Crank Yankers

Right after I graduated college, I went to work for a small non-profit firm in Northwest D.C. My title was Assistant Director of Marketing and Development, but since it was a small firm and a non-profit, I usually ended up "wearing many hats" so to speak. And, since the non-profit I worked for operated a CCRC (that's Continuing Care Retirement Community for those of you not in the know), those many hats could be quite interesting. "Assistant Director of Marketing" actually meant that I spent a lot of time talking to the elderly and their family members about whether or not it was time for a retirement community, an assisted living facility, or the nursing home. (Yes, it was a crazy good time every day.) I answered a lot of phone calls (including a 1-800 number that did not have any sort of screening process) and a lot of people who called me tended to get my number confused with someone else's (after all, they were pretty old). Also while I had this job, my roommate would call me every day so that we could plan dinner or discuss who needed to pay the gas bill, etc. (You know - the general joys of domesticity.) And every day when I answered the phone, he would try to prank me in some way. Sometimes he pretended that he needed to find retirement housing for his grandfather, sometimes he wanted to sell me bed pans, and other days just had him screaming "she's fallen and she can't get up" into the phone. And, while this behavior of his is somewhat interesting, what is much more fascinating is that he got me every single time. Despite the fact that the person I lived with called me daily with pretty much the same joke, I never caught on. Every time, I would try my best to answer his questions ("Has your father said anything about being ready to move?" "Sanitation devices aren't really my area," "Should I call 911 for you?") until he would start giggling and tell me for the umpteenth time that he wasn't actually one of my clients. It was more than ridiculous and had him believing I might be the most gullible person on earth. But, you see, the truth is that it was nearly impossible for me to catch on because the "normal" phone calls I got were so weird to begin with. (Remember - old people.) One morning, I got a call asking if I was ready for "the 700 pound man on route to my facility." (I know what you're thinking, but could I really make this stuff up? I'm not that creative.) After many frantic calls to the nursing staff who told me we were in no way prepared for this arrival, and they had no idea what I was talking about, the woman on the phone and I finally worked out that she had the wrong number. And, as bad as that was, no call was as uncomfortable as the one when I picked up the phone to find a very angry, Katherine Hepburn-sounding lady loudly asking "when on earth are you going to get over there to bathe my husband?!?!" I'm pretty sure I stuttered as I answered that that wasn't my job, but she wasn't willing to back down for another five minutes as she continued to ask why I wasn't already at her house sponge-bathing away. (I'm still not sure how those numbers got confused.) As stupid as I seemed for all those times on the phone with my roommate, that was the sacrifice I had to make for not being ridiculously unprofessional at the office. (I sure know that if I had laughed in the face of the woman with a 700 pound patient, I would have been called insensitive and a fatist, and that wouldn't have gone over well with the boss man.) These are the lessons about the working world they don't teach you in school. And, this probably explains some of why I never lasted that long in the customer service field.