Funny how the word "quality" is bandied about so frivolously. When in quality control, one should hope for a serious situation to assure that all will go well. But alas, that does not seem to be the case. Quality control calls seem to be the foundation for the best of stand up.
Redditor RipeMonkey wanted to everyone to share a good laugh by asking...
People who listen to the "This call may be recorded for quality assurance" recordings, what's the funniest or craziest thing you've heard?
3rd Party....
"You know secret shoppers? The people that report about the store and the workers? They are real, it's not just a too-good-to-be-true scam."
"That said, I had a job similar, but over the phone. Companies would contact my company and ask for third party reviews all the time. ADT, dish, or even home Depot, would have us call in and act like interested customers."
I" did my fair share of call making, sure, but I would also transcript calls to send back to the hiring company."
"My favorite thing was all the bad accents our employees would put on. We were given a fake person with a fake name, address, and phone number, every day. And, sometimes, those people we had to pretend to be lived in states we have never visited. A majority of our personas were from the south, and listening to a kid with a thick Boston accent trying his best southern drawl.. absolutely wonderful."Might_Be_A_Cabbage
Get to Work.
Giphy"LOL I do this quite a bit. I'm usually laughing a lot while listening. More often than not, it's the customer that makes me laugh, and then the rep's reaction to what they say. It's made funnier when you know the rep and their real personality, and you have to listen to them trying to keep it together."
"I can't really say the craziest, because there's just too many to pick one. But the funniest was when there was a global issue for nearly all of our customers, and some lady was FLIPPING. HER. CRAP. about it. She said, "Well, my husband isn't just anyone, and he needs this to work."
"Get me a supervisor who will fix this!" Lady, that's not how any of this works. There are engineers across the country working on the issue and there isn't a magic button to just make it work because you think your husband is more important than anyone else. The rep was at a loss for words for a few seconds, but he was able to politely explain how that stuff works and she huffed and puffed and finally accepted it. I gave him the highest score possible for that call. She was a pill."AlliCakes
Samoan Voices.
"An elderly Samoan lady and her son were talking to one of our CSRs via an interpretation service we use."
"While the agent was processing something on the lady's file, she ends up talking the interpreter and her son into singing hymns in Samoan with her to pass the time. They all had great voices not gonna lie."ThatHataitaiGuy
Oh the Moaning....
"When I was starting to work in a call center I was listening along to someone else's call and he was explaining to this trashy lady why we couldn't do what she was asking"
"At a certain point she gets really frustrated and she asked for the supervisor, something I would later find out is really REALLY common in the US I take of my headset as he explains what I gotta do in those situations but before he finished his sentence his face turned into absolute horror as he urged me to put it back on and so I do"
"I hear moaning."
"We both start loosing our minds laughing before getting back to her and once he re-gains composure this happens Him: Thank you so much for your pa- Her: Hold on Buzzing buzzing stops We both look at each other in disbelief Her: Sorry, go ahead Him: ... Her: Hold on, hold on Her (To someone else): Yes mAy i gET A BiG mac nO TOmaTo aND a LarGE coffffe? This lady was making a money transfer on the phone, flicking her bean and ordering food in the drive thru. The queen of multitasking, everyone."
"And yes, after that she was in a much better mood Sorry for bad english."Vulva_rider
Never talked to that guy again.
"Back when I worked in a call center we would review calls with our supervisors every month. I talked to a guy who was clearly having sex while we were on the call, and not at all trying to hide it. I aced the call, but I worked with business customers and he was with a partner help desk (working from home I think). We got to report to his management what happened and we listened to the call again with them and him. It was about the most awkward thing I've ever done. Once the call ended there was about 30 seconds of silence where you could taste the tension. Never talked to that guy again."warboy3
"did you just call me a moron?"
"Years ago I worked tech support for a software company that no longer exists. Our calls were monitored, etc., and it was done by one of the supervisors connecting a cassette recorder to a port on their phone and then dialing a code that would let them listen in."
"I took a call from some guy who was unbelievably dumb. He was trying to use our scripting language to do something, and just had absolutely no idea. Like, he didn't know anything about programming, or scripts, or even the most basic functions of our software. I had led him by the hand for like 30 minutes and he just wasn't getting it. I finally told him that maybe he needed to get someone more experienced to help him with his project."
"No, he wasn't having it, and he just plowed forward, and the clock kept ticking, my average time kept climbing, and I finally needed to vent so I hit the MUTE button on my phone and said GET OFF MY PHONE YOU MORON. As I went to unmute the phone, the guy said, "did you just call me a moron?"
"And there it was, still unpressed for some reason, the MUTE button. About 5 seconds of silence went by. I hung up and took another call."
"My supervisor sat in the cube across from me. He wasn't recording me at that time, and didn't say anything to me about it. That night on the way out of the building, he walked up behind me and said to never trust the mute button. I shit myself the whole night but it was never mentioned again."alaninsitges
Call Back.
Giphy"Used to supervise a call center. There was the time a rep asked for the customer's order confirmation number & last 4."
"Customer mentioned something about driving & not being able to reach her purse or something like that. Our rep asked "do you want to pull over or call us back later?" The customer hadn't even been on hold that long (<5 min). So, it wasn't like she'd been waiting forever & didn't want to miss her one chance."
"Anyway, as the customer was, we assume, reaching for her purse, you can hear a car horn honking, followed by the unmistakable sound of tires squealing & the crush of metal & glass. Then silence for a few seconds."
"The customer finally speaks again. "Um, I think I'm gonna have to call you back." simononandon
Room 301....
"This happened when i was working the switch board for a hotel and was doing call evaluation (yes hotels have that too). A guest from room 301 requested few items and the agent called room service 321 who ended up telling her that they did not have the mentioned things. So, as per protocol she called back the guest to let em know, they ended up placing another item for order. So she called back room service except this time she dialed 301 (THE GUEST). He said in a very annoyed voice 'there is no blah blah?' and she without skipping a beat went on a rant of "what type of in-room dining are you running here."
"Its peak hour and you do not have what the guest wants, so you tell what i should do. Cause i sure as hell am not calling him. Also give him something free for the lack of customer service!".... 30 seconds of silence and she realized its the guest she just yelled at and starts a string of 'i'm sssssoooo sorry...'. He had a good laugh and asked for her name and wrote a review at front desk during check out 'your staff really puts effort to make sure we are fed ;)'... Never a dull day in the hospitality industry." r_sanz_ch
Dear Nurse...
Giphy"We review our EMS calls into the ED from time to time and heard one where the nurse said "yeah that's not gonna work out, just go somewhere else". Well luckily the medic knew better and brought them sparring us a huge fine. That nurse got a good talking to and her recording is played at every training session of what not to say." Noname_left
word for word.....
"Supervisor for tech support for a cable call center about 6 years ago...."
"We had an outage due to a fiber cut in an area and i told our team chat about it and was being silly because... you have to to stave off madness.... I found out the fiber cut was due to a road crew digging and they left the scene before we could hold them accountable. Well i passed this along to my agents and said "Yeah, a damn road crew dug up our fiber then zip zop skadeedle bopped the hell outta there". I got a few laughs from my agents and didn't think much of it and went about my day."
"Fast forward 3 weeks and i am doing QA's for one of my agents and no kidding i pull 5 calls from that day and he read... word for word... what i put in our team chat to our customers..... i had to pull him into a meeting with HR and give him a written warning and coach him on proper phone etiquette. Then i was promptly given a warning by HR on proper team chat etiquette."
"Not my proudest moment but i laughed my ass off listening to the customers responses to him telling them that."hghlnder72
Listen In....
Giphy"I didn't have the call listened to but rather was still on the call when a man said he wants to cut my head off with a sword and mess my neck. The company didn't like people to hang up on potential customers, so I stayed in it, and actually sold him. It was really uncomfortable."Cityofthevikingdead
ya'll ready for this?
"I worked in a call center and my boss would review a call with me in each of my monthly 1:1s. He started the call and it was one where I assessed the issue and realized it should go to a coworker. The recording captured me putting the customer on hold, then initiating the transfer to my coworker who I had already messaged with and knew the call was coming. So when my coworker picked up I said "ya'll ready for this... ba da da" and sung probably 25 seconds of the space jam theme. My boss and I sat in silence in a small conference room listening to this together with him just staring at me the whole time."agaggleofsharts
Oh Teenage Males....
"Game support where you have a teenage males as a large base of your fans...."
"No surprise to anyone who has done the work, but these kids have no problem whatsoever on the phone telling reps the various ways they are going to kill them or f them up, mess up their family etc etc.. per 100 contacts, there are a few of these."
"We did both mail and phone, I know some of the mail support companies have actually turned people into the police as players are dumb enough to write in from their accounts several times with specific death / bomb threats to the company, if they don`t change something about the game...."fredickhayek
Oh Lawd!
"I used to work at a call center and we had regular quality checks where they would pull a random call, review it, and bring us in for a meeting to go over the results."
"One time, I had a really mean, awful lady on the phone. I had to put her on hold to look something up without screaming in my ears. I forgot to mute, so as soon as she went on hold you can hear me, clear as a bell, saying "oh my God Jesus Lord what a mess. Damn."
"Of course, thats the one they pulled."
"I almost died of embarrassment, but the quality person laughed and didn't fail me since the customer couldn't hear it."eyebrowshampoo
Forget You Comcast!
Giphy"I have tremendous admiration for our Retention professionals, who make it easy for customers to choose to stay with Comcast." bachpanjaja
So Many.....
"Used to listen to random calls when doing QA on my staff members."
"The random calls I listened to were boring, nothing interesting there. The great ones were the calls that were referred because of an incident or complaint."
- "A rep flagged a call due to the customer being inappropriate. Listened to the call and found the customer had told the rep he was masturbating, and he wanted to orgasm whilst the female rep talked. Customer was fired."
- "On that theme, we had a male rep get flirty with a customer and at the end of the call asked her out. She accepted, they ended up getting engaged. Whilst we were happy for them, we had to point out hitting on customers wasn't really a thing we tolerated."
- "A customer got angry at one of our reps and called her a "stupid colored woman". She called him a "white horror". There was silence on the line as the customer processed this, and then he resumed the conversation like nothing had happened."
- "One time a rep flagged a call because the customer had a bad case of the squirts and was calling from the toilet. Customer had been on hold for too long and didn't want to call back, so the rep had to listen to the customer crapping out their insides whilst on the phone for a tech support issue."goatwomble
Whose Butt?
"We recently started using new software at my job at a self storage facility that records calls. We also had some old marketing lines that we were trying to weed out, because other companies had previously used them, and we were constantly getting wrong number calls for other companies in the area. My manager took a call one day and got all flustered, couldn't stop laughing."
"She played the call for us once she hung up and a woman says, "Yeah, how much for that butt?" My manager tried to stay professional and said, "Excuse me, can you repeat that?", and the woman just kept asking for the price of "butt". After a couple minutes of this, we figured out she was trying to reach the fish market down the street to ask the price of black bass, but was speaking very quickly with a sort of colloquial accent. We've had many more since then, but this one was my favorite." lydmeister
"Out of stock"
"We had a customer call in mad that ups would not deliver their order. We reached out to ups to find out why and were told that the customer has gotten into the ups trucks and fought the drivers. This happened multiple times so ups will no longer deliver and the dude has to pick up the order."
"Another customer referred to me as a different name every time he referenced me ( cheif, sport, bro, ect.) And then ended the call with "thanks my N-word". He dropped the hard r."
"Lastly a customer received a package that was supposed to be a set of 2 chairs and they received 1 chair and a hand written note that said "out of stock."TheKyrios3
Passport Not Needed....
"It's mostly sad stuff. People clicking on fraudulent ads and losing money by buying steam gift cards to fix their computer."
"Or people being idiots and complaining that flights are expensive because they are buying trying to buy them for the same day. Or this one guy losing 1500 because he missed his first flight, and then missed the second one because he didn't realize that he needed a passport."Autunite
You're Fired.
Giphy"One time we had an outside trainer come in and show us an example of an excellent call that hit on all the corporate required points. The guy had been fired literally the week before."mmmmmm89mmmmmm
Do you have similar experiences to share? Let us know in the comments below.
Experiencing death is a fascinating and frightening idea.
Who doesn't want to know what is waiting for us on the other side?
But so many of us want to know and then come back and live a little longer.
It would be so great to be sure there is something else.
But the whole dying part is not that great, so we'll have to rely on other people's accounts.
Redditor AlaskaStiletto wanted to hear from everyone who has returned to life, so they asked:
"Redditors who have 'died' and come back to life, what did you see?"
Sensations
Happy Good Vibes GIF by Major League SoccerGiphy"My dad's heart stopped when he had a heart attack and he had to be brought back to life. He kept the paper copy of the heart monitor which shows he flatlined. He said he felt an overwhelming sensation of peace, like nothing he had felt before."
PeachesnPain
Recovery
"I had surgical complications in 2010 that caused a great deal of blood loss. As a result, I had extremely low blood pressure and could barely stay awake. I remember feeling like I was surrounded by loved ones who had passed. They were in a circle around me and I knew they were there to guide me onwards. I told them I was not ready to go because my kids needed me and I came back."
"My nurse later said she was afraid she’d find me dead every time she came into the room."
"It took months, and blood transfusions, but I recovered."
good_golly99
Take Me Back
"Overwhelming peace and happiness. A bright airy and floating feeling. I live a very stressful life. Imagine finding out the person you have had a crush on reveals they have the same feelings for you and then you win the lotto later that day - that was the feeling I had."
"I never feared death afterward and am relieved when I hear of people dying after suffering from an illness."
rayrayrayray
Free
The Light Minnie GIF by (G)I-DLEGiphy"I had a heart surgery with near-death experience, for me at least (well the possibility that those effects are caused by morphine is also there) I just saw black and nothing else but it was warm and I had such inner peace, its weird as I sometimes still think about it and wish this feeling of being so light and free again."
TooReDTooHigh
This is why I hate surgery.
You just never know.
Shocked
Giphy"More of a near-death experience. I was electrocuted. I felt like I was in a deep hole looking straight up in the sky. My life flashed before me. Felt sad for my family, but I had a deep sense of peace."
Admirable_Buyer6528
The SOB
"Nursing in the ICU, we’ve had people try to die on us many times during the years, some successfully. One guy stood out to me. His heart stopped. We called a code, are working on him, and suddenly he comes to. We hadn’t vented him yet, so he was able to talk, and he started screaming, 'Don’t let them take me, don’t let them take me, they are coming,' he was scared and yelling."
"Then he yelled a little more, as we tried to calm him down, he screamed, 'No, No,' and gestured towards the end of the bed, and died again. We didn’t get him back. It was seriously creepy. We called his son to tell him the news, and the son said basically, 'Good, he was an SOB.'”
1-cupcake-at-a-time
Colors
"My sister died and said it was extremely peaceful. She said it was very loud like a train station and lots of talking and she was stuck in this area that was like a curtain with lots of beautiful colors (colors that you don’t see in real life according to her) a man told her 'He was sorry, but she had to go back as it wasn’t her time.'"
Hannah_LL7
"I had a really similar experience except I was in an endless garden with flowers that were colors I had never seen before. It was quiet and peaceful and a woman in a dress looked at me, shook her head, and just said 'Not yet.' As I was coming back, it was extremely loud, like everyone in the world was trying to talk all at once. It was all very disorienting but it changed my perspective on life!"
huntokarrr
The Fog
"I was in a gray fog with a girl who looked a lot like a young version of my grandmother (who was still alive) but dressed like a pioneer in the 1800s she didn't say anything but kept pulling me towards an opening in the wall. I kept refusing to go because I was so tired."
"I finally got tired of her nagging and went and that's when I came to. I had bled out during a c-section and my heart could not beat without blood. They had to deliver the baby and sew up the bleeders. refill me with blood before they could restart my heart so, like, at least 12 minutes gone."
Fluffy-Hotel-5184
Through the Walls
"My spouse was dead for a couple of minutes one miserable night. She maintains that she saw nothing, but only heard people talking about her like through a wall. The only thing she remembers for absolute certain was begging an ER nurse that she didn't want to die."
"She's quite alive and well today."
Hot-Refrigerator6583
Well let's all be happy to be alive.
It seems to be all we have.
Trying to lose weight is a struggle understood by many people regardless of size.
The goal of reaching a healthy weight may seem unattainable, but with diet and exercise, it can pay off through persistence and discipline.
Seeing the pounds gradually drop off can also be a great motivator and incentivize people to stay the course.
Those who've achieved their respective weight goals shared their experiences when Redditor apprenti8455 asked:
"People who lost a lot of weight, what surprises you the most now?"
Redditors didn't see these coming.
Shiver Me Timbers
"I’m always cold now!"
– Telrom_1
"I had a coworker lose over 130 pounds five or six years ago. I’ve never seen him without a jacket on since."
– r7ndom
"140 lbs lost here starting just before COVID, I feel like that little old lady that's always cold, damn this top comment was on point lmao."
– mr_remy
Drawing Concern
"I lost 100 pounds over a year and a half but since I’m old(70’s) it seems few people comment on it because (I think) they think I’m wasting away from some terminal illness."
– dee-fondy
"Congrats on the weight loss! It’s honestly a real accomplishment 🙂"
"Working in oncology, I can never comment on someone’s weight loss unless I specifically know it was on purpose, regardless of their age. I think it kind of ruffles feathers at times, but like I don’t want to congratulate someone for having cancer or something. It’s a weird place to be in."
– LizardofDeath
Unleashing Insults
"I remember when I lost the first big chunk of weight (around 50 lbs) it was like it gave some people license to talk sh*t about the 'old' me. Old coworkers, friends, made a lot of not just negative, but harsh comments about what I used to look like. One person I met after the big loss saw a picture of me prior and said, 'Wow, we wouldn’t even be friends!'”
"It wasn’t extremely common, but I was a little alarmed by some of the attention. My weight has been up and down since then, but every time I gain a little it gets me a little down thinking about those things people said."
– alanamablamaspama
Not Everything Goes After Losing Weight
"The loose skin is a bit unexpected."
– KeltarCentauri
"I haven’t experienced it myself, but surgery to remove skin takes a long time to recover. Longer than bariatric surgery and usually isn’t covered by insurance unless you have both."
– KatMagic1977
"It definitely does take a long time to recover. My Dad dropped a little over 200 pounds a few years back and decided to go through with skin removal surgery to deal with the excess. His procedure was extensive, as in he had skin taken from just about every part of his body excluding his head, and he went through hell for weeks in recovery, and he was bedridden for a lot of it."
– Jaew96
These Redditors shared their pleasantly surprising experiences.
Shopping
"I can buy clothes in any store I want."
– WaySavvyD
"When I lost weight I was dying to go find cute, smaller clothes and I really struggled. As someone who had always been restricted to one or two stores that catered to plus-sized clothing, a full mall of shops with items in my size was daunting. Too many options and not enough knowledge of brands that were good vs cheap. I usually went home pretty frustrated."
– ganache98012
No More Symptoms
"Lost about 80 pounds in the past year and a half, biggest thing that I’ve noticed that I haven’t seen mentioned on here yet is my acid reflux and heartburn are basically gone. I used to be popping tums every couple hours and now they just sit in the medicine cabinet collecting dust."
– colleennicole93
Expanding Capabilities
"I'm all for not judging people by their appearance and I recognise that there are unhealthy, unachievable beauty standards, but one thing that is undeniable is that I can just do stuff now. Just stamina and flexibility alone are worth it, appearance is tertiary at best."
– Ramblonius
People Change Their Tune
"How much nicer people are to you."
"My feet weren't 'wide' they were 'fat.'"
– LiZZygsu
"Have to agree. Lost 220 lbs, people make eye contact and hold open doors and stuff"
"And on the foot thing, I also lost a full shoe size numerically and also wear regular width now 😅"
– awholedamngarden
It's gonna take some getting used to.
Bones Everywhere
"Having bones. Collarbones, wrist bones, knee bones, hip bones, ribs. I have so many bones sticking out everywhere and it’s weird as hell."
– Princess-Pancake-97
"I noticed the shadow of my ribs the other day and it threw me, there’s a whole skeleton in here."
– bekastrange
Knee Pillow
"Right?! And they’re so … pointy! Now I get why people sleep with pillows between their legs - the knee bones laying on top of each other (side sleeper here) is weird and jarring."
– snic2030
"I lost only 40 pounds within the last year or so. I’m struggling to relate to most of these comments as I feel like I just 'slimmed down' rather than dropped a ton. But wow, the pillow between the knees at night. YES! I can relate to this. I think a lot of my weight was in my thighs. I never needed to do this up until recently."
– Strongbad23
More Mobility
"I’ve lost 100 lbs since 2020. It’s a collection of little things that surprise me. For at least 10 years I couldn’t put on socks, or tie my shoes. I couldn’t bend over and pick something up. I couldn’t climb a ladder to fix something. Simple things like that I can do now that fascinate me."
"Edit: Some additional little things are sitting in a chair with arms, sitting in a booth in a restaurant, being able to shop in a normal store AND not needing to buy the biggest size there, being able to easily wipe my butt, and looking down and being able to see my penis."
– dma1965
People making significant changes, whether for mental or physical health, can surely find a newfound perspective on life.
But they can also discover different issues they never saw coming.
That being said, overcoming any challenge in life is laudable, especially if it leads to gaining confidence and ditching insecurities.