AHHHHH!

[darkblade1.livejournal.com]

Oh, I've been poisoned!

I ended up picking up the phone last night only 1/2 hour out of work, to answer a call from my dad...

...and I gave my opening line I use for tech support.

God save me! I need a different job away from the dammed telephone.

I felt like stabbing the poison out of me last night!

Comments

[krrayn.livejournal.com]

great icon, btw.

[sober-panda.livejournal.com]

Well, I give my old call center opening to my Mom from time to time, but that's because she's always calling for computer help.

[vulpine137.livejournal.com]

I've done that on multiple occasions, usually when the phone rings and I'm asleep. Confuses the hell out of bill collectors and family members.

[darkblade1.livejournal.com]

You know, perhaps I could harness this skill.

If it's a telemarketer I could just switch it on and off. Brilliant!

[vulpine137.livejournal.com]

That would be useful...or at least amusing.

[zig-mover.livejournal.com]

Happens to me all the time.

[krrayn.livejournal.com]

I've done that before, even answering the phone at someone else's house.

[aylinn.livejournal.com]

Welcome to the club. Both I and my husband have been known to answer phones with either our "you've called my desk" greetings or our "this is what I'm supposed to say for my job" greetings.

It's just an auto-pilot "feature". You get used to it.

[grayhawkfh.livejournal.com]

Hell, I changed jobs 3 months ago and still, once in a great while, use the old job phone greeting instead of the new one...

[usekh.livejournal.com]

*laughs*I don't know many call centre techs who have =not= done that :) I know I have

Whats worse is when you change jobs and you answer with your last jobs greeting ;)

[xforge.livejournal.com]

No, the worst part is when you go "Good morning Helpdesk, this is John, how can I help you?" when your Mom calls you at home and you don't even realize you said it.

[darkblade1.livejournal.com]

That was me. I didn't even realize it until I had finished the entire sentence.

[harry-whodunnit.livejournal.com]

When I started at my current job I'd just come over from the other big ISP in the area. People think we're big rivals, but we share staff, network, etc.

For most of a day, I couldn't stop myself from saying "Welcome to THAT OTHER ISP technical helpdesk" every second call.

No-one noticed. Nope, not one.

[jjjiii]

I've answered the phone in the middle of the night and half-asleep gave the helpdesk greeting line. I like the confusement on the other end of the line, actually.

[megpie71.livejournal.com]

Welcome to hell. Or tech support. Or indeed any type of phone work. I tend to think of it as being analogous to "muscle memory" - your body gets used to doing something, and the brain doesn't bother to get involved.

[solradia.livejournal.com]

I know your pain.. I'm currently trying to reprogram myself from saying "Thank you for calling the helpdesk, this is Ann" into "Thank you for calling (insert ISP name here)" I keep getting them mixed up, and sometimes weird things come out, like "Thank you for calling "isp" helpdesk support."

....

brain...
hurt....
oww...

[katyism.livejournal.com]

I'm glad I've been appropriately Pavlov-ized... otherwise I'd be doing that. Luckily the sound and action of answering my work phone is different than my personal phone's ringtone and flip phone action.

[trixtah.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I totally flinch if my phone rings and it says "number withheld" (like it does with any call from a PABX). I have to stop myself picking it up and saying "Email was working an hour ago, honest!"

The worst occasion was when I'd been rung up by a colleague on my weekend off (not on call) about backup issues. After I talked him through all the options and finally hung up after an hour, the phone rang again after a couple of minutes, with "number withheld". I answered, "NOW what?". It was my mother (calling from overseas, thus unrecognised number). Ooops.