How to screw up answering the phone

[bean]

By answering while you're ringing, of course!

Our phone greeting is "Thank you for calling <store> in <city>, this is Bean, how may I direct your call?".

I was ringing up asparagus, I picked up the phone and said "4080... er... <insert greeting here>"

(for those non-grocery types here, 4080 is the standard PLU for conventional asparagus)

[BethB]

Hee hee! I've been on the receiving end of some of those calls. pretty amusing.

[Bandit]

What's even worse is answering the phone with either the wrong company name (past jobs), or having an issue with that whole morning/afternoon thing.

Yep - it's happened to me.

B

[ottid]

I don't use the whole morning/afternoon/evening things when it is around the time I think is change over, that is 12pm and 5pm. It just gets confusing and some peoples clocks will be slightly different and everything, I usually just use "Hello <opening spiel>" in those cases

I've also done the wrong business thing, doesn't help that it's the same franchise, different location/name in front of the business. I have to check myself quite frequently on that account!

[Bandit]

I've also done the wrong business thing, doesn't help that it's the same franchise, different location/name in front of the business. I have to check myself quite frequently on that account!

There was a while when I would answer the phone "Good day! Bandit from Applied Graphic Card Company here".......when I was working for the Tell Us Borg Phone Company. Took a while to break that one.

Then, a few years later, I had a job at the Auto club across the road from the Applied Company.

I quickly changed to "Hi! Uber-Telecom Geek Bandit here!"

(or if I really knew the person - "Hungarian Embassy - how may I misdirect your call?")

B

[PepperElf]

what's funny is when you call someone up... right as they pick up the phone and start dialing.

[Bandit]

what's funny is when you call someone up... right as they pick up the phone and start dialing.

Glare - always good for a WTF moment, especially when both were about to call the other.

Even more fun when calling 2 scammers and listening to them in a conference call.

B

[ArcticChicken]

I swear one of these days I'm going to say "While your up, would you get me a 4011....I mean a banana?"

[50 mission cap]

I've had to catch myself from almost doing the two business thing. I work at a call centre during the week and then at a hotel on the weekends. When you do a call centre for eight hours a day you get on automatic when answering the phone....I caught myself at the hotel starting to do my call centre greeting then would switch over! lol

[Dasota]

even better is working drive-thru and greeting someone with the wrong place.

What makes it better? The McDonald's I worked at before Coffee/Donut hell? Didn't have a drive-thru.

[bean]

Even more fun when calling 2 scammers and listening to them in a conference call.

Evil Operator connects 2 people to each other, records the call, and allows you to download it for your amusement after they hang up.

I know nothing about pranking my old pizza places with it (connecting 2 stores to each other is always interesting).

[DrFaroohk]

Answering the phone is a nightmare for me, due to my stutter, and it usually requires a great deal of concentration for me to get all the proper words out, especially at places that have one approved, standard greeting. In one case, it was an auto parts store where we had to answer with "Thank you for calling <store name>, how may I go the extra mile for you today?"

So I'm answering a call one day and a smartass co-worker comes up and whispers in my ear "Thanks for calling <store name>, Jon's a douchebag." (I'm Jon...lol..)

So what did I say into the phone, but "Thanks for calling store name, Jon's a douchebag!" Followed by uncontrollable laughter at what I'd just said. Fortunately, the customer was cool and also busily laughing his ass off. Wound up making a pretty good sale out of the whole thing.

[bean]

I stutter a little bit too - not as bad as I used to, but every now and then I just can't get a string of words out to save my life. Frustrating, ain't it?

Still, I've managed to work in a couple of call centers and even made it to supervisor in one of them.

[Primer]

Not quite 10 years ago, I worked at both an animal hospital and a tutoring center (as well as teaching). One day one of the veterinarians called the tutoring center looking for one of my coworkers there. She did not know I also worked at the tutoring center, and it really threw her for a loop when she recognized my: 1-voice, 2-answering style, and 3-name at the end.

Other than that, I always had to stop and think, "Where am I working right now?" before picking up the phone!

[Bandit]

From '97 to '02 I worked at a high-tech company.

In '08, I had a contract with an auto club right across the road from the high-tech company.

It took me a while to remember my phone number at the auto club as they shared the area code and exchange - only difference was the last 4 digits.

B