Not Going To Happen 'Cause I'm Not Harry Potter (Impossible Patron Requests)

[camlan]

The other is when they announce a show on TV with the Newfoundland time zone, which is a 1/2 hour ahead of Atlantic Time Zone (XYZ show at 8:30 Newfoundland, 8:00 Atlantic, 7:00 Eastern). She has had people think that the hotel is pulling a joke on them.

This was new to me. I had no idea that there were time zones that varied by half an hour instead of an hour. So I'd be puzzled, too. I'd believe what I was told, because I figure the natives in a place understand the workings of that place better than I do, but I'd be mighty puzzled.

How did Newfoundland end up with its own time zone?

[nutraxfornerves]

World Time Zone Map

As you can see, there are a number of "half hour time zones," mostly in Asia. Note also that all of China is in the same time zone, even though the country spans what other wise would be 5 zones. When I traveled in western China in the early 1980s, they simply changed hours of operation--the hotel would start servng breakfast at 9 instead of 6, for instance, which was still sometimes before sunrise.

[mumma to KMC]

Oh yes...the DST controversy in Indiana....

The people who were for it said that it would finally put an end to the confusion and people asking "what time is it there".

The ones against said that there were only 24 hours in a day, no matter how you slice it.

ginlyn

Funny thing is, it didn't change anything. Part of the state is on a different time still. The question is still asked!

[kherbert05]

The other is when they announce a show on TV with the Newfoundland time zone, which is a 1/2 hour ahead of Atlantic Time Zone (XYZ show at 8:30 Newfoundland, 8:00 Atlantic, 7:00 Eastern). She has had people think that the hotel is pulling a joke on them.

This was new to me. I had no idea that there were time zones that varied by half an hour instead of an hour. So I'd be puzzled, too. I'd believe what I was told, because I figure the natives in a place understand the workings of that place better than I do, but I'd be mighty puzzled.

How did Newfoundland end up with its own time zone?

Happens many places around the world. For various reasons the official time zones don't work for the local population. Remember every town used to set its own time. In the US times zones and official times started with the railroads, because the companies needed to be able to keep to a timetable. I mean could you imagine having to change your watch every town you were passing through on a railroad. I think it also had to do with safety what times to move different trains to different tracks.

 In Newfoundland's case the official time didn't work well for the Newfoundlanders. They are the furthest eastern part of Canada. They deal mostly with people in the Atlantic time zone, but didn't want to be out of sync with day night cycle. I thing Newfoundland like PEI is an area that depends on farming, fishing, and tourism.

[thebeckster]

Kinda different as technically the request came from a co-worker, but we're supposed to treat requests from bankers the same as request from customers.

I current work in the assist/escalation/supervisor line for online support for a bank.    I get a call from a lower tier banker about a branch rep who's being rude and demanding a supervisor to process a request on a customer's account.  I get the account information, and what details the banker has and take the call.

The issue is the customer has a business account and is using one of our online services for ACH collection(meaning he can electronic debit money owed to him by his customers if they provide him with proper authorization and account info) and wants the transaction limit raised to 100k per day.  And Apparently has been requesting this since may.  The branch rep is yelling and going on about how incompetent the online department is that we can't get this done for the customer.  He(the poor put upon branch rep who's just trying desperately to take care of his customer) has sent the rel@tionship manager email request so many times and he's just soooooo embarrassed that this simple request hasn't been done and I need to do it NOW NOW NOW!!!

Thing is, no-one, and I mean NO-ONE in the online services has access to increase a customer's daily limit on any money movement service.  We can decrease the limit, or reset to the default.  Any increases must be initiated by the CUSTOMER on the website.  This particular increase is tricky as the customer needs to request the increase, and it then goes to back-office who then request and get the approval email from the customer's rel@tionship manager(emails the branch rep was talking about earlier)  Thing is, I looked in the system and I never found the customer initiated request(we do have a procedure to expediate the request IF we can find the CIR and it's longer than the standard turnaround time)  Without that request the rel@tionship managers approval emails mean nothing and we can't expediate it, because there's nothing there. 

I point out I do not have access to increase the limit and try to go over what the customer needs to do, but the rep cuts me off with "I don't believe you.  This is utterly ridiculous that you just won't do this for the customer.  blahblahblah incompetence blahblah I'mtakingthisupwithsomehighrankingmanager blahblahblah customer came in and requested this months ago"

lather rinse repeat With me trying to get him to tell the customer to initiate the request and him refusing to before going off on another rant for twenty minutes before he finally hung up.  I think I figured out what happened though.  The customer came in, asked the branch rep how to increase the limit and the rep, wanting to look good, told the customer he'ld take care of it.  Sent off the approval emails, which processing couldn't do anything with because there's no corresponding request from the website.  And the branch rep doesn't want to admit he screwed up so he keeps calling and yelling at the online reps, knowing we're not allowed to go off on them.

Is this rep the rel@tionship manager for the end user customer? I would probably contact the rep's manager, explain calmly and clearly the steps that need to happen, and what the rep is doing (or not doing) is in effect impacting the customer being serviced, as well as abusing co-workers.

[MNdragonlady]

All the time zone talk reminded me of when we lived in western South Dakota. The line dividing Central Time from Mountain Time runs right down the middle of the state, so we lived in Mountain Time. Three of the four big networks had affiliates near us, so prime time programming ran from 7pm - 10pm (similar to Central Time). However, the CBS affiliate was located in the eastern half of the state, so that prime time was from 6pm - 9pm. Really crazy the first few weeks, trying to figure out what was going on.

To further complicate matters of time, the entire state is under one telephone area code. Can't count how many times I got telemarketer calls (this was before the Do Not Call list) between 8 and 9 am because the auto-dialers were programmed based on area code. Ugh.

Now back to your regularly scheduled thread...

[jenny_islander]

Yes, Alaska used to have multiple time zones that roughly followed lines of longitude.  We're so huge that IIRC we had five zones.

I used to work for a financial planner who had his office in his home.  He also had a phone in the master bedroom because they had a daughter who had just gone away to college and they worried.  Until he got a separate fax and business phone package, his poor wife was woken up between 4 a.m. and 5 a.m. five mornings a week by people who couldn't figure out a time zone map.  The squealing fax tones weren't as bad, though, as the occasional person who got annoyed at her when she explained foggily that, no, you do have the right number, but this is Alaska and it's 4:35 a.m.  No, really, it is.  No, I'm not playing a joke.  Yes, Alaska has been four hours behind your location for a while, this isn't a new thing . . .

Thanks for the info - but actually, if they were calling from the Centre Of The Universe - for example, New York in the US, and Toronto in Canada - the callers would likely have not cared.  It's THEIR prime time, after all. I recall a fairly recent column from a writer/columnist in a local paper (western Canada) where a Toronto station had asked him about doing a live interview program.  It would have been at 8 am Eastern time.  His answer "but that's 5 am here!"  "Yes, we know that, can you do it or not?"

IIRC we got a truly special snowflake who called again at about 7 a.m. to find out whether the boss was available yet to handle his Very Important Question . . .  Ah, yes, I do recall.  Former Boss informed me as soon as I got to work and told me to move his request to where it belonged--down near the bottom of the list, as it happened--and route all calls regarding it directly to him.  Don't know what happened after that.

[TychaBrahe]

Ok, time to share my college phone story. 
This was before cell phones. 
In the dorm, each year the room usually had a new number as it had new residents, thus making it a directory nightmare. 
My soph. year, we received the old number for a junkyard. 
We would often receive calls asking for old motor parts, did we have a mechanical part for a certain truck, etc...

This reminds me of a Zits cartoon where Jeremy picks up the phone and a guy is asking for a car part.  "Do you have a carburetor for a 1968 Impala," or some such.

Jeremy answers, "Nope."

The caller asks, "Well, do you have any suggestions?"

And Jeremy says, "Call and auto parts store, because calling house to house like this is going to take a long time."

At which point the caller asks, "Isn't this Al's Auto Shop?"

[TychaBrahe]

Daylight Savings really messes with people.

Many years ago, I was at my job early when somebody from the next state over came for a meeting. Except the states differed with their observation of DST, so he was an hour early. I had been on the job for, quite literally, three days, and I was the only one in the office. I had no idea what to do with the guy.

When I lived in California, my office was a satellite of an office in Phoenix.  I mean we were on VOIP and our calls came through their switchboard.  Phoenix is on Arizona Time.  During the standard time part of the year, they are in the same time zone as Mountain Time, but they don't do Daylight Savings, so we would spring ahead and be in step with them, then fall back and be an hour behind them.

Our office was staffed from 6-6, and theirs 24/7.  So if you tried to call us at 5 AM, you would go to the main help desk.  And every spring and fall we'd have to call to remind their phone people to change our time, because either calls were coming in at 5:30 and not being picked up, or they would transfer calls to us between 6:00 and 7:00 and have them roll right back to their queue.

[TychaBrahe]

The other is when they announce a show on TV with the Newfoundland time zone, which is a 1/2 hour ahead of Atlantic Time Zone (XYZ show at 8:30 Newfoundland, 8:00 Atlantic, 7:00 Eastern). She has had people think that the hotel is pulling a joke on them.

This was new to me. I had no idea that there were time zones that varied by half an hour instead of an hour. So I'd be puzzled, too. I'd believe what I was told, because I figure the natives in a place understand the workings of that place better than I do, but I'd be mighty puzzled.

How did Newfoundland end up with its own time zone?

Dunno about Newfoundland, but India is right across two time zones, so splits the difference.  Right now it's 17.54 in Chicago, 23.54 in London, 1:54 in Helsinki, and 4:24 everywhere in India.  http://www.worldtimezone.com/  Interestingly, it appears to be 4:39 in Nepal. 

Also, China spans four or five time zones, but keeps the same time throughout the country.  So when it's noon in Shanghai, it's noon everywhere, although on the western edge, people are just having breakfast.

[ladycrim]

This reminds me of a Zits cartoon where Jeremy picks up the phone and a guy is asking for a car part.  "Do you have a carburetor for a 1968 Impala," or some such.

Jeremy answers, "Nope."

The caller asks, "Well, do you have any suggestions?"

And Jeremy says, "Call and auto parts store, because calling house to house like this is going to take a long time."

At which point the caller asks, "Isn't this Al's Auto Shop?"

Something like that happened to me in college:

(Phone rings)

Me: "Hello?"

Man: "Hi, is this Les Schwab Tires?"

Me: "No, sir, this is a dorm room at Chico State."

Man: "Oh ... well, study hard!" *click*

[strunkandwhite]

This reminds me of a Zits cartoon where Jeremy picks up the phone and a guy is asking for a car part.  "Do you have a carburetor for a 1968 Impala," or some such.

Jeremy answers, "Nope."

The caller asks, "Well, do you have any suggestions?"

And Jeremy says, "Call and auto parts store, because calling house to house like this is going to take a long time."

At which point the caller asks, "Isn't this Al's Auto Shop?"

Something like that happened to me in college:

(Phone rings)

Me: "Hello?"

Man: "Hi, is this Les Schwab Tires?"

Me: "No, sir, this is a dorm room at Chico State."

Man: "Oh ... well, study hard!" *click*

Heh. Better than just hanging up on you, I guess!

Our phone number when I was a kid was one digit away from the Croatian Social Center. Everybody in my family learned to say "wrong number" in Croatian.

[yello.cape.cod]

I used to work at a restaurant that had a phone number that was one digit off of a cardiologist's office. Most of the time this was fine, I just told the caller they had the wrong number and they understood fine. The first time it happened, though, I couldn't make out what the caller was  saying (it's kind of hard to hear on a phone in a restaurant for some reason, and when someone is saying something completely out of left field like, "Isn't this Dr. Weinburger's office?" it's really hard to understand what someone is trying to convey). I remember asking her like 6 times what she was saying until I realized that she was not asking me about our food. After I figured that out she read back the number to the restaurant to me, so I had to flip open  the phone book and figure out that the number was actually one digit off (she had apparently written it down wrong). I'm sure she hung up thinking what an idiot I was.

[whiterose]

Perhaps not impossible, but still beyond the scope of a public library.

Some customer called on the phone wanting to know the color of the inner ear of an elephant, as well as that of an elephant's toenail.

We are the biggest library in the system. I am a science major. I assisted my colleague in trying to find the answer in several elephant books- including a big fat heavy one that did not have a happy result on my neck. We did not find the results. She told the person to go to the local university's library, since they are bound to have a larger and more in depth science collection.

[hot_shaker]

Perhaps not impossible, but still beyond the scope of a public library.

Some customer called on the phone wanting to know the color of the inner ear of an elephant, as well as that of an elephant's toenail.

We are the biggest library in the system. I am a science major. I assisted my colleague in trying to find the answer in several elephant books- including a big fat heavy one that did not have a happy result on my neck. We did not find the results. She told the person to go to the local university's library, since they are bound to have a larger and more in depth science collection.

Wonder why s/he didn't just call the zoo?