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...
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"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.
When we're intoxicated, or even the slightest bit tipsy from having a little too much to drink, our immediate perspective on things is hazy.
But there's nothing like a bit of alarming news or a jarring incident to snap us out of the fog and focus on the moment.
Sometimes alcohol isn't always to blame for our impairment.
It can be a state of mind, like a perpetual numbness from being complacent in life, and all it takes is one shocking moment to rattle us back to our senses.
Curious to hear from strangers online about this type of scenario, Redditor Known_Challenge_7150 asked:
"What’s one thing that sobered you up real quick?"
These individuals were witness to shocking events that sobered them up right quick.
Bleeding Out
"Got out of a taxi and found a naked man profusely bleeding from his head crawling up the driveway in my condo. Called him an ambulance completely forgot I was absolutely wasted until 45 minutes later when I'd helped him translate and in to an amublance and stepped in my front door."
"Later a few days later learned he'd slipped in the tub and literally crawled out for help. Poor dude. He was fine but I genuinely thought he was going to die there."
– DongLaiCha
Tragic News
"At a bachelor party and we got a phone call that the groom’s father had suddenly passed."
– accountnameredacted
Bottom Of The Barrel
"I went to visit my parents back in July. I was homeless and deep into fentanyl addiction so I lost a lot of weight. My folks could see it. They knew something was up. Anyway, I spent the night and I was getting ready to leave in the morning and I looked at myself in the mirror for a good long time. I finally had enough and told them everything. They took me to detox, from there I went to rehab. Graduated in August and been living with them ever since then. I have 160 days clean and sober."
– Crotch-Monster
A reality check can be enough for some people to snap out of it.
Like Father, Like Son
"Was driving a drunk friend home, he had been on a bender again and was smart enough to call me for a lift rather than try and drive. As I helped in to his house his mother came down the stairs and said 'your as drunk as your father' and went back upstairs. I haven't seen him drunk since then, he still drinks but the thought of turning into his dad scared him out of hard drinking."
– psycospaz
Busted
"Flashing blue lights."
– FiddleOfGold
"This sobered me up just thinking about it."
– redmaple_syrup
Losing Sight
"Woke up to no sight in one eye. I had cataract surgery so just thought one of the lenses had slipped and it was an easy fix. Eye doc says nope, you had a stroke. I loved soy sauce, teriyaki sauce and salty food, which caused high blood pressure, which caused retina damage. Over six months was able to get most of my eyesight back with medication, and all back within a year. Trying to navigate life with one eye was very sobering. Started taking HBP much more seriously."
– MissHibernia
Quitting The Bottle
"Looked up someone I went to highschool with who was an awesome guy. Found out he had been dead for 3 years from alcoholism, at age 33. I made an overnight change. I hadn't started drinking that night yet, 10 months ago. Haven't touched it again since."
– omgtater
These disturbing moments were enough for Redditors to immediately come to their senses.
Unplanned House Guests
"Me and a buddy Woke up in someone’s living room, realized neither one of us knew the people, they were just nice and let 2 drunk guys sleep on their living room floor. We didn’t even say goodbye."
– Oneinsevenbillion75
Serious Health Warning
"Elevated liver enzymes."
"And the knowledge that this sh** was gonna kill me and I just couldn't orphan my family over it."
"So I opted for recovery, instead."
"Clean and sober since June 5, 2009."
– Far_Meal8674
The Joyride
"Grew up in a rural area. The little town hosted dances at the hockey arena, everyone (adults and kids) went and they overserved everyone, regardless of age. I was maybe 16 or 17 and was absolutely sh*tfaced, and jumped in the back of someone's truck with about 8 other people to go back to someone's cottage for after dance drinking. The driver (still don't know who it was) started racing one of his buddies and we whipped around small dirt roads, flying around blind corners on the wrong side of the road, going god knows how fast. It was basically a disaster waiting to happen. It was crazy scary and I was sober and thankful to be alive when we finally arrived."
– foxfood9116
The human psyche is a fascinating thing, isn't it?
How we can automatically focus on something urgent at a crucial time, even after getting buzzed from drinking too much alcohol.
But as we're in the thick of the holidays, it's a good reminder to drink responsibly and stay off the roads if you drive to your celebratory destination.
Cheers. Stay safe. And happy holidays.
We've all complained or vented about something in our lives which, in the grand scheme of things, wasn't exactly a problem, or is very easily solved.
Then there are those who complain about things that others almost hope will happen to them at some point in their lives.
These are known as "first world problems", as they are problems that pretty much only the world's one percent faces.
From having to fly business class instead of first class, or being served Roederer instead of Dom Pérignon, these complaints are often met with amusement, bewilderment, or even anger.
Redditor jennimackenzie was curious to hear the most absurd "first world problems" anyone ever complained about, leading them to ask:
"What’s the most ridiculous 'first world problem' you’ve seen people get worked up over?"
"Tale As Old As Time..."
"I once knew a mom who was legitimately devastated, to the point of tears/grief, because a doctor predicted her 8 year old daughter's final height to be around 5'2","
"Which wasn't tall enough to get cast as Belle at Disney World."
"That was the child's (and her mother's) only dream in life, apparently."
"Didn't appreciate my suggestion that she could be Minnie or Mickey."
"Lol!"
"Only a face character would do!"- TravelLovingMom
"Must Be Funny, In A Rich Man's World..."
"My boss from about a decade ago was this insanely rich dude who always went to the bank to get fresh and crisp currency."
"He'd call the bank in advance to make sure they had some on hand."
"I think he was a germaphobe."
"He had a trash can that he'd throw $1 and $5 bills in that he thought was 'dirty' and regularly just donated it vs spending it."
"I asked him why he did this and he said it was too much trouble and asked if I wanted it."
"I said f*ck yeah dumped it into my bag and when I got home it was close to $400 in singles and fives.
"Another time, he wanted to upgrade all the computers in his studio, so we went to a store and bought 10 PCs."
"They all had $150 mail in rebates and he wasn't bothered to go through the trouble of mailing them in."
"3 weeks later I received $1500 after spending a whole afternoon filling out all those goddamn forms."- azninvasion2000
Money Burn GIF by nog
Giphy
Who Wore It Better?
"When I was about 19 years old, I was at my boyfriends family BBQ."
"I was wearing this pretty floral sundress."
"His cousins girlfriend showed up in the same dress and she was SO mad that she went and changed."
"I will never understand being upset when someone is wearing the same thing as you.'
"Did you really think that your shirt you bought off the rack is going to be unique to you?"
"No."- mertsey627
Seeing Red! Or Blue In This Case...
"The blue of the balloons wasn't quite the same as the bridesmaid's sashes."
"Years ago my wife and I attended a wedding."
"It was very low key."
"The dinner was in the dining hall at the university where the couple met, cinder block walls and all."
"It was a Baptist wedding - no booze and very serious."
"The dark blue balloons attempting to liven up the hall were a slightly darker shade of blue than the sashes on the bridesmaid's dresses."
"The bride lost here sh*t and absolutely raved for nearly an hour."
"I can't remember how they finally managed to talk her down."- mechant_papa
south park wedding GIF
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See You In Court!
"Rich neighbors who end up in expensive court battles because they disagree about where a tree can be planted or whether the color of a fence fits in with the street’s 'amenity'."
'These disputes get really heated and rack up huge lawyers’ bills."
"The most pathetic part is after the judgement when they are arguing about who should pay the other party’s costs."
"Lots of affidavits filed citing the 'emotional distress' they had to endure, or painting themselves as brave warriors who were forced to take a stand to fight for 'justice'."
"Also lots of pompous litigants insisting that the judge refer to them by their 'Dr' title."
"An absolutely insane dumpster fire of entitled rich people problems."- ElectrocRaisin
It's Always People With Money Who Don't Want To Pay!
"I work in a public library."
"People will get so so mad if they have to be put on a wait list for a book."
"A popular book that just came out."
"Ok our services are not only free but so are the books."
"You’re welcome, a**holes."- Switchbladekitten
A Warm Butt Is A Happy Butt!
"My own."
"We have a bidet toilet seat (Fabulous! Everyone should have one!) and not only does it wash your bum and blow dry it, but the seat's heated!"
"It's shocking how much a heated toilet seat makes the whole process more agreeable."
"Except: We had a power outage and I went to use the toilet and the seat was cold!"
"Unacceptable!"
"This shall not stand!"
"I was really upset because it didn't feel good."
"Then I stopped and thought: This is the most first-world problem anyone's ever had."
"I was really pissed because my heiny was tepid."
"I got over it."- DeathGrover
homer simpson episode 23 GIF
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Holy Matrimony!
"Weddings are a gold mine for this question."
"People get so hyped up over their 'most important day of their life'."
"They'll destroy friendships, go into debt, and have crazy expectations."
"It's not always the couple who go crazy, either."
"Sometimes, it's the parents or another family member who feels entitled to control the wedding."
"It's just a party."
"Be considerate of guests, have plenty of food and drinks, and enjoy it."- magicrowantree
When Fast Food Isn't Fast Enough...
"Having to pull off to the side to wait for a drive-thru order to be brought out to you because your food isn't ready and there's a line building up behind you."- demanbmore
In Case You Don't Think Customer Service Employees Are Undervalued...
"I was working the return desk at a Target next to a military base so I have so many stories."
"One of my favorites was a lady who had her baby shower before revealing the gender and was livid that she had received floral newborn diapers when she’s having a boy."
"It was a huge box of super expensive, all organic diapers, that we didn’t carry and therefore could not return."
"I cannot accurately express her fury and disgust."
"How dare either suggest her boy could wear feminine diapers."
"I suggested she donate them if she didn’t want to use them and she instead threw away the entire box."
"When she left we pulled it out and threw it in our donate bin."
"There have also been multiple times where mom’s order massive toys and when we bring them out to the car they get furious that they aren’t wrapped."
"We don’t offer wrapping services."
"Here’s the thing, if you don’t want your kids to see the toys you got them for Christmas or their bit to day DON'T BRING THE CHILD WHEN YOU PICK IT UP."
'I’ve had multiple women scream and curse me out that I had ruined their kids Christmas by bringing the toys they ordered out to the car like they requested."- clever-mermaid-mae
Customer Service Waiting GIF by Juno Calypso
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Happiest Place On Earth!
"I used to work for Disney."
"That in itself should tell you everything."
"However for fun I'll give you two specific stories one form our tech department and one from my wife who worked bookings."
"I specifically worked for their call center to help with technical issues with magic band and the website."
"Suddenly got worse huh?"
"A right of passage call everyone has at least one story of is the 'Dome call'."
"Basically there is a subset of Disney Guest (TM) that believes if it rains at Walt Disney world there is someone that will push a button to encapsulate the whole of Disney property in a dome to keep out the rain."
"I'm not kidding."
"If this button is not pushed they call our tech department to angrily ask why."
"My wife worked booking."
"Pretty much everything including Bibbidi Bobbidi boutique and Pirate's league."
"These two things did roughly the same thing difference being price and theme."
"BBB was expensive did more and was focused on princesses, pirates league did a bit less and focused on mermaids and pirates."
"Lady called up my wife, and got pissed about BBB being booked up (It goes FAAAAST)."
"Karen: 'Im going to give the phone to my daughter and I want you to tell her how you are ruining her vacation by not letting her do BBB'."
"Wife proceeds to explain how pirate's league is so much cooler and how she can be a mermaid or pirate and basically gets the kid to start demanding to their parents about how they want to be a mermaid instead of a princess."- trollsong
Disney World GIF
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The horror!
Being booked into a junior suite at Disney World instead of an executive suite!
It's almost as bad as having no money for groceries, or no food to feed you children...
Said absolutely no one.