Me: “Thank you for calling [cell phone service provider]. How can I help you?”
Customer: “My cable TV isn’t working.”
Me: “I’m sorry sir, but we’re a cell phone company.”
Customer: “I know, but I thought that you people would be able to help me with that any way.”
Me: “I’m sorry, but I can only assist you with your cell phone service.”
Customer: “Are you sure?”
Me: “Yes. I’m sorry, but we’re only trained to deal with phones. We don’t know anything at all about cable TV.”
Customer: “Oh, then who should I call?”
Me: “Do you have your cable bill with you?”
Customer: “Yes.”
Me: “Is there a 1-800 number on it?”
Customer: “Yes.”
Me: “You need to call that number.”
Customer: “Oh. Thank you!”
Signs That It Is Going To Be A Long Day/Week/Month
Me: “How can I help?”
Caller: “I can’t work out how to use your booking calendar. It’s very complicated.”
Me: “Okay, so tell me if there’s any red text beneath the calendar?”
Caller: “Yes there is. It says ‘click a start date to begin’.”
Me: “Okay, so click the date you’d like your booking to start.”
Caller: “Okay, done that. Now what?”
Me: “Has the text changed to say ‘Please click an end date’?”
Caller: “Yes.”
Me: “So click the date you’d like your booking to end.”
Caller: “Okay, I’ve got a price! That’s great, but isn’t that rather complicated?”
Me: “How do you mean?”
Caller: “Well, why doesn’t it know the dates I want already?”
When Right Can Be Wrong
Me: “Sir, go ahead and right click on the icon. Now do you see that menu that appears when you right click?”
Customer: “Nothing happened.”
Me: “That’s alright. If you double click on the icon, does it open up the file?”
Customer: “Yeah, it opens it up. Just nothing happens when I right click.”
Me: “Ok, have you had any issues with right clicking before?”
Customer: “No, the mouse always clicks and opens whatever I click it on.”
Me: “Ok, try right clicking on the icon again.”
Customer: “It’s still doing nothing.”
Me: “Is your mouse cursor on the icon?”
Customer: “Yeah, but if I move it any further to the right, it won’t be on the icon anymore.”
Random Encounters
(A girl orders a cheeseburger and fries.)
Me: “All right, you want that for here or to go?”
(There is a long pause as she very loudly ‘hmms’ and ‘haws’ about this question, until finally:)
Customer: “…sweatshirts.”
A Good Chance Of A Falling Out
(I get call from the United States.)
Me: “Welcome! My name is Grace, how can I help you?”
Caller: “What’s your name?”
Me: “Grace.”
Caller: “Krays? Is that Irish? It sounds lovely.”
Me: “No, it’s Grace.”
Caller: “Oh Rain. Sorry, hun! Anyway this might sound a little silly. Well let me just explain a bit. You see, in the states, we got this thing, right? The trees, the leaves they go all brown and then they fall right off them trees!”
Me: “Ok.”
Caller: “It gets cooler in the night, right? And the trees,
well it’s just beautiful. We call it ‘Fall’.”
Me: “Ok. So you want to come in the fall?”
Caller: “Oh no, honey, I want to know if you guys get something similar, like what we call the fall? With the leaves, they fall right on the ground and people are sweepin ‘em up!”
Me: “Yeah we have that here too, except we call it Autumn.”
Caller: “You do? Oh isn’t that wonderful. So when should I travel if I want to see an Irish ‘On-Tom’?”
Me: “What time of year does your ‘fall’ happen?”
Caller: “Well it’s like September, October maybe?”
Me: “Right, well it’s the same here. You just plan for the American fall and you’ll get an Irish Autumn.”
(Customer nearly goes out of her mind with happiness and excitement. Before hanging up and wishing me a happy ‘Om-Ton’ she snuck in a quick cheeky ‘Top of the mornin!’.)