Don't Answer the Phone!

[guitardude1987]

I work in the toy department at Wal-Mart. I don't know why, but lately, if I don't answer my department's phone with ten seconds, a customer will pick it up and talk to whoever is calling. This happened no less than three times yesterday alone. The third time, I was actually within ten steps of the phone when this chick who was standing next to the phone answered it. I'm halfway to the phone when I see her start to hang the phone back up.

Me: "Don't hang that up!"

She hangs up anyway.

SC: "Oh, sorry, dude, I didn't know what to do. The phone was ringing."
Me: "Is it your phone? Did you mistake it for the cell phone in your pocket? Did you feel it vibrate and play a ringtone?"
SC: "Sorry dude, I didn't know not to answer the phone."
Me: "Unless it's your personal phone, don't answer a phone. Please leave."

Side note: This chick and her boyfriend had been wandering around my department for some time. They weren't really shopping. Just taking up space. It's four days until Christmas. I'm not in the mood for stupid.

[RetailKate]

Oh. My. God......
I would have thrown her out of the store myself. Who answers a store phone when they don't work there? Sure, sometimes I've thought about answering when it was rining forever and just telling them to come in themselves. But actually doing that? Why are people allowed in public....

[BJD]

Since WHEN Is This Appropriate?

I don't know why, but lately, if I don't answer my department's phone with ten seconds, a customer will pick it up and talk to whoever is calling. This happened no less than three times yesterday alone.

I was in a Canadian Tire (for you Americans, imagine Pep Boys, Sears Auto Center and a large percentage of Lowes rolled into one store) one day and the place was a zoo. The staff was doing their level best to keep up and most people were understanding but every now and then you get that one idiot that ends up being written about here.

The hardware desk phone kept ringing as if somebody was constantly hanging up and calling right back (6 or 7 rings, ten seconds of silence, repeat ad nauseum). Teenage staffer was doing her level best and apparently chose to ignore the phone in order to take care of the people in front of her.

About three minutes in to this some SC picks up the ringing phone and literally screams into it: "She's too busy helping people here in the store to talk to you! You want something, get off your ass and come down in person like the rest of us!"

Stunned silence as he hung up the phone... half the people there (all of them candidates for the tile of SC) actually applauded or cheered. The other half of us just stood there shaking our heads in disbelief.

Where do people get off thinking that this is appropriate behavior?
It just baffles, confounds and occasionally angers me all at the same time!

[cinema guy]

About three minutes in to this some SC picks up the ringing phone and literally screams into it: "She's too busy helping people here in the store to talk to you! You want something, get off your ass and come down in person like the rest of us!"

Certainly not appropriate behaviour, but very, very funny.

[malmalthekiller]

God.

As someone that works in the service desk at walmart, that would PISS me off. That just means that customer will call back and tell me someone hung up on them, meaning they thought an employee did it.

[Bright_Star]

if they're that stupid enough to answer a phone that doesn't belong to them then they can get behind a register & put up with the nonsense every cashier has to put up with every single day. I betcha they wouldn't last 5 minutes & their sucky attitude would vanish in an instant.

[DGoddessChardonnay]

if they're that stupid enough to answer a phone that doesn't belong to them then they can get behind a register & put up with the nonsense every cashier has to put up with every single day. I betcha they wouldn't last 5 minutes & their sucky attitude would vanish in an instant.

They'll probably beat feet, screaming "I"m never coming here again" all the way out the door.

[ShinyGreenApple]

About three minutes in to this some SC picks up the ringing phone and literally screams into it: "She's too busy helping people here in the store to talk to you! You want something, get off your ass and come down in person like the rest of us!"

*snip*

Where do people get off thinking that this is appropriate behavior?
It just baffles, confounds and occasionally angers me all at the same time!

I don't know, something similar happened to me when I was manning the Wal-Mart lay-a-way department all by me onesie several years back. Christmas layaways had just started, the PS3 was being released in a few days, my entire lobby was filled, and my coworker was on a scheduled break.

*Rrrring Rrring Rrring Rrring*

Lather, rinse, repeat about 50 times. It literally would not stop, and I was not about to stop waiting on the people already there to (probably) just log into the computer and go through the totals and due dates of each of the callers 9 layaways, and painstakingly recall out loud what each and every item on them is. So I ignored it.

After about ten minutes of this, a woman stepped out of the line, picked up the phone, and said "The person working this counter is busy and can't help you right now because she is helping other customers, and I AM ONE OF THEM. You'll have to call back later. *click*"

It was all I could do not to laugh, and even more self-restraint was required not to thank her. I informed the department manager what had happened in case someone called back angry, but she thought it was hilarious. Seriously, I know if someone isn't getting an answer, they probably jump to the conclusion that the clerk is popping gum and gossiping with coworkers, but this really isn't usually the case. I wish more customers would have answered my lay-a-way phone for me

But as for the OP's toy department story, that was just sheer stupidity of the SC. To put it bluntly, it sounds like she and her boyfriend were playing in the store and she did it 'for the lulz'.

[PepperElf]

"She's too busy helping people here in the store to talk to you! You want something, get off your ass and come down in person like the rest of us!"

OMG LOL

but as for the OP.. hell i'd be *happy* to not answer it. when a phone rings and i know im not obliged to answer it... it makes me happy.