So this story comes from my short time working in a call center for the satellite TV company that lets you direct TV. Probably within a month of getting to the floor, I got the call that is still taught to their training classes as an example of weird calls you can get. It involves the dish that is installed on a house to receive the satellite signal.
This was probably 10 years ago now, so I only recall the broad strokes. He will be PG for “poor guy”, as this really wasn’t his fault and I felt kinda bad for him
So the first sign of trouble was that no account information came up on my screen when the call connected. Usually, someone will put in their info through the automated system so their account comes up automatically when they reached me. Not uncommon that the account doesn’t pop automatically, but usually only happens for new customers and this was coming in as a tech call.
Me: “Hello, thank you for calling. May I please have the name on the account.”
PG: “Hi. So I’m calling on behalf of my neighbour. He recently had his satellite dish installed.”
Me: “Ok? So did he have some issue with the installation that he needs help with?” (If so, why are you calling?)
PG: “No, his service works fine. It’s my service that is messed up now.”
Me: “Ok sir, well I’d be happy to help you with that. May I please have your account number so I can bring up your account.”
PG: “Oh I’m not one of your customers. I’m a rival satellite TV company customer.”
Me: “Ok? So how am I supposed to help you with your service.”
PG: “Well when your tech came out to install his dish he took my dish down.”
Me: “Why would our tech take down your dish when he put up your neighbours?”
PG: “He took it off so he could put your dish on the pole.”
Me: “I’m sorry I’m not following.”
PG: “The pole is mounted to the outside of our building. Your tech took my dish off of the pole to put my neighbours’ dish on it.”
At this point, I knew there was nothing I could do for this guy. Without the neighbours’ account info, I couldn’t even bring up the account to find the techs who put up the dish. Even if I could, we sure as hell weren’t going to send a tech to fix this guys dish on our dime. So this guy was going to have to call his company to come out and install the dish again. I knew he wasn’t going to like that answer so I put him on hold and called over my manager.
My manager just laughed at the whole situation and had me transfer the call. Since there wasn’t anything he could do either, he just got the guy to curse at him so he could terminate the call.
I felt bad for the guy, he didn’t do anything wrong but we couldn’t really do anything either. Not sure why the tech was so lazy that he wouldn’t put up a new pole, or maybe he installed for both companies and knew he could charge for another tech visit to put up a new pole. Who knows. The story was funny for us at least.
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