Work Stories

[lemont77]

Hey everybody. I'm trying out my thread-starting abilities, and so far, I'm not doing so well. But I do have some funny stories about my old job that I'd like to share as a way to entertain you all!

I used to work for an electric utility in Louisiana. Anyone who might be familiar with New Orleans, you know about the craziness that brews in that city. Well, I got every nut-bar in the planet over there. One of my best stories is from a woman who called shortly after one of the hurricanes. She wanted us to pay for her poodle. Her story was that, during the storm, a tree branch fell on her service line and broke it, dropping it into a puddle of water. She let her dog out to use the restroom and it stepped in the water...BZZZT! Dead dog (apologies to all PETA people). She wanted us to pay her the $45 she paid for the dog. I said we couldn't, so she cussed me out and hung up.

Then she calls back! I get her again (rare, but it happens). Her story has changed, though, in some key areas. Her poodle is now estimated at a cost of $1,000, and instead of stepping into the puddle, one of our servicemen KICKED the dog into the water! She went on and on for about 10 minutes. When I advised her that she had the same agent and she still wasn't going to get any money, she cussed me out again and hung up!

I have a lot of these stories...if y'all want more, please reply!

 

[IntoxicatingToxin]

Hrm. Off the top of my head, I can't really think of any FUNNY stories. But I used to answer phones for Pizza Hut. It was a big call center that answered the phones for the whole city. My friends and I used to make up stupid names and accents out of boredom. I used to talk in a southern accent, and my "name" was Molly Sue. When I talked in my British accent, my name was just Molly. A friend of mine whom I worked with did a little test to see if people even paid attention to our names when they called in. So for a whole 8 hour shift, he answered the phone with, "Thank you for choosing Pizza Hut, this is the Antichrist, will this be for delivery or carryout?". Only two people caught him on it the whole night, of the hundreds of calls he took. That's all I got right now. :smile: I'm sure I'll think of more!

 

[Love-it]

I would say that about 1/2% of my customers are difficult to deal with, a couple of ass holes, another one declared bankrutcy and I lost over $2,000 (he was incompetent and strung a lot of people along) and I have to be civil when he comes in, a few shoplifters that I haven't been able to catch, and then there are a few who need to take showers.

But most people are great.

 

[ManlyBanisters]

Well - there is the whole aspect that work wouldn't be (full stop) if weren't for the customers, so I said 'sometimes'. I'm not in a customer facing job right no, thankfully, but I've been a waitress, bar-tender, call-center 'headset' and had an education related office job where I had to deal with paretns on the phone sometimes. That was was the worst - you see you can kind of diplomatically tell someone they are dumb or wrong or just plain out of luck - but try telling someone their kid is dumb, wrong, lying to them - you have to be REAL careful. I don't have many funny stories from that job. Once I was passing a call to a superior and said 'Help me out here - this crazy old bat is loosing the plot' thinking I had the phone covered (no hold system - but of course she heard me - which made my collegue's life a lot harder for the next 15mins - Or telling 'our Johnny's' mother that 'our Johnny' had cheated in his exam and wasn't a fucking genius and had fucking failed, AGAIN!

 

[Onslow]

When I worked in auto mechanics and repairs, I lived for the customer interaction.

 

[biguy2738]

The marketing director of one of my accounts phoned me the one day, and I could sense that he wasn't quite himself. When I asked him what was wrong, he told me that his wife has an issue with his hairy chest, and since it was her birthday, he decided to surprise her by having it waxed. He had just returned to the office and was still experiencing a lot of discomfort.

I couldn't help but pack out laughing. I was laughing so much that I couldn't speak and he eventually hung up on me. About five minutes later, I received an email from him with only the word QUIET!!!! written in huge lettering. Needless to say that I laughed until I had tears rolling down my cheeks.