A desktop tech called me because he needed assistance solving a vexing desktop malfunction. The first thing out of my mouth was “Has she been fucking around with her God Damned machine again?” There was a prolonged silence - then the tech says “Uh, Winston, you’re on speaker.” I recovered nicely: “Hey - Bonnie (customer) - have you been fucking with your machine again?!? Joe - take me off the God Damned speaker.” Bonnie was pretty pissed, but I got her machine fixed, admonished Joe to NEVER put me on speaker again, and Bonnie was so relieved that her PC was salvaged that she has never mentioned the incident.
I had a woman call once asking if we could provide her with toners for her laser printer.
In true Minnesotan, I replied “You betcha,” but I slurred it a little. As it came out of my mouth I realized it sounded very much like “You bitch.”
I tried to cover by talking on, but she never did come in to buy toner.
A million years ago I worked for a REIT and I overheard one of the accountants say to a vendor, “sure I can help you with that. Let me just transfer you to the dial tone”.
Great for telemarketers, too!
An employee of another company called one day. We did business with them a lot, so I was somewhat friendly with him. He was calling to arrange an entertainment program for a women’s group of rape and incest survivors.
And he was sort of dancing around what he was trying to say… “So, uh, the comedian has to be, you know - sensitive…”
“Uh huh”, I say.
“You know, no… off color stuff…”
So I just came out and said, “No dick jokes, right?”
Silence ensued. He later called in a big huff to complain about me. My bosses thought it was the funniest thing they’d ever heard.
It was very close to exactly “Don’t let your mouth write checks that your butt can’t cash.” to a client.
I worked for a crazy woman who had interviewed and rejected another crazy woman for a job. So the interviewee decided she wanted her resume back but my boss had written the words Crazy Bitch on it. So it became my job to put the Crazy Bitch off and it became really old really fast. So, one day she called ranting and raving about her Goddamn resume and I replied “blah blah blah blah blah!” She called corporate on me.
A voicemail gaffe: I called in sick last week; my co-workers and I try always to change our voicemail messages so callers know if we’re not there and who they can call. So I called my office VM system from home and changed the outgoing message to say I wouldn’t be in and who to call for assistance. Next morning, knowing some of my callers call before I get in, I called from home early to change the message back to the normal one. I’d just gotten a new cordless phone at home. After making the new message, I got confused over the new phone button layout and as I pressed buttons,muttered “oh shit,how do you hang up.” I didn’t realize it was recorded. Get to the office, and the message light is blinking. It was a woman I deal with often and get along with very well. Her message was, while laughing, “Sycorax, you HAVE to change your message, you said ‘oh shit’” and more laughter. I immediately checked and sure enough, there it was at the end of my message. I called her and we both had another good laugh.
When I was working as a customer service rep for a very large credit card company, a gentleman called in to complain about a late fee on his credit card–he said he never got his statement. No big deal, about 50% of the people I talked to during the day complained about late fees. He had always paid on time, paid online, and got his statements via email. I took off the late fee, told him it was gone, he’d see the credit on the next statement and he’d get a confirmation letter in 7-10 days. That wasn’t good enough. He wanted to know what happened to his statement. The only records that the company had for online statements is the day they were sent and the email address they were sent to. I showed the statement being emailed and confirmed the email address. It was correct, but he still wanted an explanation. I explained that there was no way to track the email further, and that many things could have happened to it. He kept asking. I was getting mad so finally, I just started talking…“Well, sir, I show that the email was sent out to you, like it is every month. However, it may have been bounced back by your mail server, or your mail service could have been down at the exact moment that the information was being sent, or you may have accidentally deleted it, or perhaps our server here went down at the precise moment that your information was on its way out. I really don’t know. But you’ve gotten your statements electronically every month, for the past 2 years. The same day each month. Same due date each month. You could have called earlier about this, when you noticed you didn’t have your statement. You could have viewed your statement online, at our website. You could have made a payment. You had numerous options available to you, and you’re being a baby. I removed your late fee, but I have no explanation as to how the email disappeared.”
The other very memorable phone conversation I had was when I was a student caller for my college. I would call alumni and ask for donations. As well as update them on current happenings, and update records and things. I was talking to a lawyer who had graduated back in the 70’s. We were talking about one of the college traditions of “storming the arch” (one of the buildings on campus had an arch over a walkway–the rugby team and upperclassmen would defend it as freshmen tried to storm through). Freshmen would do pretty weird things to try to get through–grease themselves with Crisco, roll around in dirt, etc. The lawyer started talking about how when he was there, he rolled in cow manure before storming to try to break through. He failed. I then told him about how a group of freshmen that year had lubed themselves up with a lube used when farm animals are giving birth. It was a conversation I never thought I’d have with a lawyer.
“No, fuck YOU.”
Surprisingly, this calmed the customer down and the rest of the call went fine.
“I know we’re the newspaper… No I do NOT know if [Memphis native and TV judge] Judge Joe Brown got married in secret last weekend… Because we don’t publish gossip, that’s why!.. Because NO ONE CARES about Judge Joe Brown!.. Uh, sorry, Mrs. Brown.”
Gawd, you people are insane.
Just thought of another one- this was accidental.
Many, many years ago, while I was still gloriously mis-spending my youth, I was working at a market research firm. About halfway through a ridiculously long survey, the (male) respondant asked me “Do very many people actually finish this survey?” I answered “Well, actually, the hard part is to get people to do the survey in the first place, but once we get started, they usually go all the way with me.” Silence on the other end, as I realized what I had just said.
The guy confessed to me that he couldn’t think of a joke, but “I wanted to say something like, is this an extra service your company provides.” We both had a good giggle, then he finished the survey with me.
Another time, in the midst of a poorly written, poorly constructed survey, my respondant asked me, “Who writes these questions, anyway?” Without missing a beat, I said, “Someone with a degree in marketing”.
I was working as the second-in-charge of an office which employed about 120 people. I had only recently decided that since I had been “laterally promoted” from tech responsibilities which I loved to admin/personnel responsibilities which I loathed, and since I saw little chance of getting out from under the thumb of my idiot, racist boss (this was that company’s only office in the state), it was time to move. Idiot Boss had refused to set a firm dress code schedule; he would consult a Ouija board or the pattern of his morning dump in the toilet bowl or some such thing, and then decide whether or not managers had to wear ties or could dress casually. As usual, I was in the office earler than everyone else; I was officially supposed to be planning the day’s work assignments, but I was spending half of my time answering calls from the junior management staff asking about their wardrobe. I answered a call from Clyde, a meek, nervous, sheltered, home-schooled Fundamentalist Christian who couldn’t look a superior or a woman (or probably his own reflection in the mirror) in the eye:
Clyde: Excuse me, Mr. Earthman, I was wondering, what should I wear today?
Me: Oh, how about something frilly and lacy?
Clyde (after a pause, nervously): I’m sorry?
Me: You know, something sexy that will show you off…but nothing too complicated - pick something that comes off easily - I feel kind of eager tonight.
Clyde (another pause, even more nervously): Ummm…Ok…Is that allowed by the dress code, then?
Me (with mock surprise): Dress code? Who is this again?
Clyde: It’s me, Clyde.
Me: Oh, Clyde. No ties today. You’re on at six.
Clyde (with relief): Oh, OK. See you then.
The rest of the early staff stared at me in horror for a beat or two, and then burst out in a fit of laughter that must have lasted three minutes. Up to that point, Idiot Boss had cultivated a very straight-laced, stuffy, no-nonsense, tight-assed office environment, and I had foolishly backed him in this. This was a kind of epiphany (lower-case ‘e’) for me - I decided that I liked these laughing people much better than the serious-looking ones that had been in the room a moment before. Ever since then, I have tried to make work as much fun as possible for those under me.
I kept on going to work there, but didn’t really put any effort into getting Idiot Boss’s projects done - I did what was required to keep the rest of the office working, contributed to the morale of the office by chatting and joking with anyone who happened by (regardless of whether they should have been actually working or not), closed my office door and looked in the want ads for about an hour each day, and stopped firing people unless they stopped showing up. Productivity did not seem to suffer - the numbers were about the same as they always had been, and I had fun.
It took Idiot Boss two months to fire me, and then he signed my termination papers and the letter of recommendation which I wrote without even reading them. Too bad - they were pure fiction, with his name on them. I sailed into a much better job two weeks later.
And Clyde never did look me in the eye.
To a woman who had suddenly started yelling, delivered in my best fireman voice: “Ma’am, have you been drinking?”
To many, many slightly less irate people: “Thanks for your time, sir. We’ll call back when you’re sober.”
Just once: “Fuck you too, sir!”
Then there was the whole “take off list presentation” my coworkers and I invented for people who wanted to be off the calling list:
“Sure, we can do that. Let me just take down your name and phone number for our records. Your phone number is 555-1234, right? Let me look that up in our master calling list… ruffling papers for a minute Crossed it out for you. Now let me just get my manager, Mr. Coworker, over here to confirm it with you. He’s leaving his office now… oh no! He just spilled coffee on himself. Mr. Coworker, are you all right? He’s all right. OK, here he is.”
“Hello sir? This is Mr. Coworker from Our Company. I got a note that you wish to be removed from our calling list? Just to verify, you’re John Doe at 555-1234? And one last thing: was our representative ever rude or discourteous in any way? No? Thanks, I’ll pass that on to him. Have a nice day.”
The best thing I heard there was from a coworker: “Am I a firefighter? Baby, I’m better than a firefighter. I’m Lamar.”