Ever answer the telephone with entirely the wrong telephone voice?

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

I travelled home this weekend to see the family, and got a phone call this afternoon from a Glasgow number I didn’t reconise…

Them: “Hello, is that pretend my name is witty?”

Me (sleepy from looking after niece and nephews, not expecting anything remotely important: “er…yeah?”

Them: “It’s (muffled name) here, are you still free on thursday and friday?”

I thought at this point, I realised it had to be my friend, Jeff, trying to sort out a big night out this week

Me:“C’mon Jeff, f**cking speak properly, I can’t hear you, you northern monkey”

Them:"Pretend (thankfully using my first name), I dont know who you think this is, but it’s Sergeant-Major Acorn (not his real name, real one’s a little more scary), you said you would be free to do some rifle cleaning later this week, is that still the case?

Me: “Sir, sorry, sir. Thought you were OCdt Monkey, I’ll be in when you need me, sir. Wont happen again, sir.”

I hang up and…“fuck”.

He’s a good guy, but something tells me when I go in on Thursday, I’ll be making tea in addition to whatever I was supposed to do.

Least it wasn’t job offer.

Anyone else answered the phone equally unsuitably?

2

I used to work at a supermarket deli, and I got along pretty well with my manager. He wasn’t on site for whatever reason, and someone told me he was calling for me on line 2. I picked up the phone and said, “Thank you for calling the Cala Foods Service Deli, what the fuck do you want?” Because that’s the kind of thing he’d get all aflutter about but not really be angry.

Turns out it was another Deli manager calling for my boss. Eep.

3

I called a store to see if it was open, and evidentially I sound like the regional manager.

I said “Are you open?”

The sales woman said “Yah - we’re open, but we don’t sell kids clothes anymore.”

I said “You don’t?” and she said “No - now we sell ho gear.” (I’m not making this up).

I said: “Uh, pardon me?”

And she said “Ho gear - you know, for hos - prostitutes - hookers.”

I said: “Uh, I’m not sure who you think this is…”

She said “It’s Tracy!”

And I said “No, actually this is a customer.”

Hilarity ensued. Good thing I have a good sense of humour…

:smiley:

4

Erg, yes. Many years ago, I was sound asleep at my parents house, exhausted from my long night shift doing heavy labour, when the phone began to ring.

“'lo.” I mumble.

“Stasia? Can you come in to work tonight? I know it’s unusual, but…”

“Oh, god, no. I’m so achy, and I’m tired, and I hate that place right now. Can you bring some orange juice home?”

“So, uh, you won’t be in tonight, right?”

“No. And tell [my boss!!] to stop nagging me about it. The phone has been ringing off the hook and I’m not answering it because I just know it’s him. I’m going back to sleep.”

“Alright, then, goodbye.”

I hang up.

And I don’t find out until hours later, when I finally wake up and shuffle into the kitchen in my pyjamas, finding my father at the fridge, rummaging around after finishing his day shift job. I asked him, “So, why did [my boss] get you to call me in for work today? That was really weird.”

My father gives me a puzzled look. “I never called you today about anything.”

I had been talking to my boss, thinking he was my father. It makes more sense if you know we all worked at the same factory, my father’s was the foreman in the department attached to mine, and my boss and my father interact frequently throughout the day. But damn.

5

One night, I gradually woke up and became aware that I was sitting on the side of my bed, talking on the telephone. I heard myself explaining that my maiden name was “X”, but now I was married and my name was “Y”.

I woke up fully and asked: “Who am I talking to?”

The reply: "Oh, thank goodness, Dr. “Y”, You weren’t making any sense at all! We didn’t know what we were going to do! This is Labor and Delivery, you have a patient in labor.

Took awhile to live that down!

6

After a long night jockeying phones at my high school job, I got off work and went home. The phone rang.

Me: Imo’s Piz…uh hello?
My uncle: Bwahaha

Not that bad but still embarassing. I’m sure it won’t be too long until I answer my cell phone, “Thank you for calling the Circuit City Imaging Department, this is Mandy.” :smack: Or start talking about No Interest Financing until 2008.

And I don’t even want to guess how many times I had to pick up a phone at work and say “Thanks for calling Imo’s Pizza” or some other variant. It is a very large number. A disgustingly large number.

7

Ugh. My last office job, I did this all the time.

“Larry speaking, how can I help you?”
“Uhh… d’ya wanna go out for a beer?”

:smack:

A while back I thought I recognized the number on the call display as that of one of my oldest friends. “Hey, pigfucker! About time you called!” Nope. My housemate’s ultraconservative mum. Nice.

8

It’s been a while since I picked up my own phone and answered it “Spacely Sprocke…uh, I mean, hello?” Today though, I almost did something even more embarrassing. I was leaving a message for a friend and, having left a message for my SO just a few minutes before ending with “love you,” I almost ended this call with “get back to me when you have time. Love you.” I could feel the words lining up to come out and had to think to prevent myself from saying them.

I’m sure he would have been flattered though.

9

Heh. At a former job, one of my clients frequently, absent-mindedly, ended our phone calls with, “Love you,” rather than “Bye.” I teased him about it a little, and it turns out his wife’s name was quite similar to mine, and I sounded like her on the phone. After that, I started responding, “Love you too, sweetie,” and we laughed about it.

10

Retold here

11

I remembered some ones that luckily weren’t mine.

At Imo’s again back in high school:

My friend has been on the phone with her boyfriend off an on all night (we were sloooow at work). A work phone rings and she answers it. Talks to the customer, gets their order, and instead of saying just “Thanks your order will be out to you in 30-45 minutes” she says “thanks I love you” to a customer. We ragged on her forever for that. I wonder what the customer thought!

And my best friend used to work there as well. She was reading back someone’s complicated pizza order and said “canaked bacon” instead of “canadian bacon.” I’ve never seen her turn that particular shade of red before! Canaked bacon is a term we now throw around with glee whenever applicable.

12

Sometimes my ex-wife calls me using my daughter’s cell phone, which I usually answer with something along the lines of “Hellooo Beautiful!” or “Hello my precious angel!”
When it happens, there is usually a pause of a few seconds, then my Ex will say in a gruff voice “It’s me.” I then want to take a shower for some reason.

13

when I was… fairly small, but big enough to answer the phone and big enough to be a little smartass, it became apparent to me that “unkown” on the caller ID usually meant a telemarketer. This was before everyone had a cell phone instead of a landline. yeah. I was little.

I would either answer the phone in some inane way or answer their questions with stuff like, “my mom? no, I thought she was with you!”

So one day, “unknown” popped up on caller ID. I picked up the reciever and stage-whispered “I see dead people…”
“… Dottie?” It was my mom’s best friend, apparently on a cell phone. When I explained, she understood, but there was certainly a “holy shit!” (except not, because I was like seven and didn’t say “shit”.) moment.

14

Not me. A friend would answer his cell with lines like "hey motherfucker, how ya doin’?"when he saw it was from one of his friends.

Once Mom needed something and she realized this guy might know where to get it. So she calls him; at that time her phone, my phone and the phones of my brothers happened to all be the same. So, she calls. Someone answers and I hear Mom say “sorry, dear, I’m not either of my sons. Anyway, I was wondering if you might know where to buy XYZ?”

After hanging up she told my brother “I kind of hope he wasn’t with a customer. One of these days it’s going to get him in trouble.”

This same friend, when he received his wedding gift from the friends (an enormous puzzle they needed to assemble before they could get the linked money), said “oh you fuckers, for this I’m going to rip y’all new asses!” and his Mum was stunned at such foul language. She doesn’t know him very well, really…

When my cellphone shows a foreign number, I answer in English, knowing it’s usually about a job offer. A few times this has led to some confusion because the person on the other end was expecting Spanish. Well, d’oh, if the number starts with +44, you’re calling from the UK, aren’t you? So!

15

Get off my lawn!

goes off to cry

Darn movies not that old… harumph

16

But she’s barely SD-legal, Sage!

17

When I was 15, a guy I’d dated briefly got into the habit of what I later realized must have been drunk-dialing me. One evening, the phone rang, and, thinking it was him, I picked it up and shrieked, “Stop calling me, you asshole!”

Turns out it was one of my dad’s co-workers. :eek: Still, you’d think he could have just told the guy, “My daughter’s been getting harassing phone calls,” instead of going to my room and pushing my bookcase over.

18

I’d been online for several hours one day, later the phone rang and I answered, can’t remember who it was or what they wanted [it was genuine call from somewhere and not some weirdo] but I nearly gave my name as Lobelia.

Many years ago when I lived in Scotland an Aunt used to stay with us for a week every summer, she worked as a housekeeper or summat for a rich family in London. One day the phone rings, I answer “hello?”
I hear a voice say “moodayh speahta muzzohan?”
“what?”
“moodayh speahta muzzohan?”
“What?!”
“moodayh speahta muzzohan?”
“yuh wha… what?!?”
this went on for - oh ten minutes - this person saying “moodayh speahta muzzohan?” and me screaming what??!!?? and getting more and more loud and hysterical, and ultimately abusive (as in “can’t you *ucking speak English?!?”)

they hung up after a bit… hours later my brain finally analysed that the disembodied voice had in fact been my Aunt’s “boss” saying “could I speak to [aunt’s name]?”

oh dear

19

Just after college I was working days at a paint store and had a volunteer night shift at the college radio station. One Sunday afternoon at home, I answered the phone with “Diamond Vogel Paints – er, KUSR – hello!”

20

I settle total loss auto claims. Every now and then I almost give in to The Dark Side and conduct an entire settlement in my (very convincing) Dr. Evil voice. I’ve really come a lot closer to doing this than I like to admit.

Our phone system here at work can be tricky though. If a customer calls a rep on their direct extension and the person isn’t available, the call will bounce into the main queue so someone else can handle it. When it does that, it comes across as a direct dial from the intended rep. So it looks like your just getting a call from the coworkeron the caller ID. After a few, "Yeah Baby?"s I figured this one out.