Same here.
Clerk: “And your phone number?”
Me gives number
Clerk: “Isn’t that a cell phone?”
Me: “Yes.”
Clerk: “I’ll need your home phone number.”
Me: “I don’t have one, I just use a cell phone.”
Clerk: Looks at me with resigned disgust and confusion
Me, thinking: Look lady, when that phone rings, if I don’t answer it, I lose my fucking job. So don’t worry. If I’m two days late on returning Shrek 2 you’ll be able to let me know.
Really? :eek:
Can you make any sense out of this reaction?
-FrL-
Yes, really.
Hell, I dunno. Maybe she doesn’t get enough fiber.
Count me in with the side that sees the home phone as the land line which is different to the cellphone.
And yeah, dang Otto, you’re like a wigwam and a teepee on the horizon…far two tents. Chill out, man. 
I give my cell phone number only to people I will be happy to or need to hear from. The rest can call my home number, which has been in my home, formerly my parents’ home, since 1957. Filling out a form for the video store? Home number. Boarding the dogs when I go on vacation? Cell.
When I’m ordering something with a credit card over the phone, I give the home number because that’s the phone I used ooooh so many years ago when I filled out the credit card application. I don’t want my credit card to be rejected because the information doesn’t match, and I don’t want them calling me on my cell with “special offers.” They can call home and leave a message, which I will delete unheard.
It didn’t take me too long with my thinking cap on to figure it out. 
From the conversation Shamozzle had, it looks like the person who would have preferred a home phone number (aka landline) was a clerk at a video rental store. A place that rents you items would prefer a landline because that can be tied to a physical address. This will be useful when a collection agency tries to track you down after you refuse to pay the penalties because you lost the DVD of Shrek 2. In the same way I am sure they would prefer a physical address rather than a P.O. Box address.
My main office number is XXX-XXX-0001. Often when putting it on an Internet site, I get the “invalid phone number” page. Apparently some computers are programs think it is a fake number.
It is a very old phone number. Our company founder took it over from an organization he was a member of, so that it wouldn’t die.
They stop talking there as it is useless to go on with the question until the CSR asks his zillion routine questions before he can even tell me what time it is. No use to tell the problem just to have the CSR go through his routine then ask you again what the problem is.
Home telephone number is the land line, and that’s the way everyone but you thinks of it.
Thus, it’s not the dudes who are answering your question correctly that are to blame, it’s your bosses who are requireing you to ask the (now outdated) wrong question. **Lord Ashtar ** is correct. You should not be in CS.
They are not the same thing. I have a friend who has no land line and if she give her cell she also gets grief about that. I have little doubt that if your customers just gave you their cell number, you’d be here in the PIT with a rant about your customer doing that “stupid fucking thing that annoys you” as just about anything and everything your customers do annoys you.
Well, that’s just more proof that they’re idiots making false assumptions and deciding that they know how to do my job better than I do.
Did you even bother to read the rest of this thread? Because there are a number of posts in it in which people other than me disagree with this assertion.
But they are not answering the question correctly. They have a phone that they use at home. That is their home phone number. That it also happens to be a cell phone number does not change the fact that it is their home phone number.
I find that hard to believe.
Actually, if they would just give me their cell number, which is also their home number, then I’d just type the fucking thing in and be on my merry way. Does it ever bother you to be so wrong about so many things in a single post, or are you one of those “ignorance is bliss” types?
Well it is a fake number , isn’t it? There usually aren’t letters in a phone number. Or do you mean that the X stands for 9?
No, they’re applying their experience from previous customer service encounters, which is more than you’re doing.
What people in this thread say they think “home phone” means is completely irrelevant. It’s obviously not what the word means to these people.
Well, I’m convinced. From now on, when asked for my “home address,” I’ll give the address of wherever I happen to be.
Then why. Fucking. Get. Specific? Just ask for a number where I can be reached.
And there, I’m guessing, is the problem.
You are being forced to ask something that you yourself know in this day and age is potentially confusing and are taking it out on the end user.
I do not consider my cell number as my home number, even though I don’t have a land line.
Home phone means exactly that,the phone that you can be reached on at home.
NOT the phone that you can be reached on at any place or location.
People tend not phone you on your home phone if they know that you are usually at work or out of the house at certain times of day but they WILL try to get hold of you on your mobile.
This is an accepted convention just about everywhere I know.
Are you sure that you’re in the right job?
When, exactly, did you realize that Customer Service was the career best suited to your talents?
Perhaps you should consider a change.
But he’s a people person!
All those years servicing customers, and they still don’t operate like they should…
X means ten - don’t you know your roman numerals? To dial his number you dial 1010101010100001.
What happens if they both have a land line and a cell phone- they are not allowed to answer the cell phone when they are at home? So then they’d have two “home numbers”, which I am sure would also infuriate you.
You haven’t been “merry” since Day One of this job. Face it, you are as fit for this job as Chris Farley was for Chippendales dancer- except he at least had a good attitude.
Don’t be silly, IX stands for 9.