Print Page - The Strangest Phone Call?

For some reason, this morning I happened to think about something that happened at a law firm I worked at several years ago. It has to qualify as the strangest phone call any place I've ever worked at has received.

The law firm hired a secretary who negotiated at her interview to receive non-paid time off for her upcoming honeymoon. She was getting married about a week after her start date. After the wedding and the honeymoon, she never returned and called the Office Manager to say she'd decided to be a stay-at-home wife.

Fast forward several months. We had a new receptionist who'd never met this one-week secretary. One day she got a call, asking for this person and of course Receptionist said this person didn't work here. (As far as she knew, she never had.) A couple of us were in the reception area when the call came in, getting UPS supplies for overnight packages and when Receptionist hung up, we told her that Secretary had indeed worked there for a period of a week many months ago. Receptionist said, "Well that was her husband and he was mad. He said, 'You mean she'd been telling me she works there for six months but she quit right after our honeymoon? What's she been doing every day?!'"

!!!

I've wondered off and on what was going on there but I know I'll never find out. Sounds like a soap opera to me . . . .

What's the strangest phone call (at work) that you know about? (And if you took the call yourself, how'd you handle it?) I bet plenty of you can top my story!

Colleen

The company I used to work for happened to have the same name as an automobile manufacturer. (Though our company was much older!) I would often get phone calls asking if I had "a (part) for a '72 (make/model)" or some such. I would reply that this was a different company entirely but would then give them the phone number of the local dealer. Most people accepted the coincidence and thanked me for pointing them in the right direction.

However....

Late one day, pouring rain, I received a phone call from a female I can only describe as "bubbleheaded brat." She demanded I send a tow truck to get her car! I did my routine, explained that this was an entirely different company, but I'd give her the number of the local dealer. She says, or rather wails/whines, "NO! (pronounced "nyaaoooww") It's a (make) car and I've got a FLAT TIRE, and I'm GETTING WET and YOU HAVE to send a tow truck to get me!" I explained again that she had the wrong company (nicely, mind you) and she needed to call either the local dealer or a towing company. We go through this a THIRD time and I'm just starting to get a little impatient. After the third time she huffs, "Oh, fine!" and slams the phone down.

Five minutes pass and the phone rings again. It's Bubblehead the Brat wailing: "I just want to tell you that I'm REPORTING you to the Better Business Bureau and my FATHER'S a LAWYER and I'll HAVE YOU SUED!"

How did I handle it? Not very professionally, I'm afraid. At that point, I lost it. The whole thing was just so stupid and ridiculous and I had already wasted too much time with this twit that I burst out laughing. LOUDLY. While still on the phone. And once I started, I couldn't stop. With tears streaming down my cheeks I replied, "You do that, dear." and hung up.

Both of those are pretty good. Mine isn't as funny, but it's pretty weird. I was a department assistant for a biology research dept. of a medical school. On my first day of work, the phone rang, and the person on the other end said she was a representative of _________ County Hospital. "One of our patients died during the night, and he wanted to donate his body to science. Where should I send it?" Ack! I politely asked her to hold, then went and asked bossie. He laughed and said, "Oh, we get those calls every once in a while. Send her to Pathology, they deal with it." Apparently we did have a cadaver receiving area, though thank heavens I never had to deal with it.

Eeeewwww! I think you win dettu!

Didface - What do you think daddy's lawyer said when the bubbleheaded brat called?!

Mine phone call wasn't really strange as it was annoying. My old boss, "Bob", had announced his resignation from our company (henceforth "ABC company") to join another company (henceforth "XYZ company"). He was officially working until the end of the month but since he had so much vacation time left over, he was taking the days as vacation time.

Anyhow, Bob was out of the office and I get a call from some guy asking about my old boss. He proceeds to tell me about his company, blah, blah, blah. I, of course, want to cut to the chase and asked this guy if he wanted Bob to come and work at his company. I think I said something to the effect, "if you want Bob to come and work for you, he already has a job at XYZ company".

The man then tells me, "no, I don't want Bob to work for me, I want him to work with me" and the proceeds to explain the subtleties of for vs. with. More blah, blah, blah.

Finally he says to me, "are you going to XYZ company with Bob because I was watching Jerry McGuire the other night and his secretary left the company to go with him". I said "no" (restraining myself from explaining the subtleties of reality vs. movie, the fact that the woman who followed Jerry wasn't his assistant but someone from accounting, not to mention that she was in love with Jerry which was something I did NOT feel for Bob!).

The guy's response to my "no" was to say, "oh, so you must be an ABC company girl through and through" which was something I was definitely not feeling at that time because I felt that Bob was being pushed out the door by our company!

At this point, since I knew that this moron wanted to speak to someone else in our company, I couldn't transfer him fast enough!

Makes you wonder if people's brains are connected to their mouths sometimes.

I like all of these... though I would have to vote for the first 2 being the strangest. Man if I'd been involved with the hubby and lost wife I'd have had to call their house one day just to ask for her (about a month later) just to try to find out what happened. That's like starting a book and not getting to finish it!

As for the brat... did you ever check to see if your company had been reported, just out of curiousity? I can just imagine this brat's father answering his daughter's call in the office. He's a President of some company, in a big meeting, daddy's girl convinces the secretary to put the call through, and the wailing is immediately heard by everyone in the meeting as she wails that she's getting wet. Just punishment I'd say. And I think the laughter on the phone was the appropriate was of handling it.

How is this for strange. 5 Years ago I was working as the Receptionist at a Paging Company when I received a call from an Admin who said she was confused about the whole paging thing. She asked me what time our offices closed (5:00PM) and she then asked if the pagers stopped working when we closed for the day. I explained to her that the pagers worked 24 hours a day / 7 days a week. To this day I can't believe I was asked at that.

Okay, I have a few for you. I used to work at a television station. You would not believe the nuts that call into a television station. I would have to relieve the receptionist every so often (she was a saint to put up with all those calls!) and once I got a call from a lady who was mumbling something I couldn't quite understand, I asked her to repeat what she was saying several times. It finally came out that she was saying "I've been hynotized by my teevee!!!!!" Trying to be the professional I am, between clenched teeth because I was trying not to laugh, I said, "Ma'am, I'm sorry, I don't quite understand what you want me to do about that. Let me suggest that you turn the teevee off. Thanks for calling and have a great day!"

We had another nut who would call in and say that two of our female anchors would follow her into the post office to see what she was wearing and then they would have the same outfit on during the nightly news. She was tired of them trying to copy her. And people were always mistaking her for Charles Gipson on Good Morning America, etc. etc., etc.

Another called in to find out why, during Oprah's Book Club, that Oprah wouldn't publish her book. I asked her if she had contacted a publisher first and well, you get the picture. These people were crazy! Not to mention the MEN (not just women) that would call in because their soaps were interrupted. Jeez, get a life.....

I didn't take this call, someone else in our office did. But it's from a big ditzy bubblehead woman too:

Caller: I received a form in the mail from you and I don't know what it's for.

Co-worker: What is the name of the form?

Caller: I don't know. Where would I find that?

Co-worker: Up at the top in bold letters.

Caller: Oh! Thank you.

My co-worker told me that she wanted so badly to ask the caller, "Do you know how to read?"

hahaha I love that one Didface! I too just LOVE the callers asking us to use our ESP!

Anyway, here my story not really strange but somewhat funny.

Our office gets so many calls from Ohio about child support. So every now and then I have you can hear me saying, "We're not a child support agency". One day I get this call from an old lady and it went something like this:

Me: "Good Morning, ABC company!"

Caller: "Listen here I don't know WHY you guys sent me letter about child support. I am 79 years taking care of my grandchild and I can't be paying child support"

Me: "Ma 'am, we're not a child support but let me..."

Caller: "Didn't you hear what I just said!? I'm not paying child support. I'm 79 years old...."

Me: "Ma 'am I understand that but again we're not a child support agency..."

Caller: "I can't be paying child support!!!...."

Me: "MA 'AM WE'RE NOT A CHILD SUPPORT AGENCY HERE'S THE RIGHT NUMBER!!!" (now I didn't mean to shout but she wouldn't let me talk)

Caller: taking down the number ("I can't believe I have to pay child support" blah blah)

URGH!

Then I get these other lady asking if a payment has been made to her account for child support. Now I couldn't give her the correct number because she went into the whole spill of what a loser her ex-husband and why she divorced him so after she was done I said, "Ok, well we're not a child support agency but let me give you the right number" Poor thing I know she was really embarassed!

Bridget

Oh, oh, I got one! I got one!

This was when I worked at the Unversity of Cambridge.

"Hello, Bethalize. How may I help you?"

"Hello. I want to speak to Mr Smith (it was really some important physicist's name, but I forget)"

"One moment" (checking the list.

"I'm sorry, I don't seem to have a Mr Smith on my list. Are you certain you have the right number?"

"This is physics, isn't it?"

"That's right. What department is he in, I mean, is he an academic, or staff?"

"Oh, defintely an academic."

"Do you know how long has Mr Smith been here?"

"Oh, years and years."

"Hmm. Let me check my university wide directory. No, sorry, can't see him. Do you have his initials?"

"J J."

*pause*

"Do you mean Professor Smith?"

"Yes, that's him."

"I'm sorry to have to tell you that Professor is no longer with us."

"Oh. I'm sorry. When did this happen?"

"1963."

And then there was the lovely lady from the Arizona channel who kept ringing me up about a programme she was doing about the discovery of DNA. She wanted to know if we had anything about Crick and Watson. She was very disappointed that we didn't really have anything about them and was saying how she thought that we would have whole museums of stuff about them.

There was a pause.

Me: "Umm, were you aware that they are both still alive?"

Her: "Gosh, really? (all delighted) Do you have a number for them?"

I told her to look them up in Who's Who in the end. She mailed me later to say she had an appointment with one of them.

I once worked for a magazine publisher and received a phone call from the FBI with a cease and desist printing order. Turned out one of our advertisemers had included a picture of a dollar bill (sized differently, but green), which was considered illegal reproduction of currency. LOL... Was on glossy paper and not an exact reproduciton, but they didn't care. We had to pull the magazines and get a different ad inserted.

I took the initial call and at first I didn't think it was serious. I thought it was someone playing a practical joke on us. The FBI had to convince me they were for real. LOL

Marie

not the strangest, but certainly the most embarassing for me it was the President's Office. A few years ago, I was an advocate, involved in a large group of women, and I had written to Mrs. Clinton about a specific issue. It became the office joke, "we'll take care of it when we hear from Hillary".

I picked up the phone one day to hear: "this is so and so secretary to Mrs. Clinton, would you please hold for her?"

My immediate response, "come on you guys, this isn't funny!"

Hers: "no really, this is the white house"

Mine: "Yeah RIGHT! You guys are really getting on my last nerve, I KNOW we'll hear from her"

Hers: " Uhh you ARE hearing from her, but she has very limited time which is rapidly ticking away. Dear let me give you my number and you can call us back and verify that I am in fact calling from the White House"

And she was.

I spent so much time apologizing to the appointments secretary it cut into my phone time with the object of the call. Sheesh.

I was the receptionist at a civil engineering firm here in Boston for 4 years. About a year and a half into the job I answered the phone in my normal, very professional manner to hear this:

caller: um, what company is this?

me: Blah Blah Associates, may I help you sir?

caller: well, sorry I seem to have the wrong number. But I really like your voice, can I just talk to you for a few minutes?

me: I'm sorry, what did you say?

caller: I know that this is sort of weird, but I am glad I dialed your number by mistake. I am new to the area and just hearing your voice is nice. So what's your name?

me: holding the phone away from my face with a look of wonder thinking "okay, were is the camera?!" Well actually, I am sure that the look on my face said something else entirely!

the caller tries to go on telling me his life story.

me: (being as professional as I can) Sir, I am glad that you like my voice. But, as you can tell, I am the receptionist and do have to answer all the other lines ringing at this moment and will have to say goodbye now.

He went on to call just about every week sometimes twice a week until I left the job. How very strange. Some times he would just say "sorry wrong number" and hang up. Some times he would try to keep me on the line as long as he could. I wonder what every happened to the poor soul.

I hope that you all are having a great day.

jak

My first office job was with a kitchen design firm when I was 19 years old. One day not long after I was hired I got a phone call from a fast-talking man who identified his company, but I didn't recognize the name. Then he said to me, "A pig just hit the ground. What should I do?"

I was horrified to think that this poor animal was injured! I said, "Call this number immediately!!!!" and I rattled off the telephone number of my veterinarian. Then I hung up so he could make the call.

A couple of minutes later I got a call back from the same man who could barely control his laughter. He apparently had called my Vet. He spoke very slowly and clearly as though I was an idiot. He then explained that the "pig that hit the ground" was actually a "piggy-back trailer" of merchandise for my company that had just arrived at the railroad yard and he wanted delivery instructions from me!

My face still gets red when I think about that day!!

This one just happened yesterday:

Caller: I sent in my paperwork on June 25th and still have not heard anything back yet. What is the status?

Me: _________ (name of form) usually take about 4-6 weeks to process.

Caller: Well it's been a month!

Me: Yes, and like I said, the average processing time is ABOUT 4-6 weeks. There are 4 weeks in a month. So that means 4-6 weeks would be a month and a half approximately. Therefore, it has not been long enough yet. Please allow about two more weeks as that is the average time needed to process this.

I basically had to explain to here that there are 4 weeks in a month. And to make it even more funny, the caller was a legal secretary who one would think would know how many weeks are in a month.

Isn't funny, the things you expect someone to know since they seem so basic and then they don't? Kind of makes you wonder how they get through day-to-day stuff. Although, if her boss is like mine, he/she may have made her call you the minute the fourth week was up and will probably make her call back every day or so to see what's taking so long. Sometimes it's Boss that's so impatient.

Yeah, but if it were me I'd preface my query with "I know it's only been 4 weeks, but how long does it normally take? My boss is anxious for this information." Thereby letting them know that it's not me who can't figure out 4 weeks = 1 month. When I get calls like that I just start deducting IQ points each time they repeatedly ask stupid questions. Come on, we all know how to word questions so that we ask what boss wants without appearing like the helpless, unknowledgable admin (that we AREN'T!).

I think this one takes the cake! I work for a large electric utility and we get all sorts of odd calls - customers complain about their bills being too high, we trimmed their trees without permission, on and on. One day I got a call from an elderly man who seemed very nice and lucid, he gave me his info (name, address, account number) and I thought he was having trouble paying his bill. Turns out he wanted to complain about his neighbors who, according to him, had WAY too much electricity, and were stockpiling the electricity and had set up a force-field around their house so they could shoot the extra electricity at him through a ray-gun! He also claimed that they had de-materialized his cat in this way, and he thought they might be skinheads, too, but he didn't want to accuse them of that, because it might not be true!!!! I took this all down on the proper form and submitted it to our investigator, who went out to visit. The poor guy was really very senile, but sweet. We satisfied him by plugging his receptacles with those plastic things you use to keep babies and little kids out of the receptacle, and so far, he hasn't called back.

While we're on the subject of exasperating phone calls...

Please don't let your young children answer the telephone.

I tried for 5 minutes to get a young child to give the phone over to her mommy.

First she asked who was calling. I told her my name and company.

Then silence. Then she started dialing the phone in my ear (ouch!) Then she asked again who I was. So I told her again and said "Please put your mommy on the phone."

Then silence and then a hang up.

Uggh! So I decided that if this woman truly wanted someone to call her back she wouldn't have let her young child answer the phone. And I gave up.

Countrigal, you're so right - when Boss asks me to make those kinds of phone calls, I say write up front that I'm calling on behalf of my boss. (He did this yesterday - he needs a file from out-of-state regarding an old company he used to own and had me call and ask about it. We'd called a couple of times before and yesterday they finally told us they couldn't find the file; they'd look one more time and call us back tomorrow - that is, this morning - and let us know for sure whether or not it was missing. I relayed this information to Boss in the morning, right after calling and would you believe he had me call back again in the afternoon. They repeated exactly what they'd told me that morning and I repeated it to him. You can bet I said, "Boss has asked me to call you about the file." The file, BTW is definitely lost. *sigh*) So I guess I was probably giving the legal secretary too much benefit of a doubt!

Deebdeeb - I think your's is the best so far! Gotta feel sorry for someone like that. It was good of your company to take him seriously - at least to his face - and do something to make him happy.

Oh, laundryhater I am with you. I used to work for a fund raising organization and I once called someone's house and asked to speak to "Jane Smith", a fairly well-to-do donor.

The little boy who answered said "Mommy isn't home". I asked, "Can I speak to your Daddy". He said, "No Daddy isn't home either." So I asked to speak to any adult in the house. Finally, the boy said, "Mary is here". So I spoke to Mary who was the babysitter.

Can you imagine if I had been someone with criminal intent?! Gee, wealthy person with only a 16-year-old and two kids in the house....

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General Discussion => Admins 4 Admins => Topic started by: vegasadmin on July 20, 2001, 12:47:13 am