Me: Hello?
Person on phone: I'd like to speak to the mister or the misses of the house?
Me: Ok...
Person on phone: Is this the misses of the house?
Me: Um, yes?
Person on phone: That's great!
Me: ...
Person on phone: This is the misses Jones?
Me: Johns?
Person on phone: I'm calling from Dish Network, how are you doing today?
Me: I'm fine.
Person on phone: That'd be great! Now can I just ask you, Mister Jones, are you a cable?
Me: What?
Person on phone: Can I just ask, are you--
Me: We have cable, and we're not interested in switching, thanks. Please take me off your list.
This was mostly strange because the person calling spoke 100% unaccented English. Impressive, considering how screwy the syntax was. I also couldn't tell if it was a man or a woman. Off-putting, and amusing.
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2 comments:
Amusing? How about downright scary? I knew that once kids stopped caring whether or not their writing was intelligible, it would be a VERY short step to inarticulate speech.
I had a weird one recently. Our credit card "earns" us cash rewards, so I was calling to see how to actually get a hold of that cash. The first woman I spoke with had an accent of indeterminate origin (I would guess she spoke either Spanish or Hindi or Pakistani as her first language, but I couldn't tell you which, which is weird because they're pretty different), and had NO idea what I was talking about, so finally transferred me, but the call cut off. So I called back, got another woman with a similarly strange-but-unplaceable accent who was similarly friendly-but-unhelpful, and who also had no idea what I was trying to accomplish.
Her: Do you know when you joined this rewards program?
Me: When I signed up for the credit card; it has been in effect the entire time I've been a cardholder. Why?
Her: Well, because I'm showing that you can only request your cash balance on the anniversary of your join date.
Me (puzzled): I see. And when is that?
Her: The anniversary means one year after the date you joined the program.
Me: I KNOW what the DEFINITION of "anniversary" is. WHEN is it?
Her: I'm not sure.
Argh! So finally, she transferred me also, and I got connected to a woman who I could instantly tell was a slightly less-friendly Southern black woman, and she knew exactly what I was talking about and we received our check in the mail this week :)
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