Friday, July 1, 2011

Prank Phone Calls.


I am really enjoying my new job working in electronics. The physical work is no where near as hard as working frozen foods and dairy. One of the jobs that I have throughout the night is answering the phone. Usually at least once each night I get a prank phone call. Some people just don't seem to have anything better to do. Here are some examples of the calls I've had since I started working electronics:

"Do you sell chocolate? What kind do you have?"
I told that caller, "You'll just have to come in and see for yourself."

"Do you sell condoms? What sizes do you have?"
Once again I answered, "You will have to come in and see for yourself." I was nice and didn't say, "I'm sorry, we can't help you. We don't sell any that small."

"My name is Bond, James Bond."
I simply hung up on him.

"Do you have the phone number to Kmart?"
I mentioned earlier that I am not going to name my employer, even though if you read some past posts here, it's not very hard to figure out, but it definitely isn't Kmart. I simply answered no and after I hung up, it dawned on me that I had the perfect answer to that question. If I ever get asked again, I'm going to say, "I sure do. It's 411."

I was asked if somebody under the age of 17 could buy an M rated video game. The person asked me a couple of different questions and then asked, "What if it was my birthday?" At that point, I simply hung up on the person. Incidentally, most of the callers are the same person. He has a distinctive accent, so it's hard not to notice.

Last night I was asked, "I bought a $25 gift card at your store and they wouldn't accept it at JC Penney."
I told them, "I'll let you figure that out for yourself."

The first night that I worked in electronics I got a phone call from somebody who claimed to be in the bathroom in the back of the store. He told me he was in there and that we were out of toilet paper. I was skeptical, but I did call a maintenance person to go in there and take a roll with them. Of course, there was no one in there. About 20 minutes later the person called back asking where the toilet paper was. When I told him we had sent somebody in there and there wasn't anybody in the bathroom. They claimed that they were standing on the stool, so we would not have seen their feet. Again, I just simply hung up on him. About three hours later he called again with the same tale. That time I didn't say a word, I just hung up the phone.


I guess some people just are easily amused, and are trying to use me for a cheap thrill. I sometimes wonder if they're not recording these things. I've heard a lot of phone gags on the radio and maybe they are hoping that I will provide them some kind of entertainment that they can then use. Unfortunately for them, I'm on to their game, and I don't play along. From now on, every day that I get a prank call. I will post it here. As I mentioned the majority of the calls are being done by the same person. We will see how long it takes them to get tired of doing this.

1 comment:

Dagwan said...

I think you should develop a stock answer to this repeat caller. Something innocuous, but memorable to the caller, that you repeat the same way regardless of what he asks.

I like, "No sir, we do not stock Betamax products anymore."

He might eventually get bored with hearing the same thing over and over.