Waiting for Gouda

One of my many job duties here at the front desk is, of course, to answer the telephone. As I am always looking for ways to be more efficient in the workplace, I have made it a practice to only do this when the phone is actually ringing. This seems to be working much better than my original method, which often found me randomly spewing my standard greeting to the dial tone.

You may recall my mentioning how much I despise the telephone I have to deal with several hundred times a day, the SuperConsole 1000. I hate its ring, its generally incomprehensible display panel, its stupid buttons, which often stick and cause one to accidentally dial 1-900-CHEAP-HO, instead of the toll-free Bible Verse of the Day Hotline. Even its name… the SuperConsole 1000. I mean, what the hell does it think it is? Telephone to the Terminator?

Despite my intense loathing, I am somewhat comforted knowing that I will only be forced to spend, at most, eleven seconds on each call. Long enough for whomever is on the other end to pull the pacifier out of their mouth and tell me who the hell they want to talk to and for me to tell them to go kill themselves with a screwdr – whoa… I’m sorry…

What I mean to say is that the majority of the calls are fine. Really. Just fine. Hello and goodbye. But then there are the Idiot calls.

A few years back, I worked in the service center for an exceptionally inept long distance telephone company. During those dark, dark days, I probably spoke with an average of a hundred idiots a day, at length. I spent a great portion of my day debating over whose brain I wanted more to put a bullet in, mine or theirs. Luckily, now my only job when this circumstance arises, is to correctly identify the caller as an Idiot, and either hang up as soon as possible or, if necessary, route him or her to our specially trained Idiot Handlers. It is usually quite easy to recognize an Idiot when one calls.

Sometimes it’s a Wrong Number Idiot, of which there are two types. Wrong Number Idiot Type A hears my standard greeting, realizes immediately that she has a wrong number, apologizes profusely, hangs up the phone, and then calls back approximately six seconds later. WNITA is subsequently shocked to learn that it is still a wrong number. Sometimes WNITA will call back a third time and, realizing that the magical telephone pixies have yet again failed to rectify the situation, hang up without saying a word, hoping that I will not fully grasp the enormous depth of their ignorance. This does not work. Although my phone here does not actually have Caller ID (hmph… some “Super” console you are…), I’ve discovered that Idiots emit a certain vibe that lingers on the line after they’ve slunk off to inflict their embarrassing intellect on someone else.

Then there is Wrong Number Idiot Type B, who hears me answer the phone by stating the name of the company I work for (Note for any Idiots who may be trying to read this: This would be the establishment they have actually reached on the telephone), and then asks me something like, “Is this the Rheumatoid Arthritis Clinic?” When I respond to WNITB by repeating the name of the company, he or she will often ask, “Oh, what do you do there?” You know, just in case maybe in addition to our regular marketing projects, we might do a little bone and joint work on the side. WNITB often refuses to acknowledge the fact that they have dialed a wrong number, and proceeds to play that oh-so-wonderful game with me in which they read off the number they think they have dialed. The point of this seems to be that they’re hoping that once they read the number to me, I’ll say, “Huh, you know what? That is our number. Gosh, maybe we are the arthritis clinic. I’d better go check with my supervisor.”

Both types of WNIs have been known to listen to my explanation of who they have reached and then ask, “Are you sure?” You can only imagine the great deal of restraint it takes to be semi-professional when I am in this situation. I say “semi-“ because if I forced myself to be entirely professional in the face of such overwhelming Idiocy, I fear that my head might explode.

PHHOOO-SPLAAAAT!

“Geez, what happened to Dan?”
“Wow, look at this mess. Man, that must have been a real freakin’ idiot.”

On the other end of the Idiot Spectrum are the infinite more dangerous and terrifying Idiots — those who actually do have the right number. (Sometimes Idiots get lucky, you know.) These Idiots really need to talk to somebody, because they have A Problem.

Often these Idiots don’t particularly care if they are speaking to precisely the right non-Idiot, and they will launch directly into what I can tell is going to be a really long story about the futility of their desperate lives, none of which I care about and all of which will need to be repeated to someone who gets paid to pretend they do. Therefore I spend the entire duration of our time together simply waiting for an appropriate time to tell the Idiot to hold on a moment. I have discovered that a large percentage of Idiots have a remarkable lung capacity, and quite often the wait for that first breath to run out is a rather long one.

Other Idiots begin the conversation with a long and plaintive silence while they try and figure out which words from their limited vocabulary will best convey their need to talk to a qualified non-Idiot. Usually, once the mental gerbil wheel gets squeaking along, phrases like “that Internet thing” pop out. “That Internet thing” is something that really old ladies, the sort that like to have dinner at 4pm, would say. Here’s a good rule of thumb: If you are not over the age of sixty, and yet actually refer to the internet as “that Internet thing”, your best bet is to just stay the hell away from it. And all computers in general. And probably any kind of electronic equipment. And automobiles or machines of any kind.

And me.