Spouting rage at funeral homes (language o'plenty)

[MystyGlyttyr]

Funeral home workers of the world...

When you call to ask me if I've gotten the obituary photo you sent me, and I say no, it is NOT the end of the fricken world. Do not stop, gasp, stammer, and whine about how you sent it. I'm sure you did send it. I just don't have it. Spending 30 seconds stumbling and stammering at the absolute shock will not help either of us. Here's what you do. Say "Okay" and then hang up and WAIT FIVE MINUTES before you ask me again.

Even better, here's a novel idea...wait something like one minute between the time your finger touches the "send" button and when it starts touching the numbers on the dial. I don't know how you people are able to send an e-mail and dial my phone number at the exact same instant, but that must for the love of God be what you're doing since I can usually hear your mouse clicking furiously in the background. E-mail is NOT INSTANTANEOUS. I don't know how many fucking times I have to repeat this stuff to you people.

Further, calling me 18 times in as many minutes going "Got it now? How about now? You got it now? Is it there now? You got it now?" NO GODDAMNIT I DON'T HAVE IT NOW. You know why I don't have it now?? Because you flooded my fucking system by sending me the same 8 MB photo file 20 times in a freaking row and now NO ONE'S PICTURES ARE COMING THROUGH.

Also, when the deadline for faxing obits is 2:30, calling me at 2:28 and whining about how the line is busy? Guess why it's busy? Because you and EVERY OTHER funeral home within 30 miles has decided to send their obits at the exact same fucking last minute and now my fax line is jammed up. I fucking TELL YOU THAT. Every day you do it, and every day I tell you "It's because so many people are faxing me their obits at the same time" and yet you never get the hint through your fat ugly stupid skull. You just keep sending me six obits at 30 seconds before deadline and then going into a panic when it's not there RIGHT OMG NOW. And in your panic, what do you do? You send it like ten more times and just fuck things up even MORE.

This is WHY we had to move our deadline time back an hour and a half, you know. You all used to do this shit at four and by the time it was 5 and time for me to go home, I had only just finished sorting out all your shit, let alone typing it in, organizing the lists, attaching the photos, etc., and my overtime was going through the roof. Obviously that wasn't enough for you to learn your lessons because now you just do the exact same shit, only 1 1/2 hours earlier. The only difference is that now I have time to fix it.

The reason we have a deadline is NOT so you can stand around with your thumb UP YOUR ASS until 2:30 and THEN send everything, it's so you can send it BY 2:30. If you send it at 2, I PROMISE, it will be OKAY.

(Whew, God, I feel better now. I was within five seconds of saying all this out loud to someone on the phone...)

[Difdi]

Why is it, that if you say "2:30 pm is the deadline, submit everything before then", people always instead hear "Everything must be sent at 2:30 pm"?

[Ill_Used_Heroine]

Cause they foolishly figure that everyone else must be done faxing by 2:30, thereby leaving it free for their faxing pleasure. Too bad it's past the deadline -- they fail.

[Dips]

Oh, no. Email and fax nimrods. How I hates them. <twitch>

"I faxed in an order, didja get it? didja get it? Huh? Huh? HUH?"

"When did you send it?"

"Just now!"

"Hold on a moment, I'll check."

[Dips proceeds to finish up the email she was typing, wanders into the kitchen to graps an apple, ambles downstairs to the fax machine, gets a glass of water, remarks on the weather to Rob the programmer, then looks at the fax machine, then ambles back upstairs to take the repeat-offender reseller off hold.]

"Yup. It's there."

[Daisy]

[Dips proceeds to finish up the email she was typing, wanders into the kitchen to graps an apple, ambles downstairs to the fax machine, gets a glass of water, remarks on the weather to Rob the programmer, then looks at the fax machine, then ambles back upstairs to take the repeat-offender reseller off hold.]

"Yup. It's there."

Heh. That sounds like me at my old job. Not to mention, we had so many customers our fax lines were tied up all day - pages and pages and pages coming through all the time. So when I'd make it over to the fax I'd sometimes have to root through an inch or two of paper to see whether we got their order.

[DevilBoy]

E-mail is NOT INSTANTANEOUS. I don't know how many fucking times I have to repeat this stuff to you people.

I fucking hate that.

I tell people all the time, "email is not an instant messenger."
It takes time for the email to get to me, it takes time for me to actually get a moment to read it thoroughly, it takes me time to gather the information you requested and it then takes time for me to compose a response to you.

Sure, the actual sending can take only seconds... but the whole reading and responding thing takes time.

Standard time for a response to a business email is generally 1 or 2 business days... NOT 1 or 2 minutes.
Why do some people think that I have absolutely nothing else to do, but to answer their emails immediately??

Sure, many times I try to get a response out the same day... but it doesn't always happen that way.
And why...why.... WHY??? is it that when I do respond to an email, that the phone rings approximately .654 seconds after I hit the "Send" button.... and it's the person I just sent the email to on the other line?
I know that you haven't had sufficient time to read what I wrote you, so don't act like you did. Your incoherent blabbering is proof that you have no idea what I wrote, since you only saw a message drop in your inbox and decided that the best course of action was to call me first, instead of reading what I wrote.
Had you taken the time to read what I sent, your questions would have been answered and I wouldn't have to hear to reiterate the same inquiries ad naseum over the phone.

/threadjack

Sorry 'bout that...

[depechemodefan]

[Dips proceeds to finish up the email she was typing, wanders into the kitchen to graps an apple, ambles downstairs to the fax machine, gets a glass of water, remarks on the weather to Rob the programmer, then looks at the fax machine, then ambles back upstairs to take the repeat-offender reseller off hold.]

"Yup. It's there."

That's me on the phones, when a regular calls. There are diff. types of regulars, but the ones that call all the time just to have someone to talk to, I leave on hold, lok up the answer, get the answer, then posts some stuff in diff. forums, drink my soda, goof off, etc, then 6 min. latter (unless we are really busy) I get back on the phone with the answer.

Also, since we are not 411, I wait for more than a min. to get back on the phone with the phone number.

[draftermatt]

I thought it was just me.

"Hi I sent you a bunch of drawings via e-mail did you get them?"
"No, I didn't"
"Well what could have happened?"
"When did you send it"
"Right before I called you"
"Oh, well let's wait a minute to see if it comes through, was it a large file"
"I think so"
"Well, I'm getting a message saying "recieveing e-mail 0.4 MB downloaded of 12 MB, I'm betting that's it"

[the toy guy]

Tell them that 2:30 is the deadline for you to recieve the obits, and don't accept any that arrive late due to a busy fax line. Maybe after they have to deal with a missed deadline once or twice, they'll get the hint.

[Tigress]

I had a client that did that ALL THE TIME when I worked title insurance. They knew good and well that we closed at 5 pm, yet would wait all day to fax their binders, then fax them en masse at 4:55 pm. Then they would complain because it wasn't waiting for them at 7 am the next day. Well, they got them in "before 5"!

And they had an irritating habit of calling us right at 5 pm. When we didn't answer the phone (because it was 5 pm and we still had to do the mail and close up the office), they would call the home office claim that we left early.

[powerboy]

Oh yeah we get that. We close at 5pm on Monday - Friday and at 4pm on Saturday (Sunday's we are closed). If you want to speak to someone when you call, then call during business hours & not @ 8pm at night.

[DesignFox]

Yea maybe I'm just an asshole, but I lock my doors at 5 to close if no one is in the store. Can't do shit in five mins, anyway. Damned if I'm gonna hang around because some monkey couldn't get in during the other 10.55 hours we were open...

[Dips]

Thinking about this again made me remember why we don't offer a deadline to place orders at the end of the day. If a reseller asks, we just say "the earlier you get your order in, the more likely we can ship it the same day, but it really depends on how many orders have come in ahead of yours."

If we had a set deadline we could be dead all day, then some of our worse resellers would all call at once to meet the deadline. Since we don't have a large staff that would be a disaster, especially when somebody had to leave early or is on vacation. Why set ourselves up for that?

There's also just too much variation in when things ship. On slow days we can take and get orders ready up to 30 minutes before the shipper shows up at 4:30. Other days we have all we can do to get the orders that came in before noon ready to go. What time would we set the cutoff for?

Any reseller who whines about this gets told the prices for expedited shipping with guaranteed delivery. When they realize it comes with a price tag, it's funny how most of them suddenly lose that sense of urgency.