Next time you angrily curse out the call center rep on hold, you're probably not actually on hold...
“Come Over Here…”
I used to work in the call center for a hospital network. One time a guy called because he wanted his girlfriend to come in for a pregnancy test. This was a pretty normal phone call, but the particular location he wanted to go to had some goofy medicaid restriction because they had a new nurse practitioner. I needed to ask one of my coworkers if I could schedule her for an appointment, but since it was only going to take a second, I just put the phone on mute instead of putting it on hold. That’s when I heard the man say “Hey! The doctor’s put me on hold… come over here and suck a d*ck.” The woman playfully responded, “Awe… not while you’re on the phone with the doctor!” “All I want is a little head… he ain’t gonna know!” “Well… okay” And for the rest of the call he was very unfocused and any time he asked her a question her answer was garbled and short. It was a weird call. I’ve got more stories if there’s interest. (Source)
At Least He Had A Sense Of Humor
Not a phone rep, but a customer guilty of this. I was on the phone with my cable company and was sure the “voice”I was talking to was pre-recorded (only had yes/no answers to give up until that point). The voice said “Please hold while I access your account” or something like that. Since I was on hold with a potential-robot, I was laughing with my roommate about how weird this pre-recording’s voice sounded. Eventually he was all “Sorry, I’m a real person” and I was mortified. I told him I was sorry I thought he was a weird-sounding robot. He said it was okay, he sometimes pretends to be a robot, because his job is boring and he’s tired and it’s the end of the day. I complimented him on his robot skills. I was so thankful he had a sense of humor, and I felt awful for some time after that. (Source)
A Grand Conspiracy
When I was still in college, I worked for my school calling alumni for donations. I had a guy get really angry at me one time and asked to talk to my supervisor, so I put him on hold shortly and then transferred it to my manager’s office, where he put it on speaker for us. We took him off hold to find him in the middle of a terrible, anti-semitic rant that went on for at least 10 minutes about how the jews had taken over the school and were using it as a front to fundraise for the Israeli lobby in Congress, and how we were all being brainwashed into being zionists. (Source)
DO AS YOU’RE TOLD
While taking an escalation, the customer yelled into the phone, probably as loud as he could as he was very angry. I’M A F*CKING HEART PATIENT, DO AS YOU’RE TOLD. I had to mute the call because I was laughing so hard. (Source)
CurlyWurly’s
I put a policeman on hold once, he knew he was on hold but listening back to the call afterwards he was discussing the merits of the vending machine and how Wagon Wheels (a biscuit covered in marshmallow and chocolate) had got smaller over the years and so had CurlyWurlys. All while they were booking in a guy they had just arrested. I think the chap I was listening to made someone go to the vending machine to get a Wagon Wheel to measure it. Not that he would have had one from the 1980’s to compare it to. (Source)
Life Insurance!
I had an older gentleman say “I’m on the phone with a nice young gentleman, he’s going to save me money on my life insurance!”
Presumably this was to his wife… I was trying to upgrade his TV and internet package, not his life insurance. So when I came back to the phone I let him know this was not life insurance, he would just be getting a land line from us instead of his old company. He didn’t like that so much as the insurance thing… (Source)
Busted
At another point in my career I put a gentleman on hold while I checked to see if we had a battery for his phone we could send him. His buddy could be heard in the background while they both talked about was my accent and what I would sound like with his d*ck in my mouth….. I handed the phone off to a male employee at that point. I was done. Nope. Nu uh. So the male employee got on the line with his deep charro mexicano accent and told the guy we had one and he’d have to pay by CC. Guy asked what happened to me, he said I didn’t like the prospect of foreign objects in my mouth…. Dude hung up and never called again… (Source)
It’s Ribbed Baby
I work for Nintendo tech support, put a bro dude on hold while looking up his serial number for his Wii, while he nonchalantly says to his girlfriend “this wii remote is ribbed babe let me play tennis with your ovaries.” Great call. (Source)
They Were Wrong
I work for a pharmacy company that supplies medication to nursing homes. I had a nurse explicitly describe having sexual relations with another nurse (presumably both female from the names) in their van for the nursing facility. They presumed I did not speak Tagalog; they were wrong. (Source)
Mayonnaise!
I had an older lady totally forget that I was on the phone at all while I was remotely resetting her cable box. I used to just tell them I’m going to step away from my desk for a drink of water while the box resets, since it takes about 5 minutes to do anything, even though sometimes I’d just sit there on mute until I got a response back from the cable box again. She started having a conversation with her husband, and asked what he wanted on his sandwich. She took the phone with her into the kitchen, started making a sandwich, and left the phone in the kitchen, I guess. I tried calling out her name, but she must not have had me on speakerphone, so she just started arguing with her husband, saying “You told me you wanted mayonnaise on your sandwich!” They argued for a bit, and she made him a new sandwich without mayonnaise. This seemed to satisfy him, and the arguing stopped. But she never came back to the phone.
I tried calling her back, but I guess it was an older phone that didn’t automatically disconnect the line when one party hangs up, so I got a busy signal. (Source)
DEY GOOD?!
Where I work, we use a computer-based phone system called Bria. For some reason, placing people on hold is f_cked up, so instead of hold we just mute our end of the line and we can hear the customer. I muted one guy once and he starts yellin’ AW SH_T WE GOT DEM COOKIES? CHECK DA EXPIRATION DATE ON DEM COOKIES. AW SH*T DEY GOOD? YO BRING DEM COOKIES RIGHT HURR SON. I was dying from laughing, doubled over my desk. My coworkers thought I was nuts. (Source)
Who Am I, Obama?!
I work stock and customer service for tech support. Now, this wasn’t a customer, but we had a district call with all of our employees on it, and one of the guys forgot to put his phone on mute and started cussing about his wife calling her a b_tch and a whore and said, “who the f_ck does she think I am? Obama? I can’t support her lazy ass not working!” and then he went on to talk sh*t about our DM, who was on the call…. At which point she piped in, “Do you guys know your phone’s not muted?” Guy went silent and we never heard from him again… (Source)
What A Save!
Late to party, but best story I was ever part of. Working tech support. Neighbor rep has long call with b_tchy customer (over 2 hours) Rep puts customer on Mute. Misses mute button, and under his breath sigh’s “Oh just f_ck off”. Customer hears: “EXCUSE ME?!?!”. Without missing a beat, the Rep says “Did you hear that too sir? I think our lines have been crossed. Please hold while I reconnect us”. One of the best saves I’ve ever witnessed. (Source)
Thats One Patient Cop
I once had a policeman on mute while doing a rate plan analysis for his account. He was apparently on duty, which I didn’t realize until I heard sirens. Then the following conversation: Cop: “Stop the car! Stop the car!” Then a females voice (sounding completely WASTED): “You want me to stop?” Cop: “Yes, I told you to stop!” Drunk woman: “Ok. What’s going on?” Cop: “License and registration please.” Drunk woman: fumbling noises – “Here you go.” Cop: “What is this? I need your drivers license.” Drunk woman: “You need what?” Cop: “YOUR DRIVERS LICENSE!” Drunk Woman: “You mean something with my picture on it?” Unfortunately the cop hung up about this time – I really wanted to continue to listen. (Source)
“I Heard That”
I was working as a Tier 2 and often took “escalations” (mad customers). When I approached and asked the rep what was going on he simply said “she’s an old b*tch”. His headset was not muted and I froze when she said “I heard that.” (Source)
Awkward
Not entirely related but I work for AT&T, a woman called in asking “Why is my bill $3000?” I went into her bill and she had $2800 in BBW porn subscriptions on her husbands line. I explained it to her and which line it was on…and proceeded to listen to her marriage fail. (Source)
Pretty Good Joke
Not even on mute. The first thing the customer said after my intro was “want to hear a dirty joke? How do you find the blind guy at a nude beach? Its not hard!!” “Sir, how can I help you with your office supply question…” (Source)