Weird phone calls

[Can I have a cheeseburger]

So, I now work at a university book store, and for the most part our in-store customers are a pleasure to deal with and don't cause problems. The real gems we get are the phone calls...

- One caller wanted me to go grab an advanced electrical engineering textbook off the shelf, and read her two pages out of the book, including describing complicated electrical circuit diagrams which I do not understand because I am not in engineering. The whole process took almost 10 minutes. She wanted to see if the book she had was the same edition as the one we sell. Fortunately for her it wasn't busy in the store, otherwise I would've had to end the call.

- Another caller called in early December, asking if we had a certain book in stock for a course she is currently in. I looked it up on the computer, and it was out of stock, which I told her. The woman could not believe we would not have books in stock for current courses. Um, yeah, we do in September, but come October if they haven't sold out we send them back to the publisher! I was amazed how many customers came into the store the day before their exam as well looking for books they were supposed to buy in September. In most cases we just didn't have them.

[UncleImpy]

I think you and Lupo will commisserate juuuuust fine

[Becks]

- One caller wanted me to go grab an advanced electrical engineering textbook off the shelf, and read her two pages out of the book, including describing complicated electrical circuit diagrams which I do not understand because I am not in engineering. The whole process took almost 10 minutes. She wanted to see if the book she had was the same edition as the one we sell. Fortunately for her it wasn't busy in the store, otherwise I would've had to end the call.

You should've ended the call anyway.

It's not your job to read books over the phone to customers. (Or is it? If it is your job, I stand corrected.)

[HawaiianShirts]

- One caller wanted me to go grab an advanced electrical engineering textbook off the shelf, and read her two pages out of the book, including describing complicated electrical circuit diagrams which I do not understand because I am not in engineering. The whole process took almost 10 minutes. She wanted to see if the book she had was the same edition as the one we sell. Fortunately for her it wasn't busy in the store, otherwise I would've had to end the call.

Or that was an elaborate ruse to get you to do part of her homework for her. I find it disturbingly easy to imagine that she never bought the textbook and really needed some information from those pages for a test or assignment. I probably wouldn't have given her the benefit of the doubt like you did, but then, all my years in retail, customer service, and student service jobs have jaded me a bit.

[Can I have a cheeseburger]

Or that was an elaborate ruse to get you to do part of her homework for her. I find it disturbingly easy to imagine that she never bought the textbook and really needed some information from those pages for a test or assignment. I probably wouldn't have given her the benefit of the doubt like you did, but then, all my years in retail, customer service, and student service jobs have jaded me a bit.

She definitely had a copy of the book, albeit an old edition. I forgot to mention she also read out part of her book to see if I had the same text in front of me.

It definitely isn't my job to read that kind of thing out for her, but when we don't have other work to do, I don't mind. If there were any other customers in the store or if there was nobody else to cover me, I wouldn't have allowed it in the first place, or if someone else needed help I would've ended the call.