Sooo… you going to say sorry?

Back when I worked as consumer affairs we had an antiquated system. No prompts or anything. You call the company, you got me or one of my coworkers. If we couldn’t answer, you’d leave a voicemail. The company wasn’t big but it was big enough to afford a better phone system. It was so backward.

And my boss? Oh she was a doozy. She was the poster child for horrible female bosses using bitchiness to gain respect. (She didn’t get it but she thought she did) She was everything wrong. I’ve never had a more horrible boss than her.

So anyway. It was a Friday at my call in center. Friday’s were really slow phone days and was a great day to catch up on everything else. We could go 10 mins between calls whereas on Mondays it never stopped ringing. It’s just how it was.

I was so busy catching up this one Friday it didn’t dawn on me that the phones weren’t ringing.

My coworker noticed first and I agreed I hadn’t taken a call yet even tho we had been there nearly an hour. As we were attempting to see if there was a problem our boss (picture Ursula, as this boss was over weight with a knee issue rambling down the aisle at us) began screaming at us as to why we were not answering our phones. We worked amongst other departments so this was very embarrassing.

Boss: (literally screaming) what do you think you are doing?!?! Why are you not answering your phones?? Why are you not doing your job??? I just got off the phone with sue and she said they’ve been getting bombarded with calls and you’re not picking up!!!!

Me: our phones have not rung all morning.

Boss: that’s a lie!!! How dare you!

Me: I’m not lying. (My coworkers nod in agreement). They’ve not rung and we were just trying to figure out what was wrong. We think there’s an issue with the phones

Boss: I don’t believe you.

Me: go ahead and call the number. Here, I’ll call from my cell phone. See it’s not ringing.

Boss: hmphgg well, SOMEthing is going on.

So it turns out something random and technical had happened that I don’t recall, phones got working again and started ringing.

Boss never said a word to us. No apology, no amends. She took her two hour lunch and left early. 😒