Unfiltered Story #245294

Part of my job is light call center work. More often than not, calls to my extension are from vendors I’ve emailed for information and they decided calling is better than responding to the email I sent.

Me: It’s a great day at [Company], this is [my name].

Vendor: Yeah, I got an email requesting a bid for order [number]. Are you still looking for someone to take it?

Me: I am! What’s your fee and turn time?

Vendor: Can you do $750?

Each client has their own delegated authority amount. For this vendor’s bid and this client, we’d be over authority.

Me: It looks like for $750 I’d have to get client approval and get back to you.

Vendor: Well, what can you do then?

Me: Gimme just a moment. I need to set up my Calculus equations. Do a bit of Algebra here. Maybe a bit of quantum physics calculations just to make sure…

Vendor: {laughing} Do you have your abacus handy?

Me: Yep! Just grabbed it. Okay, so I can go up to $600 total without getting approval.

Vendor: Let’s do it!

Me: Great! So let me get to the assignment list…

I’m searching for the vendor and he’s not showing up on the list. I click a few places that I know hide names, but he’s not showing up anywhere.

Me: Huh… I’m not seeing you on my list here.

Vendor: But I just talked to your vendor management people yesterday and they were supposed to have added that city to my coverage area.

Me: Then it’s really weird that you’re not showing up on my list. You should be here if you added the coverage.

Vendor: {laughing} Did you check your s**t list?

I pause a moment; not because I’m put off, but because my upbringing was a constant stream of sarcasm and inappropriate jokes like this one. I’ve had to train myself to not just throw out a quip, but because he started it…

Me: I gotta tell ya, [Vendor], in my family, we thrive off sarcasm and my knee-jerk reaction was to say “I already am!”

I hear him pause as well then he starts laughing hard.

Vendor: At least you have a sense of humor about it!

Me: Well, if I didn’t I’d be crying.