If You Can Read The Paper, You Can Read The Calendar

When I was working in the escalation line for a newspaper, I had a customer call to berate us for the price of her newspaper doubling. It doubled because she had twelve weeks at 50% off and then her price returned to its normal level. She chewed one rep’s ear off for that, and then she asked for a supervisor and got me.

I loved being the escalation person because you could say no and it would stick. And most customers would either be understanding or not understanding but really funny to me. But this lady went on and on about how it was deceptive business practice, and how yadda, yadda, yadda. She managed to get under my very thick skin.

Customer: “How was I supposed to know when twelve weeks were up?”

I could not stop myself in time.

Me: “Well, ma’am, there are calendars.”

I found out years later that I was supposed to be fired for that, but my manager refused to do so because he was proud of me and a little jealous.