Procrastination Frustration

I work as customer service for a retail company, and during the winter holiday season, people panic and become more irrational than usual, especially if they wait until the last minute to place their orders.

An email I got from a woman earlier today:

Her: I ordered two weeks ago and paid for express shipping, where is my order?! Refund my shipment costs immediately!
Me: Ma'am, according to my system, you placed your order two business days ago, on Monday, and according to the tracking email that was sent to you, the package was delivered on Tuesday. Your signature is scanned to the online tracking page.
Her: Oh, I got something, but I didn't think it was from you guys.

And a call that just came in:

Man: If I place an order today, will it get to Hawaii in time for Christmas?

Speaking of Hawaii, another call:

Woman: Why do I have to pay $50 for overnight shipping? I need this order before Christmas, and it's not like I live in Alaska.
Me: It says here that you live...in Hawaii.

Sometimes Phones Work Better.

Just got a call from our L.A. office.

"Our internet access is down. I've been emailing you about it all day!"

- The Paralegal

My boss emailed the office manager, telling her to tell me to do a project. She simply forwarded the email to me. God forbid he email me directly.

Email: Enabling passive-aggressive bureaucracy and bigshotism since god knows when.

- The Paralegal

Broken.

Today one of the secretaries stomped into my office in a huff, demanding a new monitor because hers was "broken." She claimed every time she moved it, it would turn off and on, and now it was off and wouldn't turn back on.

I calmly walked to her desk, and plugged the power cable back in.

- The Paralegal

Jesus Christ

Today the new sales guy was trying to email a file to a customer and he typed the customer's email address in wrong so the email came back to him as undeliverable. He didn't know why it came back so he asked another sales guy here and the other sales guy noticed that the customer's email address was wrong and told him that. Then the other sales guy noticed that the name of the file was "Jesus Christ." He asked the new sales guy why he called it that and he replied with "I was just trying to name it something that I'd remember." Then the other sales guy said to him "you know the customer can see the file name right?" and he replied with "oh no, I didn't know that. I'm still trying to figure all this stuff out."

-IT Guy

Business Cards

The new sales guy has been here long enough now to get his own business cards and when told about this he said "I'd like to sound really professional so instead of just 'inside sales' can mine say 'inside sales consultant'?" The girl that gets them printed said no and explained that all the business cards for all the sales guys just say "inside sales" on them so he replied with "alright, but I'd like my middle initial on the cards then."

-IT Guy

Common Sense.

Nothing says, "It is a great idea to download this," like screen savers and desktop backgrounds from a website in the Czech Republic.

Off to scrub e-herpes!

- The Paralegal

Boss's Day

Last Friday at work we were supposed to bring in food for boss's day and the new sales guy brought in some dip that he said he had leftover from a party. He didn't say how old it was, but assured everyone that it was still good. He also didn't bring in any chips to go with the dip, but Thursday afternoon he was going around to people asking any of them if they were bringing chips because he needed some for his dip.

Then on Friday there was also a can of that cheese spray and no one knew who brought it in, but apparently the new sales guy brought that too. The only thing wrong is that he didn't bring any crackers to go with it, so he brought dip but no chips to dip in it and cheese in a can but no crackers to spray it on.

-IT Guy

It's Called Professionalism, Guys

I work at a creative-type camera company that does a lot of workshop and contest collaborations with local as well as international publications and other creative companies. Most of those companies put their best foot forward in order to appear like a good match for our collaborations, which usually includes checking to make sure that their press and event coordinators can spell. A few companies, though, apparently take the "Shakespeare written by monkeys at a typewriter" approach when hiring their PR reps. I literally just got this email, which is serious and in no way faked, elaborated upon, or changed in any way (other than the omission of specific company names and telephone numbers, in brackets):

"there is no i in we an im looking to collaborate in on this event and we are hosting a Competition and conferene 2010 Hynes Convention Center George Robert white stadium we would love for [company] to take over some space in the confrence to isplay how the cameras are loaded and how pictures are taken most of all show the atendees what the [company] the cameras the wrting or bloging online taking snap shots and following up with written iffo to follow the under water pics are cool and the high speed pics are splendid also if some one from the office in ney york could call me to discuss the dates and times on the confrence dates that would be spectacular

[contact information] please contact me soon as we arein need of the Knowledge of how many attendee are going to be there to determine how many workshops will be present for te students to take part in.....plus we musr register all the info with the appropriate centers before december 31st thanks bunches!"

Seriously? If i didn't know better, I would imagine that my eleven year old sister who recently got access to email was hired to write this proposal. However, I can tell it isn't her, because she actually punctuates her sentences (with five exclamation points each, but it's punctuation nonetheless).

Clearly, educated adults are becoming harder and harder to find, and so these companies are forced to hire Koko the sign-language gorilla to bang out their press inquiries. The recession really has taken a toll on everyone.

-Customer Service

Thanks for sharing.

One of the attorneys, as he walked out of the now, um, aromatic bathroom...

"This may well qualify under the category of TMI, but still, you may appreciate it... You know you're getting old when your farts smell like what your dad's farts used to smell like."

I've got to stop wearing my "Tell Me About Your Farts" t-shirt on casual Fridays.

- The Paralegal

New Company Slogan

The new sales guy at my work kept talking about what a great slogan writer he was and how he wanted to come up with a slogan for our company. In our current catalog it says on every page "If you don't see it, CALL! We can get it!"It's not necessarily a slogan mind you, but for some reason he thinks it is. Anyway, after thinking about it for a couple days he was super excited to tell everyone about his new company slogan which was "If you don't see it in our catalog call us and we can get it for you!" Yep, he pretty much just took what was already there, but made it longer by adding seven extra words.

-IT Guy

Sales Call

The new sales guy in my office was on the phone with a customer for about 20 seconds when he suddenly said "Hold on" and put the phone down on his desk; not on hold mind you, but simply lying down on his desk, so I'm sure the customer could still hear him. He then turned to another salesman and said "Hey Rick, there's a Chinaman on the phone and I can't understand him!"

-IT Guy

"Why won't this attachment print?"

One of our vendors emailed the new sales guy at my work an attachment that he wanted to print out. Instead of opening the attachment though he just kept clicking "print" while looking at the email itself and after printing out five or six copies of the email with no attachment in sight he started getting frustrated and asked why it wouldn't print. I walked over, opened the attachment and clicked "print." It seems like this should be common sense, but then again he did just learn how to turn his computer on and reply to an email so I guess it's one step at a time...

-IT Guy

New Sales Guy

A new sales guy started at my work a while back and on his second day he actually had to ask how to turn on his computer. His excuse for not knowing how was that he hadn't used a computer in " a few years." I told him that I was pretty sure not much had changed since then and that he should just look for the one button on the front of his computer and push it.

Shortly after that he asked how to reply to an email, so one of the other sales guys in my office showed him how to click the "reply" button in Outlook. He then asked "OK, but when I send an email to someone how will they know who it's from?" to which the other sales guy replied "Well, when you get an email from someone how do YOU know who it's from?" He just looked confused and didn't say anything else...

-IT Guy

Jammed.

One of the attorneys, to me:

"Oh guru of all things computer, are we having some sort of problem right now?"

"No, not that I know of. Why, what's going on?"

"My computer is jammed. I think I hit the wrong button and my display is all spotty."

Yeah, your guess is as good as mine.

- The Paralegal

Kaboom.

One of the attorneys just lit a firecracker in the hallway. The entire office is filled with smoke. If the sprinklers turn on and fry all the computers, I'm quitting.

-The Paralegal

A Wise Purchase.

Today my boss brought in his new home pc to configure. He bought a machine with a quad core processor, 750 gb hdd, 8gb RAM, Vista 64bit os, 1.5 gb GeForce graphics, and a 26" HD monitor to sit atop.

When I asked what prompted him to purchase such a beast of a machine, his response was "because I want the internet to go really fast."

-The Paralegal

An Introduction.

I can't even count the number of times I've been asked idiotic questions, required to perform nonsensical tasks, and more or less been relegated to the role of glorified babysitter at the law firm where I work. There are times when my head just spins, thinking, "My god, this office is dumb."

These days may make me want to shove white hot butter knives into my eyes, but they might give you a chuckle. At the very least, maybe they'll make you feel a little less alone in the world the next time someone at your office blows your mind with stupidity.

I'll be inviting friends to post about their dumb offices, too, because heaven knows I don't have the dumb office market cornered.

Hopefully this blog will remind all of us that laughter is the best medicine, and white hot butter knives are not.