I used to work in an environment where some of my coworkers had grown up in a country that speaks English but has a very different culture. Phone calls requesting information were vastly different.

US Worker: “Hey, do you know who’s on-call from [Employee #1]’s team this weekend?”

Me: “[Employee #2].”

US Worker: “Great, thanks.” *Click*

With the others, however…

Other Worker: “Good afternoon, and how are you today?”

Me: “Fine. What can I do for you?”

Other Worker: “I am also fine. Do you have interesting plans for the weekend?”

Me: “Nothing special. What can I do for you?”

Other Worker: “I was given to believe that you are the correct person to call if I have questions that I might otherwise ask of our supervisor, [Supervisor]. Was I informed correctly?”

Me: “I’ll try to answer your question. What do you need?”

Other Worker: “Would you happen to know who is scheduled for weekend on-call duty for [Employee #1]’s team?”

Me: “[Employee #2].”

Other Worker: “[Employee #2]. I hear she is a strong choice. Thank you for the information. Have a pleasant weekend.”

Me: “You’re welcome, goodbye.”

My culture prefers efficiency when there is a simple goal of information exchange.

I work for a big wholesale retail company that’s membership based. I work in the electronics section primarily selling cell phones but occasionally I’d need to cover the sales floor and advise on television/other sales as needed.

An elderly woman comes in with her husband. Her TV just broke and she’s looking for a new one. The member explained that her old TV had screen issues, but she liked it because it was easy for her to connect an HDMI to it and watch her Eastern European news channels on the screen itself.

I’m like that’s cool, you can get a Vizio that has built in Chromecast capacities so you can mirror/cast things from your phone to the screen.

We spend a while discussing her options. The woman’s husband is disabled, and she is elderly, so I suggest that she buy online to have it delivered to her house or to purchase the straight-to-home delivery service. She does, and that’s that.

A week later, this woman comes in on a complete rampage!

Customer: “I can’t get the TV set up! You lied to me about what it could do!”

Me: “How did you plug it in?”

Customer: “Well, I haven’t actually plugged it in yet, but I still want my money back!”

Me: “Where is the TV?”

Customer: “I don’t have it with me! Refund me and then I’ll send it back in!”

I call my manager over as this is crazy.

Manager: “Ma’am, you need to bring in the TV. We could get fired for refunding a product that isn’t in the store.”

Customer: *Scoffs.* “Well I’d risk it if I were you because I’m upset!”

Manager: “I have kids to feed; I’m not getting fired over your TV.

Customer: *To my manager.* “We all have kids to feed!” *To me.* “You sold me the wrong TV, you b****!”

Now I know why her husband was in the parking lot playing with the birds; to avoid this drama!

For pretty much all of my daughter’s life, I’ve done software support for a very niche type of computer. Let’s compare it to mainframes. Being pretty good at my job, I’ve gone up the chain and am a SENIOR Tier 4 support analyst at my organisation — basically, when all else fails, call me.

When my daughter was fifteen, my on-call phone rang from the living room while I was in the little boys’ room. Being indisposed, I called out:

Me: “[Daughter], can you answer the phone for me?”

My daughter is autistic. I say this only to explain: what I expected was for her to answer the phone before it went to messages and then bring the answered phone to me. But that is not what my daughter understood “answer the phone” to mean.

Daughter: “Good afternoon, this is [My Name]’s phone. How can I help you?”

Senior Director: “[System] is frozen! Your blasted upgrade last night broke everything! It’s just giving me an error when I try to reload! All our clients aren’t going to be able to use it!”

Daughter: “Oh, I see. Okay, don’t worry. It’s not the upgrade because we did run the system after it finished last night, but we can still fix the problem. Can you please read out the error number for me? It’s on the part on the top-left side of the screen that starts with ‘ERX’…”

After my daughter had asked MY standard questions, she hung up. After all, her phone call was done.

This was when I was done with the little boy’s room. Worried about the lack of a phone being brought to my hand, I came out just in time to see my daughter making a second phone call — to one of my employees.

Daughter: “Hi, [Employee]. Can you remove MQ3 from queuing? Someone didn’t update a file path with the upgrade and it has a bunch of messages it can’t send, so we need to redirect the outbound traffic to MQ2 and clear that up. Huh? Oh, I’m [Daughter], hi. Nice to meet you. Uh, oh. Dad’s right here. Why?”

Moving the queue did, in fact, fix the error. Apparently, I’ve answered so many phone calls in front of my daughter that she was able to correctly diagnose the problem and who fixes it.

My wife was less impressed when I gave our daughter extra pocket money for her on-call service.

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A few years ago, I ordered pizza from a very large pizza chain online. When the delivery was dropped off, I noticed they forgot the soda. I double-checked, and I did indeed order a soda, so I made a call to the number on the digital invoice. So far, so good, right?

After some music, the phone was redirected to an automated message. After I entered some options, a human picked up. 

Employee #1: “[Intro message]. How can I help you today?”

Me: “I ordered a Coke with the pizza, but the Coke wasn’t with the delivery.”

After getting my order number, name, and email for my account, the employee said they’d forward me to the store.

Some music played, and then there were automated messages again, so I entered some options, and another human picked up.

Employee #2: “[Intro message]. How can I help you today?”

I explained the problem again, and they asked for the same information and said they would forward me. 

Me: *A bit confused* “Why are you forwarding me again? I was already forwarded.”

Employee #2: “Sorry, but there is nothing I can do on my end. I have to forward you to the store.”

Me: “Okay, then.”

You might have guessed: it was the same music, the same automated messages, the same set of options, and then another human. To be honest, I was a bit upset at this point.

Employee #3: “[Intro message]. How can I help you today?”

I explained the problem again, and they asked for all the information again and said they would forward me.

Me: “I don’t want to be forwarded. Why can’t you just help me?”

After asking some questions, I figured out that this was the call center. The phone number I’d called was indeed for the store; no idea why I kept being forwarded to the call center. There was nothing the employee at the call center could do for me. So, I said fine, but I’d better be forwarded to the store.

Nope. Same music, automated messages, options, and then another human. Yeah, I was pretty frustrated at this point, and my tone was not the best.

Before the fourth employee finished his intro, I cut him off and asked if this was the call center. 

Employee #4: “Yes. How can I help you?” 

Me: “I have been forwarded to the call center four times when only the store can help me. This is ridiculous.”

Employee #4: “I’m sorry. What is this about?”

I repeated my problem again and just told him the information before he even asked. 

He said there was nothing he could do and he’d have to forward me. 

Me: “Nope, I will not be forwarded again. I want you to solve my problem; it shouldn’t be this hard.”

This went on for a while. He kept asking if I could let him forward me and telling me there was nothing he could do. When I finally said he could forward me, I was sent straight to the music again.

But this time, there was no automated message and someone picked up, so I was really hopeful.

The person was indeed from the store, and once I explained the problem, they apologized and said they would send me the drink now if I would like. 

I accepted and asked why I had been forwarded five times before I got to him.

Store Employee: “I’m really sorry. It’s the way our phone system works: if it’s busy or no one picks up, it gets automatically forwarded to the call center. Since it’s dinner time, it’s quite busy.”

So, my guess is that the music I’d been hearing was from the store, no one picked up, and then I was sent to the call center and given the automated messages. I did get my drink; the call took twenty-five minutes.

But wow, that is one stupid call system that such a large company set up.

One of the hospitals my mom worked at was notorious for calling her on her day off to ask her to come in. The standard response at home for anyone asking for her was finding out who was calling, telling them, “Let me see if she’s here. Hold on,” and then quietly asking my mom if she wanted to speak with them.

A few years later, I’m working my first job at a fast food place, and the phone rings. It’s the owner calling for our manager. Without missing a beat, I say:

Me: “Let me see if she’s here. Hold on.”

My manager was maybe ten feet away and gave me the weirdest look, but it wasn’t until after she finished the call that I found out why.

Manager “Do you know what you said to [Owner]?”

Me: “No.”

Manager: “‘Let me see if she’s here. Hold on.’”

Me: “Oh, crap.”

I explained myself.

Manager: *Shaking her head with amusement* “Well, [Owner] told me said to her husband, ‘She had better be there!’ before I picked up. Don’t do that again.”

Lesson learned; after that, I was careful about what I said on the phone at work.

Related:
This Is Your Brain On Autopilot, Part 5
This Is Your Brain On Autopilot, Part 4
This Is Your Brain On Autopilot, Part 3
This Is Your Brain On Autopilot, Part 2
This Is Your Brain On Autopilot