What's the most unprofessional thing you've ever said on a business phone?

In My Humble Opinion
1

OK, people, time to 'fess up.

I’ll go first. About five years ago, I was working in a tux shop. Bothe the owner and the manager were named Dorothy. So, needless to say, I answered many phone calls from people asking for Dorothy.

One day, it got to be too much. The phone rang. I answered it. “Jerry’a Tux Shop”. The voice on the other end of the line asked, “Is this Dorothy?”

Both Dorothys were off premesis at just that moment. I just couldn’t resist. “No,” said I, “this is her Auntie Em.” Laughter ensued.

OK, line forms on the left.

2

Go Fck yourself! No, No, Wait, Wait. That’s "Go Fck yourself!"

3

While doing telephone opinion surveys, I had to call cellphone customers to ask how satisfied they were. I got one Louisiana Cajun who was charming and funny as all hell, but was not was not so happy with his cellphone company:

“Boah, I got the REDASS with Verizon! The REDASS! You heah me? You gettin dis down?”

Me: “Um, Yessir! Is ‘redass’ all one word, or hyphenated?”

I could have been fired, but I had to do it.

4

“I can’t wait for all these fucking people here to up and die!!!”

Then I threw the phone across the room where it broke.

5

I used to work for a DSL provider as part of their technical support.

Some guy actually threatened me because he couldn’t get DSL. He was too far from the central office or something. Either way, not a damn thing anyone could do about it. (Well there are things that can be done but nothing realistic)

I said “Dude, I don’t know why you think you can threaten me. You have no idea where in the world I am, meanwhile I have your address right here in front of me”

I probably would have been fired but it was my last day so it wouldn’t have mattered anyhow.

6

“Hi, Ernie’s Mortuary, you stab 'em, we slab 'em!” Well, that line slayed my co-workers in our staff meeting the other day. Whaddya mean that’s not proper phone etiquette?

7

“I’ve been looking for a guy to help me with something quick and mindless, and decided you were the first one I’d call.” (To a freelance translator my company did business with.) I needed him for a short job, and he was swamped and usually didn’t take that kind of work, but he gladly obliged anyway. Called back, laughing, in fact, saying he’d been waiting years for a woman to tell him that.

Actually, that was the most unprofessional business conversation I’ve had on a business phone. If we can include personal conversations on business phones, then my answer would be very different…

8

“Sir. You obviously **incorrectly equate age with value. We don’t want your item. Please take it to a competitor.”

<pause> “Sir! Did you understand me? Are you still there?”

At least I was polite.

9

When I worked at a bakery I told a woman on the phone that if she came by at 2:00 pm, we’d still have “a buttload” of hamburger buns available.

10

Naw, I like an updated version of that based on a new-ish business that’s popped up in the last few years:

“Jim’s Crime Scene Cleanup, Inc. - you bop 'em, we mop 'em!”

11

“F*ck you, asshole, I need a million-five of the Brazil Cs to clear by 10.00 tomorrow or I will personally fly to New York powered by my own rage and rip your throat out and shit down your neckhole!”

This is why I don’t miss being in bond trading any more.

When I was doing Sys Admin work I had one of my project managers(who, thankfully, had a sense of humor, if not much brains) tell me that he kept getting “Illegal Operation dealies, and I’m really worried, what with the court cases against Microsoft lately.”
Over speakerphone in a team meeting, I told him “If you haven’t figured out what illegal opcodes in Windows mean by now, then I’m surprised how you find your way to the bathroom before you shit your pants.”
His response? “Well, some of the bathrooms here are HARD to find!” The meeting was adjourned due to the fact we were laughing so hard none of us could talk.

12

A few years ago, my company had an outdoor field trip planned for the next day. Customers, and the general public were invited.
A woman calls and asks if it’s “OK if she wears jeans tomorrow”. Somehow, I forget all about the field trip, mistake the voice on the phone for a recently Ex’ed SO, and reply: “What makes you think I give a rat’s ass what you wear tomorrow?”
A shocked silence followed, after which I came to my senses. :eek: It took a good bit of explaining to wiggle out of that one.

13

Back when I was in high school, I worked at a convenience store. A friend of mine worked at a similar establishment just down the road, we worked similar hours, and we’d spend much of the day on the phone in between customers. We had sort of an inside joke going where one of us would say to the other in a deep, slurred, gravelly voice, “hey, you got some of them GCP cigarettes?” and then laugh like hell. This stemmed from an incident one day in which a particularly crusty, less-than-bright customer walked up to the counter, obviously very drunk, and asked that question, and then, after I sold him his GPCs (note the correct order of the letters) he proceeded to be really obnoxious, hanging around attempting to flirt with us (my friend had finished her shift and had come down to my store to hang out until I was done), and just being really annoying.

So, from that day forward, “you got some of them GCPs?” would be guaranteed to elicit lots of laughs. You probably had to be there. Anyway, one day, we were on the phone, and she got a credit card and had to hang up to run it through. A few minutes later, the phone rang and I answered with the required, “Always something extra at Kum & Go, this is Mishell, may I help you?” In reply, I get a deep, raspy, female voice sounding suspiciously like my friend saying, “yaaaah…you got them GCP smokes?” I reply, “fuck you, bitch, come over here and I’ll shove my GCP smokes right up your ass!”

Dead silence. Then a click as the person on the other end hung up.

My friend swore it wasn’t her that called. I spent the remainder of the day paranoid that some scary lady was going to come kick my ass.

14

I’m really not in the mood for one of you to start another Pit rant against me but…

About 8 years ago, while taking to a client on the phone, I mistakenly used the word “queer” to discribe a gay man we were talking about.
The client (who was not gay) did not react to this, but my boss at the time had over heard me on the phone and had a fit.

I wouldn’t have minded getting chewed out so much if he himself wasn’t guilty of using the word nigger 10 times a day.

15

When I was a buyer for streetlight manufactuer, I had a flag pole vendor in New York (no for real, flag poles) but he could never get me my orders on time. On several occasions I resorted to threatining to fly out to NY and stab him in the neck with a pen -
a-la Joe Pesci in Goodfellas Several time I asked him how the hell he even stayed in business.

My fave is UPS. Working for same company as above. Plant manager comes to tell me that we have a 20 million dollar order (or some insane figure) that must ship TOMORROW, but cannot ship without these ‘particular’ custom labels.
Enter a p.o for labels. Label company is located in a suburb less than 30 miles from my company. Label company ships labels same day via UPS. Four o’clock next day, no labels. Call to label company. UPS picked up the box, did I want them to track the box and get back to me. No problem, I say, give me the tracking number and I’ll check it out.
This is the fun part.
UPS: Thank you for calling UPS, how can I help you?
ME: I’d like to track package ID#DJIOWEEFOGJ
UPS: Please hold
UPS: That package has arrived in Kentucky.
This was way back in the day before you could track a package via the web
ME: KENTUCKY How did it get to KENTUCKY???
UPS: let’s see, picked up in Buffalo Grove today, scaned in at Iowa facility @ X time today, and scanned in to Kentucky hub @ X time just this afternoon.
ME: Can I speak to your supervisor?
UPS Supervisor: See above answer
ME: Who is your supervisor? Get them!
ME to UPS Supervisor’s supervisor: This is what you need to do.
Have someone in the Kentucky hub, find that box, put it on a plane and have it here by 11 pm tonight, we have a second shift.
You are costing us millions of dollars that I will charge back to UPS for this screw up.
UPS S’Supervisor: You can’t do that m’am. UPS cannot be charged in situations such as this (or whatever it was that he said, to tell me UPS claims no responsibility for anything)
ME: FINE! Put the box on a plane and get it here!
UPS SS: I’m sorry, but we cannot upgrade a ground shipment to air, once the package is in transit.
ME: WELL I THINK YOU ALREADY HAVE!! BECAUSE UNLESS SOMEONE WAS DRIVING REALLY REALLY FAST, how did a box from ILLINOIS get to KENTUCKY via IOWA in less than a DAY!?!!?
UPS SS: I don’t know m’am.
ME:You are a SHIPPING company are you not? That is you business? We pay you to take stuff from one location to the other?
UPS SS: Yes m’am
ME: WELL THEN SHIP THE DAMN BOX!
UPS SS: We can’t do that m’am
ME: Where are you’re corporate headquarters located.
UPS SS: Atlanta
ME: Who’s your CEO
UPS SS: Jim Kelly
ME: What’s his number?
UPS SS: Corporate is 770-555-1212
ME: click

I spoke with Jim Kelly’s secrectary’s secretary. HUGE FREAKING WASTE OF TIME. Labels were not affixed to lamposts and we shipped anyway.

Next day:
Hi, this is Ms. Idjit from UPS. I just wanted to let you know that a package with a delivery date of yesterday will deliver today. We thought it had gone to Kentucky, but it actually had been unloaded in (your town) but it didn’t get scanned. I apologized for any inconvience, but it will deliver to day.

ME: You guys REALLY need to communicate with the rest of your company. Also, please communicate that we will now be using
Federal Express. click

sadly, I was overuled on the FedEx thing, since UPS was cheaper. That was the day I started throwing Starbursts at anyone who approached my office door. Those little squares leave a nice mark if you chuck them the right way.

16

A guy called once, told me that he was looking for some commercial property, and “I don’t want to deal with a woman.” I asked “Why not?” “Cause women don’t know about such things.”

“Mister, you are calling a real estate company, and you don’t think the women working here know about property? What do you think we do here, bake cookies and have sex?” Then I hung up.

Once a Hassidic Jew came into the office and asked about some listings. Only me and her were in the office, but fotunately the "male’ builder came in and helped him.

Yes, in the 20th century…

17

Not that bad on the surface, but in my old job, a particularly pain-in-the-butt client called up on a Friday afternoon, wanting to discuss our bill.

I asked him if we could talk about it first thing Monday. He said sure.

Uh, that Friday was my last day at that job.

18

When talking via the Nextel to my boss, who was on-site while I was home with the flu:

BOSS: He (the customer) says that there’s not a jack for the network in this office.

ME: There is, we ran the wire and punched it down yesterday.

BOSS: He says it must not be punched down because he can’t get on the network. He says that none of the runs you did are punched down, or that if they are, you did it wrong.

DEEP Breath.

ME: Is he plugged into the jack with a network cable?

pause

BOSS: Nope.

ME: Then the only person who should be talking about punching down anything is me, because I’d like to punch that asshole right in the fucking nose. The boss was able to explain it away and keep the account, but he took my Nextel away and gave me a regular cell phone.

19

I just remembered a different one. I worked for a time at a hospital, ordering surgical supplies. I hated the job.

Someone from a company called and was telling me how I could save money on supplies by ordering through them and finally I just snapped and told the guy:

“You know what? I really don’t care. I don’t give a crap how much money I save. I’m not looking to save money because it’s not my money and if I save it, I don’t see it, the patient doesn’t see it, even the doctor doesn’t see it. So big deal. I’m not here to save money, I’m here to make people stop yelling at me when they want something. The way I do that is by ordering it. Most things I can get from V. Mueller or Codman and I have them shipped next day because that money doesn’t come out of my pocket either. Then it gets here and I give it to the OR and they go away. And that’s all I really want. Try back in about six months because by then I’ll either have been fired, quit, or put a bullet in my head, and the next person here might actually want to do a good job and save money. But for now, you’ve got the wrong guy.”

He actually let me get all that out and then said, “Wow. Okay, I’ll let you go then.”

20

At the telemarketing company I worked for ,it was a MUST to speak directly to the owner or manager of a business…I mistakenly asked “Am I sleeping with the owner or manager”?There was complete silence and then a burst of laughter from both offices,his and mine…This guy on the other end is telling everyone there my screw up as everyone I worked with was crying in laughter at my mortified reddened face !! I hated that job anyway.