Things I Dislike Intensely No. 213535

[athersgeo]

When the phone call goes thusly:
Me: [standard company greeting]
Caller: Hi I'm [person name].

So. SO tempting to respond with "That's nice" or "Congratulations" or possibly "So?" or even "Oh, I'm terribly sorry!" - I mean, where do you go when the other person just ends their sentence there and then doesn't say anything more?!

At least give me a little bit more of a clue about what you want. I mean, the odds are pretty good that whatever it is you're selling, I'm not interested in, but at least *TRY*!

Comments

[bookwormsarah.livejournal.com]

I think "Good for you." would have been my response...Still, it beats the phone call when I was working for an MP:

Me: Good afternoon, ____'s office, how may I help?
Her: Who? You rang me.
Me: Could I ask who's calling?
Her: You rang me earlier. I had a missed call from you.
Me: Could I just take your name and then I can check my records...
Her: *snorts* (but does eventually give her name).

Turns out she was phoning up because she had links to someone who was a constituent (although she lived in Sussex/somewhere Far Away) and wanted us to take something up on their behalf. I explained that we weren't able to act unless we had been directly contacted by the constituent, but would do all we could when they did. She was not impressed. We never heard from her friends...

[athersgeo.livejournal.com]

As a former councillor's daughter, I know those sorts of phone calls quite well. The best one of all was a chap who didn't live in the right ward who rang at about 7 or 8pm to complain about a hole the gas board had dug in front of his mother's house (she DID live in the right ward) and who asked (with no sense of irony) if it could be looked into.

The next morning (at about 7am!) he then rang again to say thank you because the gas board had now filled the hole in.

Natch, we'd had absolutely nothing to do with the filling in, but sometimes, it's not worth being too honest!

[bookwormsarah.livejournal.com]

Ah, the joy of unintentional irony and problems solved without any input...

I had a note stuck onto a letter from Enraged Constituant saying 'AB also wrote on this [utterly frustrating and ranty matter]. Tie them up together'. My colleague claims that she only intended me to deal with them at the same time...

[megaleena.livejournal.com]

Some of my pilots do that, like you know who they are out of 600+ because they're *so* special! I have, on occasion, been known to say 'that's nice'.

One of them insisted on calling himself Surname whenever I asked for his name, so in the end I said 'thanks for calling Surname, I'll pass your message on!'

[athersgeo.livejournal.com]

So glad to know it's not just me who gets people who do this! My problem is that at least SOME of the people who do this to me are clients and it never does well to be TOO rude to them. On the other hand, the next Indian Outsourcing call that does it to me probably WILL get "That's nice" - my brain-to-mouth filter's a little full...

And I don't blame you with that last twit - sometimes, it's all you can do.

[tiphanism.livejournal.com]

Argh, I get cold callers who do that.
Me: hello?
Them: I'm calling from [company name].
*tumbleweed*
Me: How can I help you?
Them: I'm calling from [company name]!!!!!!
Me: I have never heard of that company. I think you have a wrong number.