Inadvertent revenge

[ianhess.livejournal.com]

It was a few years ago, but...

We had one of those customers. He wouldn't or couldn't read printed english. He would actually put in tickets for us to read sections of the manual to him over the phone.

I'm a pretty big guy. I compete in martial arts tournaments. One saturday I fought at a renn faire, in california summer heat, and collected more than my share of bruises.

Monday morning I come into the call center. I'm oblivious, wearing the usual short sleeve black tshirt. I had forgotten it was the quarterly customer training day.

I look up to see Mr non-reading rounding the corner. There is a moment, where he just stops, looking at me speechless. Then we have a very pleasant little chat before he flees.

My coworkers fell off their chairs laughing. It took them a while to regain breath and point out the image... a 6' 3" muscular guy with a dozen visible bruises is the anonymous person on the other end of the support line.

The customer was very polite for the next 6 months of phone calls.

Comments

[amberite.livejournal.com]

FWAHAHAHAHA.

Having known you in person this is doubly amusing.

[gilmoure.livejournal.com]

Heh. Our 18 person help desk has 4 SCA'ers. Three of us are fighters, all over 6', 200 lbs, long hair and beards. Would love for our users get a chance to meet us.

[ladynisa.livejournal.com]

Ahh, teh SCA. My job now only has a few of us, but my last tech job was flooded with long beard sporting, chainmail making, loud, friendly SCAers.

[gilmoure.livejournal.com]

Is funny; after meeting wife in SCA, getting married and spawning, have now been inactive for 7 years. Still considered a member. Guess you can never really leave. Oh well, at least I'm not making mail between calls (unlike others here.). Cool thing is that there's a fairly large collection of bagpipe music now available from help desk. Making the world a better place...

[ianhess.livejournal.com]

I completely understand. I'm in the SCA as well.

[ladynisa.livejournal.com]

You're also on file with the FBI for being in the world's largest, private, volunteer army. :D

I'm on and off SCA right now, but mostly because of money restraints and the Arizona summer heat.

[gilmoure.livejournal.com]

Yeah, we moved out to New Mexico (Abq area) from Trimaris. Different type of heat out here. Still, have to at least make it to Estrella at some point. Maybe once our house it built and I can swap out our geteld for a gur. That would be cool!

[hisamishness.livejournal.com]

oh God.... that is priceless.

(and not in a cheezy mastercard sort of way)

:-)

[alstaria.livejournal.com]

That's awesome...intimidation FTW! BTW, which faire?

[ianhess.livejournal.com]

Pittsburg Faire in the California Bay area.

[wherdafux-d-cat.livejournal.com]

Love it!

My former employer housed a consulting team for a sister company for several months. One of said consultants was overly fond of stopping by my desk and trying to chat multiple times throughout the day, apparently oblivious to the headset ('No, I wasn't talking to my computer') and near-continuous typing.

I'm female, 5'6, average build. One day I wore short sleeves which revealed a monster bruise on my left bicep that nearly ran shoulder to elbow. Consultant stopped by, happened to catch me between calls and made some macho sh!thead comment about my arm. I answered with the truth: 'My husband hit me. But it's okay, I hit him back.' He blanched and walked off. And his cube visits stopped.

By the way, I'm also a fencing coach and my husband and I had been bouting at the club the night before, hence the bruise (admittedly far worse than I usually get) and the honest 'I hit him back' reply. :D