Working in a breakdown (roadside assistance) call centre, we would naturally have extremely busy periods in a day, but equally, there could be times when we wouldn’t get a call for ages. These times were useful for getting some admin work done — especially for the team leaders — but now and then there simply wouldn’t be anything to do.

In one of these rare periods, my coworkers and I are sitting about and chatting. The conversation has turned to discussing particularly memorable calls, whether for spectacular rudeness, unusual situations, or otherwise amusing conversations.

All our calls are recorded, and evidently, the team leaders keep a “hall of fame” directory in the system, and people begin requesting their favourites. The first they play is from one of our team to the recovery agent.

Teammate: “Hi, this is [Teammate] calling from [Breakdown Company]. I’m just checking in on the progress of the [car model] you’re recovering for us?”

Agent: “Ah, yes, in Harrow?”

Teammate #1: “Hello, yes, can you hear me?”

Agent: “Yes, Harrow.”

Teammate #1: “Harro, yes, can you hear me?”

This goes on for longer than you might expect.

Agent: “Mate, I’m NOT saying, ‘Hello’, I’m confirming the location of the recovery, which is in the TOWN, Harrow!”

Teammate #1: “Oh… right. Sorry!”

We stop the recording there and move on to the next one. It starts off as a pretty standard call; the driver sounds a little agitated but is polite to our teammate. Partway through taking some details, the caller suddenly explodes:

Caller: “WILL YOU STOP F****** TALKING TO ME WOMAN?!”

Teammate #2: *Who is a woman* “Erm…”

Caller: *Talking over a raised voice in the background* “Sorry [Teammate #2], I wasn’t talking to y— SHUT THE H*** UP! I’M TRYING TO TALK TO THE BREAKDOWN PEOPLE!”

There is a heated discussion between the caller and the woman in the car. Shortly, there is a sound of a car door being opened and then slammed shut.

Caller: “Sorry about that. The wife thinks it’s all my fault the car’s doing this. You know women, all a bunch of b****es, right?”

He makes a strangled noise, seemingly remembering he’s talking to both a woman and a complete stranger.

Caller: “…and men, we’re all b*****ds, too! Haha… Anyway…”

The rest of the call proceeds without incident. As it’s wrapping up:

Caller: “Okay, thanks, [Teammate #2], we’ll wait to hear from you! And sorry for calling all women b*****s! Bye!”

I was working for a county office at the time, and we would get a one-hour lunch break. I decided to stop and fill my car up with gas before I went to go get something to eat. The gas station was on the corner of two streets down the road from where I worked.

The pumps were at an angle, and you could access them from either street. I was the only customer there at the time. You could not pay at the pump at this store. I went inside and paid for $20.00, went back out, took the gas cap off, removed the gas nozzle, pressed the button for gas, inserted the nozzle, and pulled the trigger.

Nothing happened.

I went back inside the store to let the cashier know that the pump hadn’t been turned on.

Cashier: “I’m sorry, we have been having problems with that pump.”

She walked back out with me and reset the pump and it started working. Since I was the only customer and she wasn’t busy, we start chatting for maybe a minute. A car pulled up in front of the store and a lady got out and went inside. She came back out and looked in our direction.

Cashier: “I’m over here.”

Being all chatty and trying to be funny, I meant to say: “Oh, it’s my fault, because she is helping me.” Instead, what came out of my mouth was:

Me: “Oh, it’s my fault; I’m holding her up.”

The cashier and I chatted for a few seconds more and I thanked her. I looked over at the other lady and she was on her cell phone. The cashier and I said goodbye and she walked back into the store. Before I finished pumping my gas, a police car pulled up and parked by the other car.

Then, it dawned on me what I had just said.

The officer was sitting in his car looking at me and I was having a “Holy Crap!” moment and about to have a panic attack, waiting to be surrounded by cops. I finished pumping my gas and got back in the car, and I had to drive right past the cop to exit the parking lot. He was still looking at me as I pulled out, and when I looked in my rear-view mirror, he was getting out of his car to go into the store. I booked it out of there and went to a restaurant for food and a glass of wine.

And that is my story of telling someone that I was holding up a gas station.

This story takes place around 2004, in a pretty big town not far from the regional capital city. At that time, if you were a very good customer, you had quite a personal relationship with the bank director, so I called him one day to let him know I would drop by the next day in the early morning to discuss the state of my business.

The next morning, I pushed open the door to take a seat in the waiting area right in front of the director’s office. From there, I could cant my head and see through the glass door that the director wasn’t in yet, so I just relaxed and started playing with my phone.

I am definitely not the most patient person in the world, so when the door finally opened, I was relieved, but it was not the director, nor was it any bank clerk. It was someone from the cleaning crew.

Cleaner: “Please get out immediately! The bank is closed!”

Me: “It’s not closed. I just pushed the door open.”

The guy looked quite uncomfortable for a moment, and then he confessed that he had forgotten to lock the door after mopping the floors! And he asked me to get out and not say a word about it.

I complied, and when the director arrived a bit later and made a good show of pulling out the keys to open the door, I told him I was glad he was there because I had forgotten my phone on the chair five minutes earlier.

The look on his face was priceless.

I sit next to a programmer who is complaining that his computer isn’t behaving right.

Coworker: “Screw it. Time to fall back to the age-old geek fix to all tech problems: turn it off and back on again.”

Me: “Ah, yes, there is no problem that solution can’t solve!”

Coworker: “Yep, I use it everywhere. I even tried it when dating once. I was really good at turning the girls off, but I never managed to turn them back on again afterward.”

When I was in sixth grade, I played the flute in band. We didn’t have lockers at the school, but the band room did have cubbies, so we’d usually leave our instruments in our cubbies and get them after school so it was one less thing to cart around.

One day, a friend and I stayed after for a club and we stopped in the band room on the way out to get our instruments. We ended up running into another friend and started a conversation. Then, he got a message that his mom was waiting outside.

Friend: “Hey, [My Name], my mom’s outside. We gotta go.”

Me: “Okay, just let me get my flute.”

I went back to my cubby and my flute was missing.

Me: “Hey, [Friend], have you seen my flute?”

Friend: “…[My Name]?”

Me: “No, seriously, we’ve got to find my flute.” *Starting to panic* “Oh, my God, if it got stolen… It’s not even mine yet!”

Friend: “[My Name].”

Me: “Crap. Where’s my flute? Where’s [Teacher]?”

Friend: “[My Name].”

Me: “No, I’m serious! My parents are still paying this off! It’s not my flute yet! If it got stolen, I’m—”

Friend: *Grabbing my arm* “[My Name]!”

Me: “What?”

Friend: *Lifts my hand* “Is this what you were looking for?”

Yes, I had in fact been holding my flute the entire time. Both my friends were laughing at me; I kind of started to laugh at it, too.

Friend: “I was surprised it took you so long. You looked right at it like five times.”

Me: “Let’s just go. Never tell anyone about this.”

Of course, being the twelve- and thirteen-year-olds that we were, it kind of became a running joke for him to remind me to make sure I had my flute.