The Bus is Late

At work I often have to do a shift on the switchboard for our department. The phone number is for our department but it is treated like a general information line. I guess I should clarify that it is treated like a general information line for the college I work for. We're not in the business of giving general information for all of life's little follies.

But that doesn't stop people from calling and asking us about them. The other day I was asked if I could Google a phone number for a casino "after all you have a computer right there in front of you." Indeed I do so I did. The very next call was asking me what road the airport was on. I mentioned to my fellow phone-answerer these calls and she told me she recently told someone how to cook fish.

I suppose it is all fine and well if we aren't busy and we know the answers. Yesterday a different phone-answerer got upset because the caller wanted to know why her city bus was late. My coworker told the lady she had no idea and that was a question best asked of the city bus people and offered to look up and give out the city bus hotline number. But no the caller insisted that she called our number all the time and "that nice lady" would look up her route and times for her.

I can attest that I am not that "nice lady" because I don't know the first thing about riding the bus and neither did the my coworker. The lady insisted and persisted, wanting to talk to the supervisor about our lack of customer service. She hung up in a snit before we could get the supervisor involved (and he said he backed us all the way for not giving out city bus information).

Seriously, the city bus people will know if the bus broke down, or was hijacked, or if the routes and times changed. All we know is that we are the end of the line for several different city bus routes. I guess we also know that unless you pay a return fare the bus driver kicks you out here rather you wanted to be way out in the desert boonies with us or not.

The Fine Print: Still celebrating my independence from riding city busses and all that other good stuff. Stamps and banner punch by Stampin' Up. Other stuff from my stash.