I’m getting a little tired of the fake plasticy “Hello and welcome to McRonalds”-style greeting messages you get whenever you walk into a convenience store/fast-food joint/whatever, and feel like mocking the dang trend. Can the Doper hivemind suggest examples (real or imaginary) of the worst things a minimu-wage drone can say to you when you set foot in their establishment?
“Have you eaten here before?”
Dang, no I haven’t. Is it too late to learn the secret handshake and pick up my decoder ring?
I used to work at the computer room of my dorm in college. The standard phone answer was “South Quad compuer room.”
My friend and I started saying…
“South Quad computer room
You’ve tried the rest
now try the best
What’s you’r pleasure, Sport?”
Here’s the spiel I had to give EVERY TIME I answered the phone at my very first job – carryout order taker at Big Boy:
“Thank you for calling Marc’s Home of the Big Boy, Northland Avenue. This is Scarlett speaking. How may I help you?” :: gasp for air ::
That was 22 years ago and I still remember it clear as a bell, even thought I worked there only a few months. :eek:
There’s a fast food Asian place around here called Mama Fu’s. Whenever you walk into their store, the staff is supposed to yell, “Come to Mama!”. But what really happens is they all mumble and start out of sync. So it’s not inviting nor is it really inviting. You can tell they feel stupid saying it. :rolleyes:
The stock minimum wage drone phrases delivered in monotone in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas are priceless.
“The chewy bits are not harmful, sir.”
“If you come back, you’re an idiot.”
I don’t admit it too often, but long ago I once worked at Radio Shack. We had to answer the phone like this for a sponsorship tie-in:
“Thank you for calling Radio Shack, where your purchases earn you miles on American Airlines Frequent Flyer programs!”
Ridiculous. I refused.
I worked with a retired Navy guy from the Phillipines. He spoke very slowly with a strange, monotone drone and cadence. I swear it took him 30 seconds to spit that out! More than once, by the time he was finished (and he did EVERYTHING he was told to do to the letter- Navy training and all that), the caller had long since hung up.
The rest of us would roll with laughter when he answered the phone.
I gotcha beat, **Scarlett **and gatopescado. I worked for Blockbuster :smack: :
“Thank you for calling Blockbuster Video Frankfort where you can pre-order Titanic for only $14.99, my name is Natalie what can I help you with tonight?”
Never, ever, not once did my “suggestive sell” ever result in someone preordering a movie over the phone. 7 years, and not once. Bloody waste of time.
Of course, after about 10:30, all the people ever wanted to know was when we closed, so I’d change it to: “Thank you for calling Blockbuster, we’re open 'till midnight -” and I’d hear “click” before I could say anything else.
Thank-you-for-calling-Suncoast-where-you-can-now-sign-up-for-Dish-network-this-is-Zsofia-how-can-I-help-you?
Man, did I hate that. I’d often forget and answer my home phone like that. And then they changed it to "where you can now reserve ____ coming out on ___ and you’d always have to struggle to remember what the hell it was. Awful. You’d always forget when it was the DM calling or whatever.
What’s worse is after you’re done with the job and you hear a phone ring at home and the greeting automatically rolls through your mind.
It wasn’t a bad greeting but one summer I worked in the office of a day camp that was affiliated with a school. I answered the phone “Day camp.” Many a night at home I’d hear the phone ring and in my head go “day camp!”
IANA senior citizen, but I happen to know that during the Roosevelt-Willkie election of 1940, the Chicago Tribune wanted FDR out very, very badly. Badly enough to compel all switchboard operators to answer the phone as follows:
"Chicago Tribune…Do you know there are only ___ days left to save your country?"
"Hi, I’m devilsknew and I’ll be your server tonite! Our dinner specials tonight include grilled Mahi-Mahi laced with a delicate beurre-blanc sauce for $18.95; Veal Oscar… tender, thin pounded, medallions of sauteed veal heaped with whole leg, alaskan king crab meat, drenched in decadent hollandaise sauce and penciled with crisp, green, spears of aspargus for only $20.95! We also have a wonderfully light and piquant lemon-pepper chicken… a tender and juicy sauteed breast of chicken finished with a white wine, lemon juice, and freshly cracked black pepper pan sauce. It is $10.95!
Might I also direct you to the menu and our House Specialty, Iris’s Grilled Pepperloin! We marinate whole, USDA Choice tenderloin for a minimum of 48 hours on a bed of Kosher rock salt in a tenderizing and flavorful marinade of olive oil, onions, garlic, whole peppercorns and bay leaves. The whole tenderloin is then rolled in fresh cracked pepper. Three, three ounce medallions are then cut and grilled to your order and brought to the table on a white hot platter sizzling with our own special, house mustard sauce, accompanied by its own heavenly aroma! I recommend the Pepperloin if you like steak. It is really, really good!
"
By this time…they were usually ready to go to the bar and get their own drinks! It sounded good and wasn’t necessarily the worst thing you could say first off to customers, but man my spiel was always so looooongg!! I sold those pepperloins like nobody’s business, though.
Just to be a bit different, I’m gonna piss everyone off and say I was lucky with how I had to answer the phone at my work back in high school. 
I worked at a gas station/garage and if the phone rang, we answered with: “Mack Gaukler Shell”.
That’s it. No “Hello”, no “this is [name]”, no “we have an oil change special for blah dee blah” or even “can I help you?”. Nope. Just “Mack Gaukler Shell.” You might have a tinge of a Valley Girl-esque question inflection at the end, to make it sound like you’re asking what they want without actually asking them.
Other than the fact I was getting paid only $6/hr to do cashiering, full serves (yes, we had two full service pumps), tire rotations and oil changes without a heated/cooled garage, it was kind of a neat job. Heh.
You actually said this? Hee!
A local Kansas City bar-b-que chain requires their cashiers to yell out “HI! MAY I HELP YOU!” the instant you open the front door. The owner is often in the store, and if those girls don’t yell that at the absolute top of their voice they will get a stern talking to about customer service. The bbq is very good, but I hardly ever eat there anymore because it is so annoying to get screamed at. But it’s a KC Institution!
Someday I’m going to open a dessert store, filled with French pastries and decedant delights. And I’ll name it “Chez Moneux”
Then, when people call, I can yell into the phone “SHAME ON YOU!”
Just remembered one that kinda goes in reverse, in a “too little, too late” sorta way . . .
My friend owned a coffeeshop/bookstore and hired several fun gals to help. One day one of them, Jean, was busy toward the back of the store and a lady came in the front to buy something. She waited up front for a while, getting more and more irate (from the later reports of customers drinking coffee up front) but Jean just didn’t see her. Finally she got fed up at not being helped and turned to huff her way out of the store. At this Jean finally got a glimpse of her and called out cheerily (but obliviously), “Have a nice day!!”
Jean’s gone now (breast cancer sucks), but that’s one of my favorite stories about her.
“Most gracious good morning. Thank you for calling Second Hand Rose. This is Kevin. How may I be of assistance today?”
Down here we have Florida Gulf Coast University. FGCU. Sometimes pronounced “Fug-kyoo.” So on the phone, the jokers amongst them answer, “Fug-kyoo, so-and-so speaking.”
I have no idea where my dad got it from, but for awhile he would always answer the phone with “Jack’s morgue - you kill 'em, we chill 'em.” Many times, schools would hang up and not call back for quite awhile.