Sorry, I don't actually work here

[statsman]

Oooh, how about:

"Sorry, I don't know where to find [whatever it is they're looking for] - let's pray to our heavenly father for assistance..."

Reminds me of a joke a priest once told me.

Q. What do you do if you come upon a situation where the crowd is unruly and there may actually be a riot?

A. Take up a collection.

----------------------------------------------------

I was in the local police station one day. My car had been towed and I wanted to find out which pound it had been towed to. The Police Courier came into the station with a bin of mail. A lady who was waiting for a loved one to be released started bombarding him with questions. He finally told her that he was just the courier and that while he could give her advise, it would probably be wrong.

 

[ajetrumpet]

I don't know exactly why, but whenever I pop out to the shops on my lunch break, I will inevitably be mistaken for a member of staff in one of the shops I visit. It's happened in Tesco, Wilkinson, Matalan, TK Maxx, CEX and others - on average, occurring at least a couple of times a week.

On one occasion, while I was explaining to one person that I didn't work there, other customers started queuing up to be next to talk to me.

I guess I must have a sort of 'corporate drone' look about me or something.

So... how should I react to this?

• Get a badge engraved that says "Actually, I don't work here"?
• Start 'helping' the customers with deliberately misleading information?
• See if the effect extends to staff who do actually work there - maybe I could get away with using their staff canteen, or just walk out with some item under my arm...

who cares...but at any rate, make sure you wear enough flare so customers will know you're committed.

 

[The_Doc_Man]

On a variant of that (being mistaken for an employee of X), ...

Years ago, my parents lived in a subdivision that shared a phone exchange with a commercial area. About once every three days, one of the local coffee companies would call at about 3 AM to ask how much coffee they wanted to have delivered that morning. After a few such calls, Mom discovered that the coffee company THOUGHT they were calling a well-known "coffee & beignet" establishment whose name I shall keep quiet. She told the person to stop calling them and to get the number right. Didn't happen.

Finally, she got fed up. The next time someone called, she said "Do you remember how much we ordered yesterday?" The guy said, "50 pounds." She said, "We are expecting a big crowd today. Make it 150 pounds." The guy, obviously excited, said "Yes, ma'am."

Two days later, she got a call at a more reasonable hour. It was the president of the coffee company. "Ma'am, when our guy calls and it's the wrong number, can you please just tell them it's the wrong number?" To which she replied, "Not if it the call is at 3 AM, I can't. Who's awake enough to remember? If I'm sleepy enough, I might order 200 pounds next time." They never got called again.

 

[oumahexi]

Ha ha ha, Doc_Man, we had a similar situation in our house when my daughter was at school.

The phone rang one evening and she started chatting away, lines like "oh really? So what did the doctor say?" And "how's he doing now?" "oh, you know, it's such a cold night you should really keep warm" "tell him it's not right and he should speak to somebody about it"...

After half an hour she came off the phone, curious I asked who it was. "Wrong number" she said, "but the old lady sounded so nice I thought I'd just let her talk". We never did find out who it was.

Another daft telephone incident happend when I was working in telesales. I called a number and the answering machine said something like "hi, this is Jack and Jill's Leith residence, we're in Majorca just now and won't be back until 15th October, so leave a message and we'll phone you back" I left a message, "with so much information, I truly hope you have a phone to come home to!"

 

[Alc]

The number for my parents' shop was one digit different from the number for the local council housing department (theirs ended in 8, the shop ended in 9).

The council had thousand of leaflets printed up and distributed in the surrounding area, in an attempt to make it easier for local residents to contact them. This leaflet contained a fax number, address, contact name and, yes, the number for the shop. We told them about this mistake and they said (correctly) that it was too late to do anything, as all of the leaflets had already been distributed, not that they were bothered either way.

For the next month or two, we received around five or six calls a day from irate people whose own kids had broken their window and who wanted the council to come and fix it, or who wanted someone to come and cut their lawn for them. After a while we gave up explaining they had the wrong number - many just got abusive if you tried - and instead promised them someone would be there within the hour. We gave them the correct number and said if they had any more problems they should call our manager.

 

[kjohnson]

Get a badge engraved that says "Actually, I don't work here"?

Yes, please, do this. And a video would be great!

 

[novtalath]

I had a similar situation with mistake phone calls. We had a phone number that was almost the same as hotel in a nearby town. Difference was in one digit. Anyways, many times we had calls from people trying to book a hotel room or with some general questions. After being informed that this is a wrong number and after we gave them the right one they have never called again. Apart from one time when this stupid and stubborn man was calling over and over trying to book a room. Four times I have tried to make him call the right number and after 5 minutes he was calling again surprised it is NOT the hotel.
On a fifth time, when a phone ringed, and after I realised that this is the same guy, I took his booking asking him many questions about his future room. He was after a week stay (I lived in a mountain area so there were many tourists) for him and his wife... Too bad I'm no receptionst at the hotel. I was tempted sooo much to go there on the day he arrives to watch that but was busy I'd love to have it on camera as well

I have never felt guilty about this one, but many say I'm an evil man

 

[TessB]

Too bad I'm no receptionst at the hotel. I was tempted sooo much to go there on the day he arrives to watch that but was busy I'd love to have it on camera as well

I have never felt guilty about this one, but many say I'm an evil man

See, now I just couldn't do that. His poor wife! I think I would have called the hotel for him, explained that he would not dial the proper number and give them his information so they could contact him. But that's me. It IS a funny story though. I do enjoy a good story.