Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

An Annoying Person's Guide to Asking Effective Questions

Collapse
This topic is closed.
X
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

  • #16
    JESTER: "Thank you for calling The Bar, this is Jester speaking, how may I help you?"
    CALLER: "Yes, is New Boss Man in?"
    JESTER: "I'll see if he's available, may I ask who's calling?"

    WRONG:
    "This is Joe Dumbass with Zombie Tours, and I'd like to talk to him about doing a Zombie party at The Bar, as we think it would be a great location to do it at, and we'd like to do some cross-promotion with it, maybe make it an annual event, and I'd like to run some ideas by him, such as full Zombie make-up, a contests, raffles, and maybe even a Zombie cookoff.."

    RIGHT: "This is Joe Dumbass with Zombie Tours."

    Since I am but the Occasional Secretary for my boss (as in when I answer the phone), I don't need to know all about what you are planning. I am tending the bar, something I can't do if you are yakking my ear off. And frankly, telling me all that shit won't help anyways, as all I'm going to say to my boss when I get your motor mouth on hold is, "Hey boss, some guy named Joe Dumbass from Zombie Tours wants to talk to you. Are you available?" If he asks me for elaboration and you have given me all that, I'll probably just tell him that you sound like a schmuck.

    Bonus points to people who do this shit to me when the bar is BUSY.

    Double bonus points to people who do this shit to me when the bar is buys, and they are just salesmen trying to sell us something we don't need or want, like a new way to process credit cards, yada yada.

    Look, I'm a talkative verbose motherfucker, and if *I* think you talk to much, that should be a hint to shut the fuck up.

    Sadly, this type of call, of one variation or another, is just about a daily event. I'll give some slack to customers calling to ask about an issue they had or for some information, but if you are a professional tour planner, event planner, salesman, or band manager, or are calling about some other business, you should know that you don't need to give all that information to the fucking gatekeeper.
    Last edited by Jester; 11-19-2010, 03:53 AM.

    "The Customer Is Always Right...But The Bartender Decides Who Is
    Still A Customer."

    Comment


    • #17
      I had a guy like that a few months ago placing ads to sell some items. I could not shut him up.

      Example: (paraphrased due to mindless drivel filter) - And I have an air conditioner, too, it's way too big for my apartment, it's XX inches high and XX inches wide and it doesn't fit in my window all that well, and I really don't need it because if I open the door and open the window in the bedroom and the window in the dining room, I get a great breeze, you know a cross-breeze? So I really don't think I need this air conditioner so it's XX brand and ..." (endless repetition for ten minutes)

      He did the same thing re: a dining room set, which he then talked himself out of selling. Literally would not stop talking, even though I interrupted him several times to try to end the call. He's probably still talking.
      When you start at zero, everything's progress.

      Comment


      • #18
        Quoth chainedbarista View Post
        a spine chilling thriller he/she just couldn't put down. READ IT NOW.

        Even more challenging in Latin. Seriously. "Walter Canus Inflatus."

        Comment


        • #19
          I have a co-worker like this. She is a lovely woman, brilliant and highly sought-after in her field, and she absolutely CANNOT stop talking. There are times I've had to just walk away nodding and smiling because even a simple 'I found that report you were looking for' can turn into a 20-minute monologue that explains why she wanted the report in about 60 rephrasings of the same thing.

          Ok, look, I know I have the nervous habit of trying to explain why I did/said something in too much detail (it's one of the many quirks of my non-typical neurology, I'm fixated on the reasons for pretty much everything), but even *I* can figure out how to end a conversation without repeating myself a million times, and I can even pick up on other peoples' body language to know when I NEED to stop talking. My co-worker is blissfully oblivious to such signals. But she's too nice for anyone to say anything about it.
          What colour is the sky in your world and how high of a dosage do you need before it turns back to blue? --Gravekeeper

          Comment

          Working...
          X