(I work in the same room as twelve other people. My colleague answers the phone:)

Colleague: “Hello. [Company], [Colleague] speaking. How may I help?”

(The caller says something.)

Colleague: “Umm…” *pause* “How may I help you today?”

(The call continues. After she puts the phone down, she has a rather puzzled look on her face.)

Us: “Are you all right?”

Colleague: “Yes, just confused. At the start of the call I said, ‘Hello, [Colleague] speaking,’ and he said, ‘Oh. You must be related to Rebecca Speaking.’”

(A few of us giggle, and others roll their eyes or groan a little at the joke.)

Colleague: “I don’t get it.”

(Don’t worry; we explained it to her once we’d stopped roaring with laughter.)

(I create the ads for a small weekly magazine, and I have a pretty strict time frame to have them completed and signed off before the layout of the publication can commence. The advertising sales manager, however, will take new bookings with no regard to deadlines in an effort to make herself look good. From my point of view, this just means working through lunch or staying late, with no extra pay, to get them done in time.)

Sales Manager: “We have a new ad to make for [Customer].”

Me: *worried* “We’re getting really close to print deadline. I’m not sure I can get it done and signed off in time.”

Sales Manager: “It’s okay. I typed up all the ad copy for you.”

(It’s the layout, design, and sign-off of the ad that tends to take a lot more time than simple copy typing. Still, we’re really short of time, so I’ll take anything I can get that will shorten the process.)

Me: “Thanks. Where did you save the document?”

Sales Manager: *blank look*

Me: “Is it on the shared folder on the server or will you email it to me?”

Sales Manager: “Oh, I didn’t save it.” *hands me a typed piece of paper* “But I typed it up for you.”

Me: *baffled* “But… why would you type it up, and then not save it?”

Sales Manager: “So it’s easier for you to read than handwriting.” *looks very pleased with herself, as if she thinks she’s done me a huge favour*

Me: “…”

(We had a system glitch overnight that meant that we took payments, but no orders were created, so we have to contact our customers to tell them and ask what they ordered, and manually create the orders for them. Most of them are very easy to sort, except for one. This customer has paid £201.)

Me: “So, if you could just tell us what you ordered, I will get your order on the system and we will get that sent out.”

Customer: “I have no idea what I ordered. Can you just pick some items for me and send those?”

(We carry over 5000 items; I really need some guidance on this.)

Me: “I can try. Could you tell me roughly what sort of thing you got?”

Customer: “I really don’t remember, sorry. Please just pick some things. I trust you.”

(I ran the customer through our basic categories and options. She eventually picked a category and item type. That narrowed down the selection to about 700 items, and again she told me to just pick some stuff for her. I told her I would make an order, email it to her, and wait for her to approve it before we put the item through. I ended up spending about forty minutes creating the order from our most popular items, as we had to make the order amount match as closely as possible to what was paid. She then eventually got back to us and told us that everything was wrong and that she wouldn’t have picked anything I have added, and she demanded a refund for wasting her time.)she

(I work IT support for a company with around 250 employees. I get a call from one of them, a guy I know rather well.)

Colleague: “Hi, [My Name], quick question. Do you know anything about Microsoft Excel?”

Me: “Well, a little. The basics. Why don’t you tell me what you’re trying to do and I’ll see if I can help you?”

Colleague: “Okay, how do I subtract two numbers?”

Me: *trying to answer this without sounding patronising* “You just enter the first number, then the minus sign, then the second number.”

Colleague: “Where’s the minus sign?”

Me: *explains where it is*

(What he says next completely floors me:)

Colleague: “Oh, so, it is the same as in real life, then?”

(My colleague hangs up. One of our other technicians, who’d been listening to the call, turns to me.)

Technician: “Seriously?”

(The guy who called me was a management trainee.)

(My department’s extension is number one on our line, and a lot of customers just hit one at random and I have to deal with them.)

Customer #1: “Is this [Customer Service Personnel]?”

Me: “I’m afraid she’s on the line at the moment.”

Customer #1: “Can you get her to take this call? I forgot to tell her something when I called just now.”

Me: “Sorry, she’s on the phone at the moment. Can I get your name and number, and I’ll ask her to call you back?”

Customer #1: “No, you transfer this call to her. I need to tell her what colour item I want. I’ll be going out in a few minutes and she won’t be able to call me back.”

Me: “But she’s on the line.”

Customer #1: “I know, but you get her to take my call!”

Me: *giving up* “Please hold.”

(I put her on hold to let her wait while [Customer Service Personnel] finishes her call.)

Customer #2: “Hi, do you sell curtains?”

Me: “Sorry, I’m afraid we don’t.”

Customer #2: “Well, do you know where I can buy them?”

Me: “You could try [Store]?”

Customer #2: “Are they open at this time?”

Me: “I’m sorry, I don’t know their operating hours.”

Customer #2: “Well, can you check?”

Me: *noticing that my head is listening in* “I’m sorry, I don’t know.”

Customer #2: “Well, you can look it up on the Internet, right?”

Me: “Yes, but…”

Customer #2: “Can you help me check it? You can just search it online, right? And can you help me check what their telephone number is?”

(After several minutes of this, I give up and run a quick Google search. I give her the info.)

Customer #2: “Okay, thank you. And can you give me the number for [Other Store], as well?”

Me: “…”

(I Googled this for her, as well, just to get rid of her.)