Actual phone calls I have received at work (as office admin and dispatcher for an animal control agency):
Last Week ~
A lady calls in on her cell phone about a dog she adopted from us. There are physical issues with the dog, and she brought it back to us so we could take it to our vet for a second opinion. After listening to her prattle on, I was just about to refer her to our adoption center and provide her with that phone number when she asks me if I can hold. I then hear her ordering a hot fudge sundae through the drive-thru! I was shocked! I promptly YELLED at her through the phone to get her attention, and when she responded, I informed her that she needed to call back when she was done at the drive-thru, because I have other lines ringing that I need to be answering.
Who calls a place of business and places them on hold so they can order ice cream from a drive-thru window?!?
I like one of my co-workers' responses when I told her about the call ~ "Like she needs to have any more hot fudge sundaes!" HA!
*****
Today ~
I get a telephone call from a lady (out of state) that doesn't like the way that her son is treating his dog. While assuring her that we can keep her contact information confidential, it is like pulling teeth to find out where her son lives. I inform her that I need to establish jurisdiction by determining whether or not he is within our city limits. When I finally pry the address out of her, I determine that it is not within our jurisdiction and inform the lady of the name of the agency that she needs to talk to.
She begins to launch into a tirade about how she just spent an hour and a half on the phone with that agency and got no help at all, and was disconnected from their call. When I try to explain to her that since our agency is run by the city that we are located in, we are bound by the jurisdiction of our city's limits. This just sets her off even more. She begins to yell at me over the phone. I attempt to cut into her tirade, but she is having none of it. I then inform her that our telephone conversations are recorded by our agency, and if she is going to continue to speak to me in the manner that she is currently, I am within my rights to hang up on her. She just keeps going, and her volume is increasing.
While she keeps marching on in her tirade, I helpfully inform her that if she is not happy with the agency that she dealt with that actually has jurisdiction over the address that she was referring to, she can contact the city that the address is located in and complain to them, as they are the ones responsible for contracting their animal control issues. All the time, she keeps carrying on. I'm certain that she never even heard a word that I said. But I kept going. I told her that I was sorry that there was nothing that I could do for her, and I hope she has a nice day…and hung up the phone. While she was still screaming at me.
It felt good. She's probably still screaming into the phone.
I'll bet I know why her conversation with that "other agency" was "disconnected."
*****
Also Today ~
I get a telephone call from a lady that is upset. Seems that she had an animal licensed through the city, and she gave the animal to her mother. Her mother went ahead and re-licensed the animal in her own name, but the daughter keeps getting license renewals in the mail. She just received her second renewal and asked me if we "play with our brains down there."
Ooohhhkaay.
Fresh off the high of hanging up on that other lady, I decide that I'm not going to let that little jibe get to me. So I ask her how she received the notice - was it through the mail or by a note left on her door or handed to her in person? She states that she received it through the mail (eliminating contact with our officers from the equation). OK…so now I know that she received an automatic notice of renewal that doesn't come from us - it is processed through another department. I explain to her that we have nothing to do with those notices and I then ask her if the notice had the little check box that says, "Check here if you no longer have your animal." She gets huffy and states that she doesn't have the notice with her.
Ooohhhkaay.
I decide that I'm still going to try to help her with this issue. It'll be as simple as asking the correct department to disable her license in the system. I explain to her that I'm going to need to open up the license system on our database to access her information, and it may take a few minutes, as the system is very slow to work. She responds something to the effect that yeah, *city name* workers are slow, too…like "retards." Still feeling charitable (amazing!) I decide to ignore that comment and still try to assist her.
While I'm working my way through the painstakingly slow computer program, she continues to refer to the city employees and people in my department as "retards." After the third time, I decide that I've had enough. If she really wants to deal with difficult people, she can deal with the people that actually input the data in the system…I find them to be very difficult to deal with whenever I have to call that department. So I tell her, "You know what? I can't help you with this issue anymore. You'll need to contact *department name* and here is their phone number."
As I hang up the phone with her, I glance at the clock. It's four fifteen, and that department closed at four.
SCORE!
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