Like, Totally OMG!

In the interest of full disclosure: I am blogging at work.  I don't normally do this but hey, it's lunchtime, and I'm writing ABOUT work, so it's not totally egregious.

 

I had the weirdest conversation with a sales rep this morning.  He was calling me to follow up on a request I made yesterday...you know, one of those online forms where you tell them what product you're interested in and why, so that they will be prepared with the appropriate information when they call you.  I had missed his original call, then he missed my return call, so I left a message with the secretary (ahem...administrative assistant, sorry).  Now, I feel the need to mention here that I HATE the phone.  Thanks to crummy sinuses, my ears are always a little bit blocked, so I often have to ask people to repeat things.  If you throw in an accent, you can pretty much guarantee that I am only understanding about half of what you say to me on any given day.  This is why I try to accomplish as much as possible via e-mail or face-to-face, both at work and in my personal life (and why the current trend of outsourcing to call centers in India gives me panic attacks).  I find people get less frustrated at being asked to repeat themselves if they can see that you are smiling and/or genuinely trying to understand them.  This secretary (administrative assistant) was audibly Asian, which means I am guaranteed to have a hard time understanding her.  Her English is excellent, and she makes the added effort to speak very slowly and distinctly - the problem is totally in my ears, trying to decipher her accent through the phone.  So she asks if I sent some sort of request, and I said that I had sent an e-mail yesterday, asking for information about <insert name of material here>.  She said okay, she would have <name of dubious sales rep withheld> call me back as soon as he got out of whatever phone call/meeting/morning dump he was in the middle of.

 

So Sales Rep calls back in a few minutes, and I answer the phone with my usual greeting of, "Fearless Leaderlab, this is Beth..." 

"Um...I'm trying to reach Elizabeth M_...is that you?"

Dude.  I just left a message for you by the name of Beth M_... the same last name as this Elizabeth person.  Is it really that big of a leap to figure out that we are, in fact, the same person?  Surely I am not the only person out there who uses my full name on formal requests and goes informal on the phone.  I mean, if I go to a conference, my nametag says Elizabeth, but I introduce myself as Beth.  Mainly because if you call me Elizabeth, I won't know you're talking to me, as I only use my full name when I'm being formal and, well, you should all know by now that in real life there is absolutely NOTHING formal about me.

But whatever, I'm nitpicking.  I suppose it is theoretically possible that there is both an Elizabeth and a Beth at this number, and Sales Reps don't want to waste their time making a sales pitch to, say, a secretary (administrative assistant).  Fair enough.

So I guess there's a little confusion about what exactly I requested, as I told the secretary (administrative assistant) I had sent an e-mail and what came through on their end was some sort of request form or whatever.  So he says, "okay, sometimes we have some problems with...English with her.  But that's okay, her English is a lot better than my Japanese." <insert pompous, mildly racist chuckling here>  Seriously, dude, that was completely unnecessary.  Her English is just fine, it's the stupid white girl on the other end of the line that has the problem.  But I guess everyone IS a little bit racist, after all.

So whatever, we go about our conversation, where I tell him what we want to do, and he tells me which version of his product will do the best job and how much it will cost. 

Then he asks, "So...you have your doctorate then?  What exactly is your position?  You work for the university?"

"Yes, I am a postdoc."

"Oh, okay.  So I should be calling you DR. Beth then..." <insert more pompous chuckling and token compliment about how no, seriously, a Ph.D. is quite an achievement>

Actually, asshole, if we're going that route, no, you should be calling me Dr. M_.  But I just make my standard joke of, "the only people that call me Dr. M_ are my students and that's only because it's the only way they know I'm not one of them."

"You do sound young...how old are you, if you don't mind me asking?"

"I'm thirty."

"Oh!  You sound younger than that.  I have daughters that are 22 and 18, and you sound just like them.  I bet you look young, too." 

Okay, I'm sure this is just Sales Rep's guy of chatting me up and getting chummy in an effort to make the sale, but it's starting to get fucking creepy.

I've been told I sound like an actor/singer, told I sound well-educated, told I look young.  But this is a first - I've never been told I SOUND young.  In fact, most people, when trying to guess my age, tell me they think young when they see me, but after talking to me would place me closer to my real age.  Of course, most people also have enough tact not to imply that a potential customer is essentially Postdoctoral Barbie ("aww...isn't she cute?  She comes complete with bags under her eyes, bottomless cup of coffee, and clumps of hair still entwined in her little fists from finishing the last chapter of her thesis...if you squint and tilt your head just so, you can actually make out the emotional scars."  She comes in a set with Graduate Student Skipper - who carries a coffee mug filled with wine, is about 20 lbs. heavier, and when you pull the string in her back, mutters, "I'll be done in 6 months" over and over again.).

 

<shrug>

Have you ever just hung up the phone and gone, "um, what the fuck was that?"