Suprise Attack of the Spelling Nazi

[Peppergirl]

The only thing I would advise is never make excuses and never try to explain in those situations. Why? 1) the customer really doesn't care 2) It nearly always just makes the customer madder and 3) they're just trying to get a rise out of you. And, really, you don't owe them any kind of explanation anyway.

Just calmly repeat the question until you get an answer and ignore their hostility (it's their problem, not yours).

If you must answer a simple "no" is best

Example:

SC: What do you mean, "spell it" are you stupid or something?

You: Please spell the *name, word, place*

SC: I can't believe this are you a f**** retard or something?

You: No, please spell the *name, word, place*.

And if they continue to be abusive, warn them and hang up just like you did.

I would agree with this sentiment, except up until the part where they start cussing me, particularly the F word, all bets are off.

Not that I'm a prude, but no one has the right to curse at me, particularly if I'm just doing my job.

Although I will concede that a definite bonus to all this is that the customer might get more aggrivated if they are unable to rile you up. Sometimes I think that's their goal when they start cussing.

[flybye023]

Although I will concede that a definite bonus to all this is that the customer might get more aggrivated if they are unable to rile you up.

I can't think of the quote but something like "Be nice to your enemies, nothing annoys them so much."

[Rapscallion]

I know where you must live. There's only one Toronto suburb with a silent "K"....hell, there's probably only one suburb in the world with a silent "k".

New Orleans?

Rapscallion

[Can I Help Your A$$?]

Comme L'enchanteur!!!

Oh, hell, I had to ask my French husband what you meant--seriously, if you're not a french speaker, how could you catch that?

My husband is fully bilingual, and he has to have the captions on to understand Deadwood.

[BookstoreEscapee]

Just be careful about that. Zip codes do no always have the correct city attached to them. Mine, for example, pulls up Denver, instead of Thornton, which is the proper city. I've had difficulties with that on web forms before, because it uses the database to pull the city...


Eric the Grey

Yeah, there are some towns in my area that share zip codes, as well.


I consider myself a very good speller, but even I don't assume I know spellings on place names. You never know where a name might come from and the most normal pronunciation might have a strange spelling (or vice versa, for that matter).

[Becks]

Silly Illinoisans. :-p

I can with some simple letters. FIBs.

No offense to our friends from IL, btw!!