Stupid phone tricks
Her: Hello, Salvation Army, would you like to schedule a pickup?
Me: Maybe, or maybe a dropoff if there's a dropoff center near me.
Her: What's your zip code?
Me [enunciating clearly, because I know I talk too quietly and fast on the phone unless I'm careful]: Nine, four, zero, four, three.
Her: And your city?
Me [enunciating clearly]: Mountain View, California.
Her: Mountain View. Okay. [long pause] Milpitas?
Me: Huh?
Her: Milpitas?
Me: No. Mountain View. Moun-tain View, two words.
Her: Oh! Mountain View!
[pause.]
Her [mumbling, as if reading to herself from a scrolling list]: Santa Cruz, Sunnyvale, Milpitas, . . .
Me [thinking Sunnyvale is close enough]: There's a dropoff station in Sunnyvale?
Her: Sunnyvale? No, no Sunnyvale.
Me: Oh. I thought you said Sunnyvale.
Her: No. Santa Cruz?
Me: No, Santa Cruz is a 45-minute drive from here. Do you have anything in Sunnyvale, Santa Clara, Mountain View, Palo Alto, Menlo Park, Redwood City?
Her: No. Oh, wait, here: Sunnyvale!
. . . And then after all that we determined that the Sunnyvale dropoff doesn't take what I'm donating, so I had to schedule a pickup after all.
Really, I ought to know better by now than to try to have anything beyond the most basic of conversations with any customer-service person on the phone. I don't know how much it's them and how much it's me and how much it's my ever-present customer-service demon, but somehow it always seems to go like this if I try to depart in any way from the standard script (and often if I don't).
