Years ago when I was at uni like a lot of students I temped through an agency. On one assignment I was working the switchboard at a large insurance company. All I did all day was to answer the phone and re-direct the calls through to the right department, home claims etc though to home dept, pet claims and enquiries…. yada yada (yeh, it really was as thrilling as it sounds lol.) One call I had to hit hold because I couldn’t stop the laughter, so had to compose myself and put her through. Call went thus:
me: “Good afternoon <company name> how may I direct your call please?”
caller: “put me through, I need to make a claim”
me: “which department may I direct your call to please madam?”
caller: “what??? what’s wrong with you? equine, equine you stupid girl!!! can you not see the horse!!!”
seriously…. is it something about country air or…..
More recently at work, I’m chatting away to a customer and helping her pack her shopping (I work in the happy land of retail… for UK jellies, with one of the bigger supermarket chains) when a customer maybe 2 or 3 behind her sneezes. I look down my queue to the man and smile at him and say “bless you”, then go back to helping my customer with her bags. I then carry on working through my queue.
Sneezy customer waits till its his turn to be served and then yells at me “how dare you speak to me like that” I apologised and said I didn’t know what I’d said that could have offended him, running the past couple of customers exchanges through my head trying to think what I’d maybe said to one of them that might have gotten him so steamed (and boy was he angry). No need though because he carried right on yelling at me about “how dare you presume that I’m a Christian” etc, which is when the penny dropped that he was the one I’d said bless you to when he sneezed. So, again I apologised, and said I hadn’t meant any offence it was just something I (and lots of people) said whenever anyone sneezed. He wasn’t having it and continued yelling, a colleague took him over to another checkout and to be honest I was glad to see the back of him. I later found out from my Manager that on his way out of the store he’d gone to the customer service desk and complained about me, which of course has to be written down in the service book. He dictated to my colleague what to write (seriously.. wow!)when she was completing the form and then made a complaint about her, saying that she had…. you’re gonna love this guys “poor penmanship”.
There is an argument for, as Jimmy Carr (gotta love him lol) said on QI “the gene pool needs a little chlorine now and again”
hugglys xx