Funny work story

[keelhaulrose]

While looking for a job in a school I got a job as one of the people who answer the phones for TV maker X. For those who do not know, these call centers are large, and often encompass several companies. In the building I was workign in alone we had TV Maker X, TV company Y, a vaccum company, a toiletries company, a web business, and a food company all working from the same two story building. I was one of the people who you called when your expensive TV broke down, and I could either help you (25% of the time) or had to refer service and send you on to the people who fixed bigger problems. Let's just say that people who called me were generally not in a very good mood.
When you call this places you usually are asked for a phone number to check if you called before and already have a file, a model number, a serial number, and a date of purchase for warranty information. After working in this company a few weeks I had started to recognize the general pattern of model numbers, and could get a mental image of your TV easily. Occasionally, however, an old model number would come up that would send me in search of the manual (which you should always check, because 90% of what I can fix over the phone can be found in there).
About half an hour into my shift I got a call from a pleasant woman. I let her tell me all the things wrong with her television (making note for the file) before I asked for her phone number. She had said she had called before, so I assumed her file was in the system. No luck with one phone number. Tried three more, no luck. Tried last name. No luck. Tried serial number. No luck. Tried town, and guess what? No luck. Frustrated I decided to start another file and just place a note that there should be another file. She was getting frustrated, but gave me her serial number. I didn't recognize it, but I entered it into the computer anyways. The computer didn't recognize it. I asked her to double check, and we got the same number. I started frantically searching our system, thinking it might be a really old model. She got really, really frustrated and sighed "it's a Company Y, 42 inch, etc TV."
I heard the problem. "You said it's a Company Y TV?"
"Yes, a company Y model number XXXXX."
I braced myself for her reaction. "Ma'am, this is company X."
Silence. "But, I called company Y."
I informed her that we were located in the same building, and they might have tried to transfer her to one of their extensions, and accidentially dialed one of our extensions. Luckily she didn't get mad at all, and we both had a good laugh. She kept me on the line while asking about our line of televisions, the whole time saying that if the company can't make a TV and the employees can't work a telephone she was just going to return the TV and buy another one. I answered all her questions, apologized profusely for the aggrivation, and she hung up to call company Y again (I didn't know their extension to try to transfer her back.) Now when I call up a call center I realize that things could be much worse.

Any funny work stories out there?

[jais]

Nothing specifically funny, but I work for a business only phone company.  We provide landlines and data to businesses.  These are PROFESSIONALS, they are at work!!  I work in collections, so they are ususally in the accounting department...... You wouldn't believe how many times people call me, give me their company cell # and get angry that I can't pull up their account, accuse me of being below average intelligence, and ask me to "look at my little computer in front of me one more time"  before they realize THEY called the wrong place.  This usually ends with them hanging up on ME, and sometimes calling me names, like I did something wrong!

[pryncsskittyn]

OH God, call center story for you.  I only lasted at this company for about 3 months (I had been a work study in an internal department for over a year before being forced on the phone to deal with customers) as a credit card call center inward telemarketing.  Inward meaning we took calls from people activating their accounts and tried to sell them balance transfers and other random uselss pay services.  I also took calls for people looking to change interest rates on their cards.  Because it was only an add on in our department and we weren't the "Credit" department, we only had a certain "window" of credit to look at and the computer only allowed us to decrease interest rates to a certain amount.  If we couldn't help them, we refered them to the credit department where they pulled a full credit report and assessed the situation.  I had a 97 year old lady call me one day.  She wanted her interest rate dropped to something reasonable.  After looking at what my system offered me, I could only drop her one point, it was all I was allowed (the "window" I had told me she had TERRIBLE credit and she could be dropped to and 18.99%, OUCH).  I explained to her I wasn't really in charge of these things and I could transfer her to a department better able to help her.  She refused.
She proceeded to SCREAM at me about what a horrible person I was making an old lady pay those kind of rates, that she had OWNED a major medical firm her entire life and she would NEVER hire me.  Like it was all my fault???  She went on and on and after multiple times of trying to calm her down, talk to her, I was in tears and near hystaria.  She was personally insulting myself, my mother, and my entire upbringing.  My manager finally came over (he'd picked up a line on me and was listening to to what she was saying, as well as recording it for my safety) and blatantly hung up on her.  It wan't funny then, but it is now, and I quit the job 2 days later.
All I can say is, people need to have a little more respect for call center rep's and understand that sometimes they really can't help you, especially if it's your own credit your talking about.

[IndianInlaw]

I'm guilty (and glad of it).

I went to this one optician with a funny name.  The next year I called an optician with a funny name and they couldn't find my record.  Not one trace of it.

Come to find out, it was the wrong office.

But I made an appointment anyways and LOVED this place.  The glasses from the first place FELL apart.  It was my first pair of glasses and I thought I had somehow mishandled them. 

Nope, the glasses from place #2 stayed in perfect shape.  I replaced them only when I needed a new prescription.  I loved the staff there too! If I hadn't moved out of state, I'd still be with them.

[Bijou]

I have a lightbox and a work lamp.  I can only plug them in one at a time because I have only one outlet available where I do my art. 
Yesterday I couldn't get my lightbox to turn on.  I ended up calling the company about it.  They were going to send me some instructions.  In the meantime I tried it again, and it worked.  Oh, great...an intermitent problem...I hate those...they're so hard to figure out.
It continued to work fine the rest of the day, but this morning when I plugged it in I had the same problem...it wouldn't turn on.  Finally, I realized that I had mistakenly plugged in the work lamp instead and that I likely had done the same thing yesterday.  Duh!   

[housewife2k]

I used to wrok in a callcenter that processed rebates. This particular year, there were many issues with a certain brands cell phone rebate, so we were basically taking calls from people who were already irate, as they should have recieved their money months ago, and are sick of hearing "It will only be a few more weeks".  Our computer program was formatted in such a way that when a call was transferred to us, it gave us the callers name, info, and why it was being transferred.  One day, my floor supervisor comes over laughing insanely, and gathers up my entire team. All my team was doing that day was dealing with the peoples who rebates had been rejected when they should have been honored, so we were surprised to see a full rejection screen on his monitor. He then had us read the screan.
Our system had a nasty habit with truncating names, oftentimes at illogical places, on a tranfer. Normally we would open the file and read the name first, but whoever transfered the file to our supervisor hadn't opened the file.
The customers name was R. Christofer Jesus, truncated as Jesus, R Christ.  The note on why the call was transfered was as follows
"(floor Supervisor), I know that you deal with mislabeled rebates, but I am sorry, there is no way in h3ll that I am telling HIM that he isn't getting his cell rebate!"

We also had the little old lady who would call us every other day for three weeks and say
"Female Dog! Where my money at now!?, not to offend you, but that what I was thinking when I checked my mail this morning, honey."

[keelhaulrose]

I always hated it when customers swore at me over the phone, even in casual passing. It's not like I'd swear at them at all.

The DH wishes to pass this story along:
DH did the FUN call center job- the outgoing kind. The kind everyone hated. DH is also a smart Ooo, I tried to get around the word filter with a nasty word.. When someone said that they didn't speak english, he'd either randomly start saying words until it annoyed the english out of them, or he'd start up in spanish, taking away that excuse.
Here's the real story. Once he got a call and, because he was hawking credit cards, the guy started in on conspiracy theories that he had. My husband, who had put in his two weeks, started talking to the guy. And talking. And talking. After half an hour his manager told him to make a sale or get off the phone. My husband encouraged the manager to plug in on the call. For another half an hour the manager listened and laughed. Then he plugged in a training group. Another hour of listening to wacko conspiracy theories on everything corporate.
The fun thing in all of this, the guy ended his tirade with "sure, I'll apply for your credit card." Once finished my husband turned to his manager and said "booyah. That was one comission well earned!"

[Clara Bow]

I had a man who was partially deaf come into the drugstore one day asking for Monistat cream. No problem at all, I walked him down to where it was and helpfully pointed out that the suppositories were on sale. He hollered (due to his hearing loss) loud enough for the entire store to hear "IT'S FOR MY PENIS!" I nearly ran down the aisle to get him back to the register, rung up and out of there. The rest of the pharmacy staff was hiding in the corner laughing hysterically at me...