The Strangest Phone Call?

[andrea843]

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.

[jak0215]

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

[countrigal]

The sad thing... there are folks out there who do that because it's the only way they hear a friendly voice.  Some are suicidal, most are not, but just hearing a friendly voice can help them a lot.  You probably did a lot for that guy just by answering the phone.  Kind of gives a new meaning to doing your job, huh?  

[jak0215]

CG,



Ya know, I never thought of it that way, but you are probably right.  He was never rude or out of line, he just would call to say hello.  The human interaction was my most favorite part of that job.  Some times I really miss being a receptionist, I was able to meet by telephone and in person some of the most amazing people.



jak

[twhfan]

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!!  

[radaro]

That's hillarious ("the pig hit the ground").  It really shows how each industry has their own language, short hands and acronyms and since we use them, we expect everyone else knows what we are talking about.



We just had a meeting which included one of our new hires.  I ended up creating an acronym dictionary so he could figure out what we were talking about.

[laundryhater]

Radar: That's a great idea!



Already grabbing my 3-ring binder to start my own.  

[laundryhater]

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.

[vegasadmin]

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.

[countrigal]

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!).

[deedeeb]

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.

[execsec]

deedeeb, I think this man used to call the television station where I used to work!  Just joking, but we did receive a lot of calls from obviously deranged and troubled people.

[laundryhater]

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.

[vegasadmin]

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.

[radaro]

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....