Call from “The chairman”

Obligatory “on mobile”. TL:DR at bottom

So I work in collections where most of my day consists of hang ups and people repeating “how can I help you” like they’re stuck in a time loop when asked to verify anything.

Anyway. The other day I had a very interesting incoming call. So this guy calls in, we’ll call him “Stan”.

So Stan calls because he received a notice in the mail that didn’t match his personal records. He proceeded to explain to me how he was the chairman of some medical fund related to this particular hospital so he has records of what his bill should be. So I walk him through what I can with the very limited info that I have. But he’s asking for details that I can’t answer, since I don’t have access to his medical records.

So I’m feeling in over my head with Stan, so I tell him I’m going to grab a supervisor. So I message my supervisor (working from home due To COVID, so we use an instant messenger) and she jumps into the call. Let’s call her “Carol”

So Carol gets on and does her verification and what not, and I go on mute. So Stan goes into his thing. And he continues.

And continues.

After 10 minutes of Stan telling us, in more detail than anyone would ever need, about this fund that he’s the Chairman of, I start messaging Carol while she’s trying to talk to Stan. It starts off simple like “OMG I cant believe this guy” Seriously it’s like he thought we might forget he’s the chairman. Carol couldn’t even talk to him. She couldn’t get a word in. At about 12 minutes I just get up and get an ice cream sandwich from the kitchen. When I get back, sure enough, Stan is still at it. I start messaging Carol about if I have time to run to the Arby’s by my house. She’s like “get me some curly fries”.

Anyway after about 20 minutes Carol FINALLY figured out what had happened and solved it, and it still took another 2 minutes of listening to Stan the chairman before we finally hung up. As soon as we were sure he was off, the two of us burst out laughing about this guy and the fact that he was clearly compensating for something by mentioning this fund he’s the chairman of. Anyway that’s my story.

TL:DR Guy calls me talks about being he chairman of some hospital fund, and takes 20 minutes to solve a very simple problem. Boss and I laugh about it.