I answer the general information line for the county two days a week: Thursdays and Fridays. There is a “cover” number that shows up on your caller ID whenever anyone — and I do mean anyone — calls you from either the county or the city. There are over 6,000 employees between the city and the county, plus calls made from the jail, detox, the courthouse, the mental health department, probation, child support, etc.

Realistically, a call with that ID could be anyone. If you call that number, you get a recorded message telling you this.

Me: “City and County Information.”

Caller: “Yes, I just received a call from you. What do you want?”

Me: “Did you receive a call from [general number]?”

Caller: “Yes, like I said, you called me. What do you want?”

Me: “Actually, ma’am, you just called me. That number represents over 6,000 employees in the city or county. It is a cover number that shows up whenever anyone from county offices makes a call. If they didn’t leave a message or you didn’t talk to anyone, I have no way to find out who it was that called you.”

Caller: “It was you! You called me! What do you want?!“

Me: “Ma’am, I didn’t call you. Did you talk to anyone? Did they leave a message?”

Caller: “Why did you call me?!“

Me: “Ma’am, I’m sorry, but I didn’t call you and I have no way to know who did call you. Are you expecting a call from anyone with the city or county? Do you have regular contact with anyone from the city or county? I’d like to help direct you to the right person, but without more information, I can’t do that.”

Caller: “You shouldn’t call people if you don’t know why you are calling them. That’s just rude.”

Me: “Yes, you’re right. That is rude to call someone and not even know why you are calling them.”

Caller: “Yes. Well, thanks, anyway.”

Me: “You’re welcome.”

Caller: “For nothing.”

I work for the administration office for my county. While I don’t typically answer the main phone line, I will if the secretaries are busy on the other lines.

Me: Thank you could calling (county) administration. (My name), how can I help you today?

Citizen: YES, I have a complaint! You people need to stop EVERY movie theater in the county from playing the new Beauty and the Beast movie.

Me: Uhhh… I’m sorry?

Citizen: The new Beauty and the Beast! It has one of them HOMOSEXUALS in it and they are trying to convert my children into being f***s. YOU NEED TO STOP THEM.

(Note: I am gay and am pretty open about it)

Me: I’m sorry, ma’am, but the county does not have that kind of authority. We can not dictate what movies a movie theater does or not show. You need to speak to the movie theaters directly.

Citizen: (screaming at this point) BUT I AM A CHRISTIAN! YOU HAVE TO DO WHAT I SAY! IF YOU DON’T THEN GOD WILL RAIN DOWN DAMNATION UPON YOU! GET OFF YOUR LAZY A** AND STOP THEM FROM SHOWING THAT G***AMN MOVIE!

Me: I’m sorry, there’s really nothing that I can do for you. The county does not have that kind of power.

Citizen: *yelling obscenities*

Me: *hangs up*

Later that afternoon, I saw one of my friends from the police station and he told me all about this “crazy woman who said that you need to be put in jail because you’re in league with Satan.”

I guess having a movie where there is talking pieces of furniture and a woman who falls in love with a non-human/beast is okay, but not a gay character.

(Working as triage for a passport facility we have to make sure everyone has all the documents and every applicant is present. Our office is a first come, first serve office which means we get really busy really fast. We use to give out all numbers and make the applicants wait until their turn or they will have to wait longer. The wait depending on their number can take up to 3 hours. They cannot leave with a number and sometimes when they do they don’t always return. We recently cut back on numbers in the morning so people won’t have to wait that long and made a waiting list. The waiting list allows people to come back at a later time with out losing their chances of getting the number. It allows them to run errands or do any last minutes for the checklist. We give the applicants an ETA. If they do not show up we give the number to the next applicant on the waiting list. We never know if the person on the list are coming back or going to a different facility.)
*Man arrives with his wife and child right when the number stops. I put him on the wait list and tell him to check in by 10:00AM. A few other people arrive and I tell them to check in by 10:00AM. Every person that came after the man either waited or checked in before 10:00AM. His wife showed up 5 minutes after 10:00AM. The man walked up to my desk.
MAN: I was wondering if I lost my place when I left because I noticed a lot of people that arrived after me are being seen before me.
ME: No, well, Yes. I told all those people to check in by 10:00AM and they all arrived before 10:00AM
MAN: So, just curious on how the system works cause normally for instances, if someone comes in at 9AM and another at 9:15 and so on, you shouldn’t give away that number.
ME: Uh huh. Yeah I told you to check in by 10:00AM.
*Man keeps trying to complain like it will change the situation or make the day any better. ….Hey guy, how about when someone tells you to come at a certain time, you come at a certain time.

My husband is from England and I live in the USA, so after we get married, we begin the green card process. After about six months, we receive our interview invitation. When the day comes, we are seated with a stern-looking, middle-aged immigration agent who conducts our interview. We’re feeling a bit stiff and tense when he gets to the list of obligatory criminal background questions he has to ask my husband.

Agent: “Have you ever engaged in prostitution?”

Husband: “No.”

He then gets a look on his face that I know very well; he’s struggling not to make a joke. I try to signal, “DON’T YOU DARE!” with my eyes, but…

Husband: “I don’t think I’d be very good at it.”

There is a moment of silence. Then, the agent starts laughing.

Agent: “Fair enough! Let’s move on!”

The tension lifted, the agent finished the interview and told us to “have lots of babies,” and my husband is now on his way to becoming a permanent resident and then a US citizen!

I manage to end up with two different accounts with the district council for council tax — an annual charge made by the local council to pay for things like garbage collection and such — for about eighteen months due to an error when recording my change of address with the council. One account includes my middle name and one doesn’t.

I am initially unaware of this and am only made aware when I receive a letter stating that I owe some amount under £150 for council tax at a property I no longer live in.

I ring the council to try and sort this out. As far as I know, I am up to date and have made all payments.

After getting through to the correct team, we spend about two hours going over the payments and charges on the account for the period I lived in the property in question.

Rep: “I can see that there are some admin charges relating to letters on the account, but I can’t talk to you about them. I can only talk about monthly payments and charges.”

Me: “Fine, let’s go through those, then, and work this all out.”

Two hours later, including it being explained to me about the second account…

Rep: “Once you got so deep into arrears, we did an electoral roll search and found that you’d been paying us under this other account since [date], so the charges from that point were zeroed.”

Me: “So, we’re in agreement that I haven’t missed any payments, you’ve billed me appropriately for where I was living and when I lived there, and there’s still [amount] outstanding? I don’t understand.”

Rep: “Yep, we’ve billed you [amount #1] between [date #1] and [date #2] for [address #1] and [amount #2] between [date #3] and [date #4] for [address #2]. You’ve paid [amount #3], leaving this balance outstanding.”

Me: “But we’ve just agreed that I haven’t missed any payments, so how can there be a balance? I think we need to talk about these admin fees, as that’s the only thing we’ve not covered.”

Rep: “I cannot discuss those with you.”

Me: “Then put me through to someone who can.”

I am then connected to one of the managers and thankfully don’t have to explain the situation again as often happens.

Manager: “So, we’re talking about admin fees on your account from when you lived at [address #1]. Okay, I can see that we charged you £75 because we sent a letter demanding payment to [address #1] on [date].”

Me: “We’ve already established that I wasn’t living there on [date] and was paying at [address #2].”

Manager: “Yep, that’s right. So we’ll take that charge off. This other admin fee was for a letter we sent demanding payment on [later date].”

Me: “I still wasn’t living there on [later date], so that one can come off, too.”

Manager: “Yep, okay. That’s fair. Well, taking those off takes your outstanding balance to… Oh, we owe you [amount]. How would you like to receive this?”