Stupid people shouldn't use the phone

[TattooedMommie]

my night job, answering phones at local pizza joint...
And tonight, all the morons called...
Without even quoting any of them, my #1 pet peeve, repeated may times tonight. Let me BEG of you: When you call to order take-out food, for the love of Bob, PLEASE peruse the menu BEFORE dialing the phone! Decide what you will be ordering, scream down the hall to Grandma and second-cousin Jimmy, ask what they would like to order BEFORE dialing the phone. And when I ask "Anything else?" that is not an invitation for you to go dig out our menu and "hmm, um..maybe a, no, how about...uh, no wait, fries? no, um...do you have....?"
Im not generally an impatient person. But there are 4 phone lines and only little ole me to answer them and keep it moving in a timely fashion. Placing an order should not take 9 minutes, should not involve your neighbors cat, I dont need your life story, dont wanna chat and giggle with you. Have a nice day.

My next pet peeve, very similar to the first, played out tonight:
Me:"blah-blah-blah Pizza, can I help you?"
SC (Sucky Caller): "Yeah, Hang on..." and disappears. (I hear him yelling back and forth with someone, obviously he hasnt read my above diatribe.)
Meanwhile a customer comes in for a pick-up, so I go ahead and process him through...SC returns to phone about 3/4 of the way through our transaction and hears me finishing up. I took his(SC) order while counting out change to the gent at the counter, made no mistakes on his order...but yes, when our driver delivered SC's food, he complained that "the girl on the phone wasnt giving me her 100% attention" while he was placing his order.
Bah.

Then, this happens more often than I can explain...when taking a delivery order, we need a phone number. Our customer database is stored this way, and the drivers need the numbers in case they cant locate the house or whatever.
Me: "Ok,I just need a phone number"
SC: "uuhhh...im <yells to someone> what is the/my/our phone number?"
Tonight a woman took FOUR minutes to locate her damn phone number. I had to place two other calls on hold, which she heard me do clear as a bell, and she continued to giggle and "OMG!" over the fact that she didnt know her phone number. She found it hilarious. I did not.

And my final bitch, why oh why, if your change is $.08 why cant you just drop it in my little tip basket? Oh because you have to COUNT the pennies to make sure I gave you the right amount back. Repeatedly tonight, tightwads counted their coins and stuffed them into their pockets rather than tip me a measly coin or 2. If you can afford to blow $50 on take-out food on a Monday night, I'd say I kinda need that .08 more than you do. I make less than min wage, work my ass off, and am nice to everyone. Sometimes it just doesnt seem worth it.

Have a couple stories from my day job (cashier at grocery store) but I have fried dough and a good tv night ahead of me.

[Sandiercy]

I see you have been getting calls from Gravekeeper's callers.

[EricKei]

When you call to order take-out food, for the love of Bob, PLEASE peruse the menu BEFORE dialing the phone!

I had this soooo much back at DaddyJim's back in the day...It's even worse when they spend five minutes hemming and hawing over toppings and specials, only to decide after all that time that they don't want to order pizza in the first place!

SC (Sucky Caller): "Yeah, Hang on..." and disappears.

If allowed by the boss, I'd handle one of these the same way I handle ALL such calls: Namely, *click*. ^_^ If they can't be bothered to be ready for the call, why should you waste your time waiting for them? Ditto if you pick up and they immediately ask you to Hold.

[Seshat]

I can think of a time when that would be acceptable: but it usually involves screams of pain in the background. (IE: someone's just injured themselves.)

[HotelMinion]

Lol I'm glad I'm not the only one annoyed by that. People call and they have no idea what they want, what time, what place, what year, they just don't have a clue! "uuummm, uhhhh, hmmmm..." I just hate that. Decide before, it's not that hard! :\

[sms001]

Almost as frustrating is being on the other end; when clueless friends decide to order out and reach for the phone right away. Can't count the number of times I've grabbed pen and paper and said "Let's get our order together first." People just don't think.

I make less than min wage. . .

Just out of curiosity, why? Is working the phones/counter considered a waitstaff job? That seems odd.

[Midnight_Angel]

Me:"blah-blah-blah Pizza, can I help you?"
SC (Sucky Caller): "Yeah, Hang on..."

"No." <click>

Then, this happens more often than I can explain...when taking a delivery order, we need a phone number. Our customer database is stored this way, and the drivers need the numbers in case they cant locate the house or whatever.

Hmm... usually, the caller's number should be on your display... or isn't Caller ID pretty much ubiquious these days?

[Kereminde]

I'm sorry, I normally call to a story about what promos they're running . . . because I've been bitten twice by asking for one and: "This store doesn't do that."

So when you ask me what I order (after phone number and verifying me) and I respond with "got any specials?" . . . please don't get upset. I try to be pleasant to make up for it.

[EricKei]

Hmm... usually, the caller's number should be on your display... or isn't Caller ID pretty much ubiquious these days?

At our old place, they would not ALLOW us to get Caller ID (even tho the phones supported it), as they thought we would use it to screen calls. Heaven forfend

[TattooedMommie]

Almost as frustrating is being on the other end; when clueless friends decide to order out and reach for the phone right away. Can't count the number of times I've grabbed pen and paper and said "Let's get our order together first." People just don't think.




Just out of curiosity, why? Is working the phones/counter considered a waitstaff job? That seems odd.

All of the phone/counter staff is paid under the table, so it's take what they pay or move along. And they go through counter-staff like water because the pay doesnt equal the stress. I'm normally on delivery so the tips more than make up for it, but being sans-automobile for a bit, Im stuck on phones for the time being.

At our old place, they would not ALLOW us to get Caller ID (even tho the phones supported it), as they thought we would use it to screen calls. Heaven forfend

Two of our four phones have a caller ID display, but on the handset, which shows while it's ringing, but once i answer it just goes to timing the call, so it's not feasible. Plus more often than not, it's "Private Number" or just shows the town it comes from. We've even been taking phone numbers for large pick-up orders, as we've gotten pranked numerous times

I'm sorry, I normally call to a story about what promos they're running . . . because I've been bitten twice by asking for one and: "This store doesn't do that."

So when you ask me what I order (after phone number and verifying me) and I respond with "got any specials?" . . . please don't get upset. I try to be pleasant to make up for it.

I dont work for one of the chains, just a small family-owned place. Our menu's never changed (At least in the year and a half I've been there) Asking about specials is definitely not sucky . It's questions like "uh, yeah...do youo guys, have ,uh, pizzzzaa?" that suck...lol

A stupid from lasxt night I forgot to add...we have 4 phone likes, the numbers being in chronoligical, numerical order (555-1234, 555-1235, etc...)
Last night on line one:
SC " Where have I called?"
ME:"Blah-lah-blah Pizza"
SC: "Sorry wrong numer. <Pause> This is Jay."
Me: "ok...?"
<click>
And guess who called each of the four lines, asked where he had reached, and hung up? That's right, my new bff, Jay. Thanks for testing me, bro!

[e_spickler]

SC (Sucky Caller): "Yeah, Hang on..." and disappears. (I hear him yelling back and forth with someone, obviously he hasnt read my above diatribe.)

I used to work at a pizza joint and the store manager told us that if they are gone longer than 1 mniute, we are allowed to hang up on them as long as we stated "I'm sorry, you appear to be busy. Please call back when you are ready to order".

[PepperElf]

"the girl on the phone wasnt giving me her 100% attention" while he was placing his order.

bet he'd blow a gasket if anyone pointed out to him that he wasn't giving any attention either.

[depechemodefan]

The douchebag who complained about you not giving all your attention hopefully didn't call back complaining the order was wrong. He probably forgot what he ordered, but it was the principle that you should be punished for not paying attention."

At the library, when the person on the line says, "one moment" or "I'll be back, I have to get my library card/name of the book/ask my child who is the author/etc" we can tell them, "I only can wait 30 seconds." Leads to blow ups or "no, I won't take 30 seconds" and it does.

Drives me nuts when they call to place an item on hold and when I ask for their card they say, "oh, let me go get it." Once in awhile when I tell them I can wait 30 seconds they'll say, "It's in my purse, I'll looking for it, you WILL wait." There are times I will wait one min. and people still arn't back. Oh, also the people who say, "ugh, the card is upstairs, you're making me climb upstairs, can't you look up my number by my name?" Or the people the schoolteachers who left their card in the their purse in the car and "they put it on hold without my card last time why can't you?".

Really, why can't you get your info. correct before you call? Oh, wait, librarians have a supercomputer that will find all and any info; we'll do the thinking for you.

[MoonCat]

What I want to know is, if someone calls a business and has to sit there waiting on hold for 10 minutes, why can't they use that time to decide what they want??

I have had SO many calls over the years where people would hem and haw and have no idea what to say in their ad, after they waited and waited on a busy day. I especially hate the ones who giggle and say, "I guess I should have thought about this!"

[Pizzacommando]

Having worked in a pizza place for more than a decade, I've been through all that more times than I can count. My favorites are the people who ask us to tell them all of our specialty pizzas (about 20) and what toppings are on each one.

I never minded the people who ask what our specials are, but the ones who listen to the specials, and then ask if we have a special on what they really want to order just irritate the hell out of me.