the woman, I gave her customer services' number and hours and hung up. For good, I'd hoped. Not so, as she immediately called back, this time spewing forth seemingly unlinked, random words like "cider" and "towel", and unrelated letters which formed no comprehensible sequence I am aware of in the English language. Again, I confirmed I had no idea what she wanted to order and recommended her to customer service. "Well what ARE you there for?!" "To take orders from people who actually know what it is they wish to order." She hung up and didn't call back. Good. (3:30am)
Tonight was one of those nights where our OSB report cannot possibly reflect the continual irritation we suffered. For you see, throughout America, tornados and massive thunderstorms had swept through areas, ripping down electrical and cable lines with wild abandon. These storms were still raging in many cities, but regardless, people refused to accept a few facts of life:
1) Technicians are not going to go out to fix cable in the middle of a storm, as the storm is most likely just going to knock the service right back out again.
2) Technicians are not going to go out to fix cable in the middle of a storm, as the storm is most likely just going to kill the technician.
3) If, by chance, your service DOES go out, expect it to be out for a while. A tornado is a large, unpleasant wind. Odds are high that it is doing copious damage in your area. Lines are likely down. Many of them. The technicians, not being clairvoyant, will need to conduct a line-by-line search. Contrary to popular belief, this cannot be done in 30 minutes or less. It's a multicity-wide outage, it's not a pepperoni pizza.
Weather happens. It's irritating, yes, but until man in his infinite wisdom is able to wrestle Mother Nature to the ground and bitch slap her around a bit to show her who's boss, we're at her mercy. Be glad you have shelter from the rain, thunder and lightning. Perhaps that shelter is without electricity or cable, but hey. You're warm. You're dry. That's better than 700,000 or so other Americans out there tonight.
Even more irritating than those who want instant gratification are those who try to use guilt to achieve it. I know I've talked about this on Everyday Stupidity are well, but I heard it so much today, I can't help but bitch again. Every area in America has its natural disaster of choice. Be it tornado, hurricane, earthquake, brush fire, blizzard, etc, you know the perils of your area and prepare yourself accordingly. I dealt with a staggering volume of calls tonight where people lamely tried to use the excuse "But there's a tornado out there and I HAVE to have the cable to keep up with it! It's a matter of life and death!!" I have two words for you people: Bull and Shit. If you're aware enough of tornados that you must be on top of their movements and status, then you're aware enough to know that along with all your non-perishable food items and bottled water, you have a functional radio with batteries. Voila! All the information you need, all the time! And don't even try to pretend that you're still desperately in need after I remind you of that fact.
And I can't help but be both amused and disgusted by the fact that they NEED the cable on in this LIFE OR DEATH situation, but they would gleefully send a whole platoon of cable techs to their screaming deaths all in the name of watching Matlock reruns on TBS.
<deep breath> Okay. I feel better now. On to the Daily Idiocy.
A cable customer in Texas, irritated about his cable being out during the tornados, wanted to file a complaint with the office, but he only wanted to do it via E-Mail and was aghast that he would have to phone it in "the old fashioned way," as the operator told him. One is left to wonder how he mustered the courage to call about the cable in the first place. Hmm, I wonder if he's got a girlfriend yet? Nahh. (11:00pm)
A cable caller proclaimed that his city was "Yeah, why's my cable off?" and the conversation degenerated from there.
Me: Yes, the cable is out in your area and the technician is working on it. Man: What's that mean? Me: It means the technician is working on the cable outage. Man: I know what you said, what does it mean? Me: You need me to explain what "the tech is working on it" means? Man: Well, why is it off? Me: I do not know the specific reason, although I could name several known causes: wind could have knocked down the lines; power to the cable station could be out; a rat could have chewed through a fuse in China. Man: You think you're funny? Me: No, sir, but I AM quite busy with calls. Nevertheless, I will report your outage to the technicians and they will have it up as soon as possible. Man: And when will that be? Me: I will report it now, and, by definition, they cable will be back up "as soon as possible." Good night.
When asked to confirm that all of his channels were out, a cable customer in Texas said, "No, I have one channel." "What channel would that be?" I asked. "None." "Sooo, you have one channel coming in and it's none of them?" "Yeah." "That makes no sense." "Yeah, well, I'm being a smart ass." "You need practice, sir. Goodnight." (11:16pm)
Placing orders for the health company is often fun. In this instance, the first words out of the woman's mouth were "Are you real? Are you a live human?" "Last time I checked," I replied, although in retrospect, I wish I'd lied. After the order was placed, the woman asked me if I enjoyed my job. "It's a job, like any other," I said. "So you're not actually concerned with people's health problems, it's just a job to you." Thankfully, she moved on from there so I didn't have to answer that. The woman went on to lament how I wasn't warm 'n fuzzy to her and made her feel aw wuvved an' pwotected from the evil nasty badness in the world. :( Again, thankfully, she didn't linger long enough for me to respond with my gut reaction. Finally, the woman said with a hint of great sadness "Good luck with your career" and then paused, as though her naked emotion would stir me to react in kind. It did, in a way, but I could not share with her, as I had shoved my fist in my mouth to keep from bursting into peals of laughter. (11:24pm)
An elderly lady (and by "elderly", I mean I suspect that she went to the same high school as Moses) called to place an order for the mattress pad. To start, she wanted us to mail her a credit card that she could use to place the order. Much later on in the conversation, when told that she would simply place the pad on top of her mattress underneath the cover sheet, she wanted the company to mail her a cover sheet, too. (12:02am)
Shock beyond shock, we received no auto financing calls this evening. This joy is tempered by the fact that A) the Iron Chef that went uninterrupted was a repeat, and B) we took calls for a mortgaging company whose customers mainly come from the south. The poor, uneducated south. Like the man who called in, did not know his own social security number, nor his wife's name. He had no number for his work, saying that no one could contact his workplace, even in an emergency. To top it all off, he said the house he was looking at cost $20,000. I didn't know they sold 1/2 bedroom, 1/2 bath houses. (1:21pm)
A cable caller needed help ordering the Spice channel. The easy instructions are to dial 800-xxx-SPICE, but this didn't work for him because the only way he could spell "Spice" was "Splise." (10:27pm)
A woman called into the health company, originally to order the "maggot" mattress pad. Later, she was asking if the magnets in the pad were the same as the ones in her pair of shoes. I informed her that I had little knowledge of magnetic shoes and even less on her footware preferances, so I had no idea how the two compared. "My magnet shoes have little button magnets in them." "Ah, well, the ones in the mattress pad are the size of dominoes." "Are they like the ones in my shoes?" "Well, I don't know specifically, but as these are domino-sized, they should be at least significantly larger then something which is button-sized." (10:27pm)
Some customers just seem to perfectly know how to get under my skin. In this instance, the woman was calling to interrogate me about the damnable magnetic mattress pad while leaving all of her deductive reasoning at the door. After quizzing me about the free trial, she started getting even more dumb:
Me: If you do not return the pad by the end of the 45-day trial period, then your card will be charged the discount price of the pad. Woman: And if I do return the pad in time? Me: ....well, then logically, your card would not be charged. Woman: 'Logically'? What does that mean? Don't use big words, just tell me if the card would be charged if I return it! Me: No. <insert eye roll here>
And, of course, the phrase "The price of the pad with the discount..." falls on deaf ears. "I'm supposed to get $100 off! They said so on the radio!!" Towards the end of the conversation, she asked me how long the special would be good. I told her that we'd not yet set a termination date on it and she replied "Well the last person I spoke to said it'd be on until the end of the month." ARG!! I HATE it when people ask me questions they already know the answer to! DIEDIEDIE!! (10:43pm)
A caller to our health services company wanted to know if the multivitamin we offered could cure prolonged exposure to radiation. I'm as dumbfounded by that now as I was then. (11:49pm)
A customer for cable in Mississippi proceeded to rant to me about how today was Saturday and he did not want the cable to be out all weekend. When I just nodded and smiled and told him it would be reported, he asked me what day he had said it was. When we both confirmed he had said it was Saturday when, in fact, it was Monday, he had the gall to chide me for not correcting him: "Well, where were you if you didn't know what day it was?" he asked. (6:35pm)
A cable customer in Texas called to report that Nickelodeon was scrambled. She could not spell her city, her husband's first name, or the word "Poppy" in her street name (which I myself could spell with ease, but I was amused at this point and wanted to see how little she could manage. I should've asked her to spell "Nickelodeon", too). (9:09pm)
Technology will never be able to overcome human stupidity. In one of their few efforts to provide more reliable cable, one of the companies fitted their equpiment with a temperature sensor to alert the office in case of an overheat. The only problem is, they failed to program it to give us any useful information concerning its point of origin, and since, after hours, we receive calls from every city that company services, the manchine could be located in any one of several hundred cities. All night long, we would occasionally receive a call from this machine, with its Speak-N-Spell voice, informing us of an overheat, in some desperate cry for help. This was both sad and quite eerie in its own way. (10:05pm)
Sad people proliferate. If you gain nothing else from this site, I hope it's this truth. Here is yet another example with this cable call.
Me: Crappy Cable, which city are you calling from? Man: <much mumbled deliberation> Me: Are you in a hotel? Man: No. Me: Okay, I need your city. Man: Cinemax is out. Is there a problem here? Me: Where is "here"? Man: At my home. Me: Which is located exactly where? Man: By a lake. Me: ...in which city? Man: I don't know. Me: And it's your house. You live there. Man: Yes. Me: I'm sorry. I can't help you without knowing where you are. Man: Well, is Cinemax on everywhere? Me: Sir, at the after hours service, we cover all 700 or so cities for Crappy Cable. Man: Do any of them have problems with Cinemax? Me: I have no idea, and before you ask, no, I won't check all 700 for you.
The call ended with my insistance that the man somehow obtain his position in this country into one which I could recognize. He didn't seem too confident in his ability to do so. (11:14pm)
A customer for our health service, after asking what our address was and receiving it, asked where we were located. She was astonished to find it was the same as the address she had just been given. (7:25pm)
A cable caller from Texas needed a new cable box. After hitting his current one to the floor with a bat, it didn't seem to want to work anymore. (9:21pm)
A person calling to request a free brochure and video from a company refused to give me her address. (9:10pm)
