I just finished the weirdest conversation of my life.

I just hung up from, by far, THE oddest tech support call I’ve ever received. It wasn’t even a tech call. This woman just called and started saying, "Your number just showed up on my ID. Who are you?" I said "We’re a company, Quantum Internet Services. We provide Internet services to our customers."

So far, not so strange. But then she proceeded to tell me how she thought we might be her abusive ex boyfriend who used to beat her. She said he sometimes prank calls her. I told her I assume one of our employees called her by mistake and I apologized for the inconvenience. Oh, but that was not the end of the conversation by a long shot. She says, "Well maybe you were trying to reach my dead son… but he’s dead." Wow. What do you say to that? Yeah, I don’t know either, so I just sat quietly in amazement of how much this total stranger was willing to tell me.

Determined to figure out why we had contacted this poor soul, I asked her name to see if we might have a current customer that is amongst the living whom resides in her home. We did have a customer with the same last name so I suggested that perhaps she knew this person. His name was Christoper (common name, dammit). She said her grandson’s name was Christopher but he didn’t live there.

Then she continued to tell me how she hasn’t talked to him in such a long time and how there are exactly 3, count them… THREE, people in the phone book with the same last name as her in that area. The fact that she knew this information off the top of her head, once again, amazed me. I am in complete awe at this point and think to myself, "This must be a prank call". She told me her name was Sarah, and there are lots of Sarah’s. I concur. Ok, so, it’s time to end this call before I lose what’s left of my sanity. I once more, apologized for the inconvenience and told her we must have mistakenly called her thinking we were calling someone else. She finally agreed to end the call by blessing me and wishing me a happy Easter.

*UPDATE* Come to find out, our sys admin accidentally dialed the wrong number and got this woman’s house. Thanks a lot Willie.

New plugs from OneTribe!

I got my new plugs from OneTribe last night and they are amazing! I got a pair of the greenstone and a pair of the obsidian (in 00). They’re located in Richmond, VA and all their jewelry is hand-carved. I got standard shipping (which was free by the way) and received the plugs very quickly… within a few days. I’ve ordered from them before and will definitely order from them again. If you have stretched ears, and are in the market for some new jewelry, I highly recommend purchasing from OneTribe.

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How are you?

Working in a technical support position, I spend a lot of time on the phone with many different people. One of my biggest pet peeves is when you answer a call and the first thing out of the person’s mouth is, "How are you?". That is the most ridiculous thing they could say/ask. They don’t really want to know how I am, so it’s a waste of time.

If I truthfully answered that question, they would be sorry they asked because I know they didn’t call to find out how my day is going. They called because they have a question and/or trouble with their service. A better way to start the conversation might be to tell me their user name, what trouble they’re having, even what OS they’re running! ANYTHING except to ask me how I am.

You might think I’m overreacting but I assure you, I’m not. The first couple of times I heard this I politely answered with a brief response such as, "Oh, it’s going pretty well. Can’t really complain." But after you’ve been asked this for the 10th time in one day, it starts to get very annoying. We’re trained to keep our calls as short as possible and me going into depth about how my personal life is, certainly will extend the call beyond a reasonable time frame. Lets just hear how you managed to fuck up your computer, I will tell you how to fix it, we can share a laugh at your stupidity and then we’ll end the call.