(Hang on to the end for a plot twist…)
Yesterday morning I had a new operator on the switchboard and I was listening in on his calls as part of his training. His first call of the day was from a woman who wanted to speak to the former (2 years ago) manager for EJ Thomas Hall. Since he couldn’t find that person by name, he asked if there was a department he could transfer her to. (Standard procedure.) In a huff, she asked to be transferred to the Board for EJ.
And since that’s not a thing, he couldn’t find that either. Realizing that this could go nowhere except further downhill, I walked across the hall and heard him offer to send her to the ticket office or the business office – which were the listings we had. She didn’t want either of those – she wanted to speak to someone IN CHARGE.
I told him to transfer over to me and went back to my office to take the call.
I gave a pleasant greeting that was lost on her and she asked why she was transferred over to me – since, as the manager for the switchboard, she implied that I couldn’t possibly help.
I explained that I had been with UA for 20 years and should, in fact, be able to help.
Slightly mollified, she explained that she’d bought tickets for the show “Kinky Boots” for Thursday night for her niece – but then found out that her niece had a class project that night and couldn’t go or risk her final grade. The woman needed the tickets switched over to Friday night and she wasn’t willing to wait until the box office opened at 10 am.
I gave her a couple different numbers for the box office and also the name and number of the current manager for EJ. And offered to call the manager on her behalf and see what I could find out.
She sighed, clearly not grateful for my help, and gave me her name and phone number so I could do all the legwork and follow-up for her. ‘Cause you know I’m just sitting around…
We hung up, I updated the operators – it was too good of a story not to tell – and left a voice mail message for the EJ manager.
About an hour later – since I hadn’t called her back with an update – the woman called the switchboard again. And asked for the Board for EJ – still amazed that we couldn’t find such a simple thing.
I heard the call and when the operator still couldn’t help he offered to transfer back over to me. That wasn’t good enough and she wanted to talk to my boss.
Rankled, I told the operator to transfer to me anyway.
When I answered the call, I told her that my boss wouldn’t be able to help her, but I could give her the number anyway if she really wanted when we were done. I also told her that I’d left a message for the EJ manager and was going to call the ticket office when they opened at 10. And I told her that I could find no reference anywhere to a Board for EJ.
Feeling that she’s running out of time, she now wants the boss for the EJ manager – I told her that was the VP for Finance/CFO for the University. That sounded important enough for her and she wanted his number. I gave her that number, told her I’d update her if I was able to get any additional information, and ended the call.
[Incidentally, calling the CFO to get your theatre tickets swapped out is like calling the president because you got a parking ticket. It’s dumb.]
I then emailed the EJ manager to give her and her colleagues a heads up that things were getting worse and then at 10 I tried the box office. A recording picked up and put me on hold for a while, then it gave up and said I should just call back since they were obviously busy. And there would be no point in leaving a message because they don’t check that. Okaaay.
And then later in the day, the best thing in the world happened.
The manager for EJ called me and said that this woman had been calling everyone, but..
And here’s that twist…
She had the days wrong. The show was Tuesday and Wednesday night – not Thursday and Friday as she thought.
There was no scheduling conflict and all her arguing and thermonuclear escalation was utterly and profoundly pointless.
Ahhhhhh…
I just wanted to roll around in all that sweet and delicious irony. Oh, yeah, that’s the stuff.
Now, there’s not a snowball’s chance in hell that she’s going to learn anything from that. No way. If you think the CFO is going to swap your theatre tickets because you can’t plan ahead – and spent $200 on them, incidentally – then there’s no hope for you.
But it made my day. 🙂