DIRECTORY ASSISTANCE, LISTING PLEASE: Part one

Several months ago, I posted this article and due to the sweetness of someone who will not remain nameless, Liz, I happened to be reminded of it. My son has since begun university studies to become a District Attorney. It's fitting I think to re-post this, but instead, I am just spot lighting it on my profile page. If you didn't read it before, I hope you will now. Thank you to all who read it so many months ago and left kind comments.

Some years back, I worked for a company that handles directory assistance calls. I went there as a temp and didn't know what I was in for. We didn't call it directory assistance, but referred to it as DA as there were other positions with the company and phone work.

I took as many as 800 and 900 plus calls in an eight hour day. I would get really tired and a sore tongue from saying 'listing please'. Sometimes the person on the other end of the call would say, "I'm listening."

Anyway, the way it works is, there is a beep in the ear when the call is picked up. The caller may have been waiting but we don't know that. It all depends on the volume of calls as to whether there is a wait time. But as I said, we never know if the caller has been on ignore or has just dialed in.

We were then to say, 'city and state" and hope the caller says where. They don't always, but sometimes say silly things or even take out their anger on having to wait. After we enter the city and state in the computer, we ask, "listing please" so the caller will say the name of the person or company or organization they need a number for. We will then type this in and wait while the caller actually comes on to speak to us. If we have found one listing, we tell them something to indicate that we have found it, say thanks, have a nice day, etc. and send them to auto voice so they can get the number.

Some people don't like getting it from the auto voice and will ask for a verbal. This of course makes the call longer and operators have only about 20 seconds to take care of each call or they are coached. 

If there is more than one listing, we are not allowed to give them all, but are limited by the rules of the phone company.  I didn't work for the phone company itself. The phone company didn't have to deal with the anger from the caller, so they could have a lot of rules.

When the temp agency sent me there, I had no clue what I would be doing until I went into training. Then I came home and announced to my family that I was in DA. My son, who is a comedian said many times after that, "You work for the district attorney."

One night after I had been doing the job for several months, the place was pretty quite and I was reading in between calls. I love mystery books. I think it was a Nero Wolfe novel. I have read them all.

Well, the phone beeped in my ear and I said, "city and state', and while typing it in, I said, "listing please." When the caller came on line, I said the name of the listing which was a hospital in that city and prepared to put him through to the automated recording.

Before I could, he said, "I need to talk to you about my mother's bill." Which he then proceeded to do, his voice full of stress. His mother had died.

I had to interrupt him to say, "I'm sorry, this isn't the hospital." to which he said, "Who are you then?" I said what I had been hearing from my son almost daily, all those months. "District Attorney."

Horrors! I couldn't take it back and make a correction before he said, "You're just the person I need to talk to. My mother paid this bill before she died."

I can never forget how I felt after that call was completed. The guy must have, in his misery, thought I was an idiot. It has been quite some time since I worked in DA, but my son still teases me about that call.