I’m lucky in that the industry in which I work (auto glass) is fairly, shall we say, casual, so ofttimes I can get away with saying what’s on my mind, at least when dealing with wholesale customers, which is mostly what I do. I realize part of the problem is that an astounding number of people apparently have no idea what they drive, but there’s no reason why my customers can’t figure that out before they call me.
One customer was forever calling in the wrong year of whatever car he was going to work on. Turns out, when people called him, he would have them check the tag on the driver’s door for the production date, and at a certain point in the year the car would actually be the following year’s model. Finally I said, why don’t you have them check their registration, isn’t that easier? He tells me, they don’t always have it on them. Uhh, ok, most people keep it in their glove box, if you’re going to make them go out to the car to check the door tag, why not have them look in the glove box instead??
Another time, same customer calls, “I have a guy who needs a new windshield for his van. He’s not sure if it’s a Ford or a Chevy.” Me: “Well, tell him to go outside and look, then call me back.” I swear everyone in this business smokes crack.
Even in my own office - one of the girls up front calls me the other day and says, “Bob wants to know if you can get door glass for a Brinks truck.” Yeah, probably, how 'bout a year, make and model?? Maybe a VIN? Because I just know offhand, right? It really wouldn’t surprise me if they thought I did, I’ve only been here for a year and knew nothing about auto glass when I started, and people who’ve been here waaay longer than me ask me everything whether it has anything to do with my actual job. I once told my boss if there were penguins fucking in the parking lot, they’d call me. Now whenever I get some random call and someone asks me what that was about, I just say, “Penguins fucking in the parking lot.”
I also once told the manager of one of our retail stores that I was going to drive out and punch one of his installers in the balls, for going to a vendor and picking up a part without calling me for a purchase order. (Knowing what I do at my other job, this was taken seriously.) Now they’re thinking of making me manager of the next retail store to open in a couple of months. I’m hoping I get it for the obvious reasons, but it won’t be as much fun. The installers barely speak English so my threats won’t mean anything, and I’ll be dealing with retail customers, so I’ll have to be civil. Dang, but this has probably been the most fun year of working in my life.
(Note to the OP: before I came here, I used to work for a company that the state had outsourced its Medicaid customer service to. I feel your pain.)