Message #956

[countrigal]

I don't care who calls for bossie, I always answer the same way when asked if bossie is available:  "Let me see if he's in the office.  May I tell him who's calling?"  Then I ask him if he wants to talk to so-and-so.  He has a door out of his office that I can't see so he does escape often without my being aware, so I'm never really lying when I say this.  If he's not there, or doesn't want to be there, I say "Ms/Mr Blank, I'm sorry, but he stepped away from his desk without my knowledge (or he's unavailable at this time).  May I know what this is regarding and I can ask him to return your call when he comes back/is free? (or "would you prefer to leave a voice mail for him?" if they don't seem willing to let me know what it's regarding.)  Most of the time I get them to leave a message this way and then I can say "Oh, you know so-and-so is working on this.  Would you like me to connect you to them?  That way you won't have to wait on his call."  Other times I'm even able to handle it now that we've addressed the issue of bossie not being here and what the problem was, so bossie doesn't always get his messages.  Since bossie knows that this is how I handle the calls, unless he is expecting a call there are a lot of times he's "not available" when he's sitting in his office.



Hey, there's more than one way to skin a cat!  I'll do whatever I have to in order to get the information needed.