(I work in technical support. A customer has called in about a motion detector that has gone off in his home.)

Me: “Was anyone in the home at time of the alarm?”

Customer: “No.”

Me: “Okay. Was there anything moving around? Sometimes balloons or other similar things can set off the device.”

Customer: “No.”

Me: “Well, did the heater activate at that time? Sometimes sudden changes in temperature can cause it to go off.”

Customer: “I see; it must have been my mother.”

Me: “Oh, so, there was someone in the house?”

Customer: “No. My mother is deceased.”

Me: “Oh.”

(Awkward pause.)

Me: “Ohhhhhh.”

(Awkward pause.)

Me: “Is there anything else I can assist you with today?”

(I work as a customer service representative answering for a government assistance program. In the last six months, I’ve dealt with some very interesting people.)

Me: “Thank you for calling. My name is [My Name]. May I have your social and name?”

Client: “Yeah, no need. I just need a fax number.”

Me: “Not a problem, sir. The fax number is [number].”

Client: “Well, I hope this works. And I need you to tell my caseworker I’ll need them to send my papers back to me when they’ve finished with them.”

Me: “I’m sorry, sir?”

Client: “Are you stupid? I said I’ll need them back. It’s already going to cost me $5 to send them over, but I still need them for my records, and I’ll be d***ed if you’re going to keep my social security card!”

Me: “Sir, I do apologize, but you just informed me that you will be faxing these documents over. We only receive copies of what you’re sending, not the originals. The originals stay with you.”

Client: “Young lady, I don’t know how old you are, but I can tell you right now, I’ve been alive for 45 years, and I know how a d*** fax works! Send them a message now!” *click*

(Not only did I start laughing at his ignorance, I also felt bad for the next person who would need to deal with him. He didn’t provide me any information, therefore his account was never accessed, and his worker could not be notified of this. Sure enough, two days later he called in wanting to know why he had to stand there for so long waiting for his papers to be faxed back.)

(It is the late 90s and I work in a call center for a large cellphone company. This company has both nationwide and regional plans. If a person leaves their coverage area, they are charged roaming fees that can be quite expensive. Many people getting hit by these fees call us to try and have them waived with a myriad of excuses. The most common excuse attempted is, “I was never in [Location]; your system is broken.” Whenever this happens, I show them on the itemized section of the bill how every call is listed, along with the location the call was made from. Almost nobody ever looks at anything besides the total. I then point out the very obvious path, visible on their own bill, that the customer took from their home to a place outside the coverage area, and, usually, back again. Even if there isn’t a path, most of the time there is an obvious break in calls that would easily fit within a trip from their usual location to where they were when the charges were applied.)

Me: “Thank you for calling [Company]. How can I help?”

Customer: “Your computer system messed up and charged me roaming fees when it shouldn’t have.”

Me: “Okay, why don’t you bring out your bill and we’ll—”

Customer: *cutting me off* “I’ve already gone over the bill, and if you go to [page number] you will see that I have calls from home, and then not three minutes later it says I have calls from roaming!”

(Looking at the bill, it is listed exactly as he described. The roaming calls are located halfway across the continent, so this is definitely not simply an issue of him crossing the border in three minutes. In addition to billing issues, I am also tech support and have access to tower data. I look up the exact tower each call was connected to when a call was made, which is logged in the account for troubleshooting purposes. This information, however, is not printed on the bill. Bringing up the tower location details of his calls around the time on the bill easily answers the reason for the discrepancy.)

Me: “So, I have been going through the details of these calls to find the source of this ‘glitch’ you pointed out, and I noticed that the last call made before the roaming charges started was from a tower located within [Major East Coast International Airport], and the first call made when the charges started is from a tower located within [Major West Coast International Airport].”

Customer: “…”

Me: “Taking the timezones into account, that would be about the time it takes to fly between—”

Customer: *click*

(I work in an outbound call center. Customers fill out information online and we, along with others in our industry, then make calls… a lot of them. This leads to a lot of people getting irate. Sometimes we win them over; sometimes we can’t. This guy, though…)

Me: “Hi, is this [Customer]?”

Customer: “You are the ninth person to call me!”

Me: “I’m the ninth caller? Do I win the car?”

(This brought him to a stop and made him laugh. While he and I did have a good conversation, ultimately, we weren’t able to help him. Call of the day, though!)

(I work in a call centre for a major pizza chain. Our wings are also very popular with our customers.)

Me: “Thank you for calling [Company], [My Name] speaking.”

Customer: “Hi, I want to order some wings.”

Me: “No problem. I just need to start with your phone number, please.”

Customer: “Before we start, I need to ask you something.”

Me: “Certainly, sir. What can I help you with?”

Customer: “Are all your wings buffalo wings, or do you carry chicken wings, too?”

Me: “…”