Late-night at a hunting/fishing/outdoor products call center. Usually two of us worked from midnight to two am, but my accomplice was out sick this time. “Thank you for calling [company]. My name is cyberwood. How may I help you?”
“Have you got the number to [competitor]? They don’t answer when I call.”
The competitor and my employer were in the middle of friendly takeover negotiations, so I didn’t just say no. “The number I have for them is 800-xxx-xxxx.”
“I tried that number. You must have another number for them.”
“I’m sorry, sir, but that’s the only number available to me. I’ll check their website to see if there’s another.” I called up the site, which had only a “Site maintenance ” page with no links, no estimated up-time, only the phone number. “I’m sorry again, but their website is in maintenance now.”
Caller’s voice more loudly, “I need [some government form] from them. Can you email it?”
“Sir, I have never heard of such a form, so I do not have anything I can send.”
Louder still, “If you don’t send this form, I’ll call your founder and have you fired for being stupid and useless.”
I disconnected the call for being abusive. Of course he called back, and got me again. “According to the Americans With Disabilities Act you can’t hang up on me.”
I wanted to say, “Then ADA is a more foolish law than I thought,” but instead said, “I can terminate an abusive call, sir.”
“No, under ADA, you can’t. I can have you put in jail.”
I gave him some room to get abusive again. “Would that be at county, state, or federal level, sir.”
“Indian prison, that’s the worst kind.” This sounded like a threat, so I disconnected again.
He called two more times, threatening or name-calling each time. All the while i was composing an email to my boss with the calling number, time of call, internal call identifier, and a summary of what was said.
Next day my boss called me to her office. “I listened to those calls. You kept your cool better than some folks would. [Caller]’s number is blocked, you won’t hear from him again. “
“Thank you.”
submitted by /u/cyberwood2004
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