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For the past several months I've been working at a regional customer service center for a major restaurant/delivery corporation, whose initials are PH. Now that my life's settled down enough for me to get back here, I'd like to take a moment to discuss the pure, unadulterated (though maybe incestuous), knuckle-dragging stupidity of some of my callers:
Phone # Phollies
As a person who takes calls for something over 100 stores in six states, any person of reasonable intelligence can rightly guess that a full, 10-digit phone number is a necessity for create or access a file so I can make an order.
Unfortunately, even this simple task can be gravely complicated by people who insist on telling me their P# is 1234 Anywhere St, John Doe, or "I want a Large Pepperoni Pizza". Especially moronic, though one of the few things I can openly call the mouth-breathers on, is them giving me a 7-digit phone # (ie 123-4567) and, when prompted, saying their 'Area Code' is 12345... which is the Postal Code from their address.
I have, occasionally, also gotten people who insist "You don't need my phone number, just take my damn order".
Duh-livery or Puke-Up
Once the harrowing experience of getting the P# is completed, now comes the next great feat... discerning if the customer wants the food brought to them, or if they're going to actually get off their asses and come to the store.
If they choose to be catered to (literally
), next comes the task of obtaining the address. This usually isn't too frustrating, except for the ones that aren't at their house and take 10 minutes to find the 
ing thing, and the rare loser that mangles the pronunciation of their street name so badly I discover, upon asking them to spell it, it is a completely different place than what was typed... and lets not even get into the bitching generated by those who live in black-listed apartment complexes when they're told that if they want pizza they'll have to come get it.
Pick-up is actually worse, as I have to hand-hold these ludites through the discovery that their call isn't being taken at the store by a harried, sweaty, short-tempered dough slinger but in another building (ranging from across the street to half-way across America) by a harried, sweaty, short tempered phone monkey, and find out what store they want to do the carry-out at. This will often include repeatedly reassuring the skittish animal that they have, indeed, called the right place and beating it into their head that they're not getting the direct line.
Teh Speh-shuls
Here is my single most hated part of the order. Compounding the dim-witted nincompoops that can't comprehend the English language well enough to make sense of the succinct descriptions given for the specials, requiring repeated and ever-more-simplistic breakdowns of their contents, are a section of people whom I dearly wish to hunt down and feed their own spleens before tossing them into the back of a cement mixer half full of broken glass.
These... creatures... these foul abominations know they're going to use a coupon they already have in their hand, but insist on a fine-toothed-comb dissection of the specials for something better when their mind is already made up, wasting my time and sanity on a pointless endeavor.
The Pizzas
The pains here are too many to list in detail, but chief among them are people who can't grasp the concept of the format Size:Crust:Notify If 50/50:Toppings:Special Instructions when ordering their pizzas, no matter how many times you repeat the order in that format and even outright tell them that's how you need to have it put in for things to go smoothly.
$$$ Makes The World Go 'Round
Some stores don't take checks. Deal with it. Who in the thousand hells doesn't have a credit- or bank-card or carry cash these days? Yes, it costs more for us to process a check than either cash or card, so yes we will be charging $.38 to accept a check. You don't like it, pay some other way. Just because you're stuck in 1988 doesn't mean the rest of the world is.
No, we won't let you place an order for your precious little son at college in another state. If you, your card, and your ID aren't in the same room with the pizza, we have no way of telling if it's theft or not. If we didn't and it happened, you'd bitch about our lack of security, so bite me, you bloody tosser.
Sure, we'll accept a $100-bill on your $12.32 order... but you'll be giving the driver a minimum $67.68 tip. They don't carry more than $20 change EVER, FOR ANY REASON, and can be FIRED for doing so. Sorry, but your piddling $.68 cent (if that much) tip just isn't worth it.
Yes, I do need to get your credit card number now, and gods help me, I will reach through the phone and slap the taste out of the mouth of the next person who, in response to "...read the number off, four at a time, please?" goes "4.... 7.... 6...".
No Habla Español
Seriously, it would be a lot less painful if some people would just swallow their pride and ask for one of our bi-lingual CSRs (there's always 1-3 on the phones) to take their order. I appreciate the fact that they're trying to learn English, since they're here and all, but deciphering accent thicker than refried beans (Don't get me wrong... some of the Redneck and Ghetto accents are just as bad, and get the same reaction!) or having to relay the order through a kid that sounds about 5 makes me want to beat myself about the head with something heavy.
Honestly, don't get me wrong, a good 3/5ths of the calls I take are in the boring-to-pleasant range, with a few genuinely great customers, but given that I handle at least 140 calls in a night, that's still 28 calls every day that have at least one of the issues related above.
Phone # Phollies
As a person who takes calls for something over 100 stores in six states, any person of reasonable intelligence can rightly guess that a full, 10-digit phone number is a necessity for create or access a file so I can make an order.
Unfortunately, even this simple task can be gravely complicated by people who insist on telling me their P# is 1234 Anywhere St, John Doe, or "I want a Large Pepperoni Pizza". Especially moronic, though one of the few things I can openly call the mouth-breathers on, is them giving me a 7-digit phone # (ie 123-4567) and, when prompted, saying their 'Area Code' is 12345... which is the Postal Code from their address.
I have, occasionally, also gotten people who insist "You don't need my phone number, just take my damn order".
Duh-livery or Puke-Up
Once the harrowing experience of getting the P# is completed, now comes the next great feat... discerning if the customer wants the food brought to them, or if they're going to actually get off their asses and come to the store.
If they choose to be catered to (literally
), next comes the task of obtaining the address. This usually isn't too frustrating, except for the ones that aren't at their house and take 10 minutes to find the ing thing, and the rare loser that mangles the pronunciation of their street name so badly I discover, upon asking them to spell it, it is a completely different place than what was typed... and lets not even get into the bitching generated by those who live in black-listed apartment complexes when they're told that if they want pizza they'll have to come get it.Pick-up is actually worse, as I have to hand-hold these ludites through the discovery that their call isn't being taken at the store by a harried, sweaty, short-tempered dough slinger but in another building (ranging from across the street to half-way across America) by a harried, sweaty, short tempered phone monkey, and find out what store they want to do the carry-out at. This will often include repeatedly reassuring the skittish animal that they have, indeed, called the right place and beating it into their head that they're not getting the direct line.
Teh Speh-shuls
Here is my single most hated part of the order. Compounding the dim-witted nincompoops that can't comprehend the English language well enough to make sense of the succinct descriptions given for the specials, requiring repeated and ever-more-simplistic breakdowns of their contents, are a section of people whom I dearly wish to hunt down and feed their own spleens before tossing them into the back of a cement mixer half full of broken glass.
These... creatures... these foul abominations know they're going to use a coupon they already have in their hand, but insist on a fine-toothed-comb dissection of the specials for something better when their mind is already made up, wasting my time and sanity on a pointless endeavor.
The Pizzas
The pains here are too many to list in detail, but chief among them are people who can't grasp the concept of the format Size:Crust:Notify If 50/50:Toppings:Special Instructions when ordering their pizzas, no matter how many times you repeat the order in that format and even outright tell them that's how you need to have it put in for things to go smoothly.
$$$ Makes The World Go 'Round
Some stores don't take checks. Deal with it. Who in the thousand hells doesn't have a credit- or bank-card or carry cash these days? Yes, it costs more for us to process a check than either cash or card, so yes we will be charging $.38 to accept a check. You don't like it, pay some other way. Just because you're stuck in 1988 doesn't mean the rest of the world is.
No, we won't let you place an order for your precious little son at college in another state. If you, your card, and your ID aren't in the same room with the pizza, we have no way of telling if it's theft or not. If we didn't and it happened, you'd bitch about our lack of security, so bite me, you bloody tosser.
Sure, we'll accept a $100-bill on your $12.32 order... but you'll be giving the driver a minimum $67.68 tip. They don't carry more than $20 change EVER, FOR ANY REASON, and can be FIRED for doing so. Sorry, but your piddling $.68 cent (if that much) tip just isn't worth it.
Yes, I do need to get your credit card number now, and gods help me, I will reach through the phone and slap the taste out of the mouth of the next person who, in response to "...read the number off, four at a time, please?" goes "4.... 7.... 6...".
No Habla Español
Seriously, it would be a lot less painful if some people would just swallow their pride and ask for one of our bi-lingual CSRs (there's always 1-3 on the phones) to take their order. I appreciate the fact that they're trying to learn English, since they're here and all, but deciphering accent thicker than refried beans (Don't get me wrong... some of the Redneck and Ghetto accents are just as bad, and get the same reaction!) or having to relay the order through a kid that sounds about 5 makes me want to beat myself about the head with something heavy.
Honestly, don't get me wrong, a good 3/5ths of the calls I take are in the boring-to-pleasant range, with a few genuinely great customers, but given that I handle at least 140 calls in a night, that's still 28 calls every day that have at least one of the issues related above.
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