The worst I’ve ever had is:
“Thank you for calling BJ’s Wholesale Club in Albany, where we sell tires at everyday low wholesale prices. This is _____, how may I help you?”
And by the time you got to the bottom customer had either hung up or shot themselves.
Variation: “Morty’s morgue and delicatessin! You slice 'em, we dice 'em! This week’s special is chopped liver!”
Going from the sick and humoprous to the leaden and dull - I used to pull Quarterdeck duty in the Nav, and the main outside line rang there on the Quarterdeck. The spiel went: “USS {ship’s name here} quarterdeck petty officer tranquilis petty officer of the watch speaking this line has no security how may I help you sir or ma’am?” < deep breath >
I hated answering the outside line.
“'Welcome and THANK YOU for calling Ticketbastard, where American Express is the card of choice.”
The spiel went on for about 3 minutes noting the Ticketbastard guide available for purchase, the “add ons” for the the most popular concert/concert of the day (“If you’re calling about the Bette Midler concert in Minneapolis, ask me how you can purchase a night’s stay at the downtown Marriott Hotel which includes transportation to and from your concert venue!” - it’s sad that I remember that).
I hated working there. Hated hated hated.
Now I just answer “This is [MissTake]”. The fact that a human has answered the phone rather than it being in voicemail usually startles people enough so there’s a 30 second gap before they respond.
Ahh, Gates.
It’s more like HI!!! MAY I HEP YOU? (no L in the help) with an impatient look until you order. Kind of like the soup nazis. I just wish they had better food.
A friend of mine was hired to work at Hill’s, a grocery chain that was coming into the area. The store wasn’t quite ready, so they used it as a training center for cashiers – having “customers” go through and give the cashiers practice in ringing them up.
They had an iron-clad rule: when the customer left, you said, “Thank you for shopping at Hill’s.”
My friend was doing this one day when someone came up and said, “hand over all your money.” OK, a simulated robbery to see if she knew how to handle it.
She went by the book. She took all the money from the cash draw, put it into a bad, and said, “Thank you for shopping at Hills.”
Her boss was not amused. She didn’t last long there.
“3-A, this is Tris!”
Wrong numbers get very confused.
Oddly enough, even though half the phones in the facility are answered in exactly the same way, only with different unit numbers, the Admin folks just cannot deal with it. They say, “What?” about half the time. It’s okay, though, it identifies them as admin pukes.
I speak very clearly, and very very slowly, and say “T h r e e A. T h i s i s T r i s.”
Tris
You sold me. Where can I get one?
devilsknew, while reading that I was mentally hearing Christian Bale as Patrick Bateman as a waiter.
My contribution:
“Oh, you must be the health inspector! Our attorney is right this way.”
“ABC Fine Wines and Spirits, this is Susie speaking, how may I help you?”
There aren’t enough :rolleyes: in the world.
That’s them! I was trying to figure out how to spell the phrase phonetically, but it was making my head hurt. Thanks for the better translation. 
And you better already know what you want or they act like you are wasting their precious time. Lord knows you can’t stand there a minute looking at the menu. “Beef on Bun, please.” X on Bun automatically comes with fries (I love Gate’s fries) so if you order “Beef on Bun with fries” they look at you like you’ve just landed from Mars.
My phone greeting wasn’t so bad, just "SoCo Barney’s, this is Ashes speaking. Trouble was, the sign only said Barney’s on it, nobody knew it was part of SoCo. Since half the people who called had been drinking, I ended up doing a lot of explaining. Yes, this is Barney’s gas station, the one on Main across from the Tear Drop Inn trailer park. Yes, we still sell beer and the Colt 45s are the same price they were when you came in here three hours ago. Yes, we close at eleven like the ‘old’ Barney’s did.
Sober callers became confused as well. They’d hear the unfamiliar name and apologize for misdialing and hang up. A couple of minutes later they’d call again, having checked the number. I had someone call back three times before I could explain. Poor man thought he was becoming senile.
I searched the internet and apparently we were doing a knock-off of aPorter’s Steakhouse specialty, although that’s not where I worked and we had no affiliation. A manager once told me that we were going for a Chicago style steakhouse atmosphere. Made sense since our manangement was from Chicago. I had no idea that we were stealing another Steakhouse’s namesake though, “The world Famous Pepperloin”! I worked there in the early 90’s before the “real” internet and google and had never even heard of Porter’s.
…and yes, Ellen Cherry I did say all of that gleeful, pretentious, and corny crap. Day after day, after day, after day… Although we had no script, they encouraged a “creative” and “descriptive” sell of specials.
Anything that starts “your call is important to us…so we’ve placed you into a queue”.
That doesn’t bother me (unless it’s a ridiculously long wait, which means they should have hired more staff).
I’m more bothered by the “Please listen carefully as the menu items have changed.” That’s stupid on many levels:
Apu, is that you?
And devilsknew deserves a round of applause if you’re able to deliver such a long-winded spiel every time…
My mother, for whatever reason, would go on long kicks where she would answer our home phone
“Buffy’s Bar and Grill”
I have no idea where she came up with this, or why it so amused her. Unfortunately, I have done this, too. Why, why, why???
Our joke at home was always “County Morgue: You stab 'em, we slab 'em!”
Hijack to <b>Scarlett67</b>: Because I work at a consignment shop, I enforce all kinds of unpleasant, nasty little rules. Sometimes, people try to convince me to bend my nasty little rules for them. So I’ve learned to get progressively perkier and perkier as I keep telling them no. When they finally stalk off in disgust, I chirp “Have a nice day!” after them. It feels so good.
I’ve never had to use this myself, but I always cringe for the poor souls who have to answer “It’s a great day at ____________!”
It can’t always be a great day.
They’re doing this at the McDonald’s across the street from my office. As soon as you cross the threshhold, there are 3-4 people yelling “Hi, may I take your order please, step down!”…you’d think they were working on commission!
My company is a joint venture between two much larger companies, both with much higher name recognition.
After this merger went down, we were instructed on our new phone answering spiel:
“Thank you for calling [my company], a [parent company #1] and [parent company #2] company. Technical support department, my name is Hal, how may I help you?”
Nuts to that. Before you got to me, you had to go through ten minutes of menus, all with our company name. You didn’t get to the tech desk without knowing damn well what company you were calling. “Tech support”, was my greeting, and if I was in a chatty mood, I’d throw in a “this is Hal”.
They’re still instructed to say it the same way, too. Man, am I glad I’m not in that department anymore.