So, one of my job duties is to cover for the receptionist’s breaks and lunches one week each month. I’m not exactly a fan of the receptionist and I find her to be annoying as all hell, BUT, she is pretty good at her job and she hasn’t gone on a massive killing spree, which frankly, I find shocking. If I had to answer those goddamn phones all day, every day, I’d be shooting people. A lot.
Anyway, so this week is my week. Typically, the hour I’m covering consists of a whole bunch of irritating people who call and say,
“Did you just call me?” Nope. No, I did not.
“Well, this number just showed up on my caller ID.”
“Did the caller leave you a message?” I ask as politely as possible.
“No.”
“Then, I’m not sure who called sir/ma’am. We have approximately 350 employees here. It could have been anyone.”
“Well, what did they want?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know who called you. I’m sure they’ll call back if it was important.”
“Well, what kind of company is this?”
“It’s an ambulance transport service.”
“Well, what do you do?”
“Um, transport people by ambulance.” (I thought that was clear, but whatever.)
“Well, why are you calling me?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t call you.”
“Well, who did?”
You get the idea…
There are also a lot of hang ups and “sorry, wrong number”. Occasionally, there’s a recorded message call. Sometimes I’ll listen to them, because I am bored when I’m covering the front desk, but usually I disconnect. One came in today. It started out the same as the regular recorded messages:
“Hello, please stay on the line for an important message. The following is a text message sent to you from 2-1-6-5-5-5-blah, blah, blah…”
I was about to hang up, but I stayed on because Chatty von Chatterstein was walking by and I knew she’d stop to talk to me if I wasn’t sitting with the phone pressed against my ear, looking busy, busy, busy. So, the female computerized voice finishes telling me the number the message is from and then it says, in a totally monotone, tinny, digitized voice,
“Start message. Tomorrow, hell yeah. Obama, BITCHES! End message.”
I laughed so hard I snorted. It was awesome.
Showing posts with label receptionist. Show all posts
Showing posts with label receptionist. Show all posts
Monday, January 19, 2009
Sunday, August 17, 2008
Dear Receptionist:
Seriously, shut the fuck up and quit fucking trying to tell me how to do my fucking JOB!!
Ok, I feel better now that I got that out of my system. As you may have gathered, I'm having a bit of an issue with our receptionist and her tendency to overstep her job boundaries and push her pudgy, little face into my job boundaries. Now, I will willingly admit that I have very little knowledge of FMLA or EEOC or PLoA or any number of other HR acronyms, but I am very good at recruiting! How good? We have approximately 360 employees and are currently at 98% staffed. That's unheard of! The national average for our company is 92%...yes, I totally rock at recruiting, thank you. Now, I'm not saying that all of my hiring choices have been winners. My first one was a lazy, slacker asshat (who is inexplicably still there... I don't understand why his manager is not constantly calling for his immediate and humiliating dismissal, but I digress) and there have even been a couple who haven't shown up, but the majority of my hires turn out to be pretty good and a few of them have already been promoted and they've only been there for like 9 months.
So anyway, back to the issue at hand, our receptionist is really sticking her nose up my ass and it needs to stop before I clench my ass and break that nose off. I reject applicants for a reason. I don't just look at an application or resume and decide, "We have enough employees whose names start with the letter "D", so I will just put Denise's resume here in the 'Thanks, But No Thanks' pile". I reject applications for legitimate reasons like gaps in work history; being fired (or euphemistically listing mutual agreement to resign my position. Here's a free tip from a recruiter, we know what that means! We're not complete idiots.); misspellings of EPIC proportion (true story: if you worked at Sparkle Market, but your resume and application both say Sparkel Market, I cannot in good conscience hire you. You must, at a minimum, be able to correctly spell the name of your employer. Additionally if your resume says you own your own business called Victoia's Candle Shop and your name is Victoria, I feel that you should, at a minimum, be able to correctly spell your OWN DAMN NAME!) I can overlook a typo, I'm not *that* anal, but c'mon! If you can't proof your resume enough to get the important details right (like, I don't know - your NAME? ), how are you going to do when you're working with a patient's health record and precision kinda' counts?
Ok, again I drifted - sorry! I guess my biggest issue with Mrs. Receptionist is her disapproving looks and irritated tone when an applicant calls to check the status of their application and she insists on rifling through my office to find the application and then asks me what I want to do with it. I don't want to do anything with it. If I felt this person was good, I would have called them and scheduled an interview. When I tell her that (for the 463rd time, by the way) she proceeds to read aloud their qualifications. When I point out the aforementioned gaps in employment or the fact that they've left 2 jobs in 8 months due to "health problems", she shakes her head and says, "Well, I think you should at least talk to them. They might have a really good reason that you don't know about." You're right RECEPTIONIST, they might have an excellent reason, but I DON'T CARE!!! I have a stack of qualified candidates over here who show up for work and don't have "health problems", or are at least smart enough to not put it on their applications. *sigh*
I don't really have an ending for this and it's much longer than I originally intended. I think I just needed to get it out because it was seriously starting to get to me. I try to be pleasant (at work at least) and non-confrontational, but I just don't know what to do about her anymore. Any suggestions?
Ok, I feel better now that I got that out of my system. As you may have gathered, I'm having a bit of an issue with our receptionist and her tendency to overstep her job boundaries and push her pudgy, little face into my job boundaries. Now, I will willingly admit that I have very little knowledge of FMLA or EEOC or PLoA or any number of other HR acronyms, but I am very good at recruiting! How good? We have approximately 360 employees and are currently at 98% staffed. That's unheard of! The national average for our company is 92%...yes, I totally rock at recruiting, thank you. Now, I'm not saying that all of my hiring choices have been winners. My first one was a lazy, slacker asshat (who is inexplicably still there... I don't understand why his manager is not constantly calling for his immediate and humiliating dismissal, but I digress) and there have even been a couple who haven't shown up, but the majority of my hires turn out to be pretty good and a few of them have already been promoted and they've only been there for like 9 months.
So anyway, back to the issue at hand, our receptionist is really sticking her nose up my ass and it needs to stop before I clench my ass and break that nose off. I reject applicants for a reason. I don't just look at an application or resume and decide, "We have enough employees whose names start with the letter "D", so I will just put Denise's resume here in the 'Thanks, But No Thanks' pile". I reject applications for legitimate reasons like gaps in work history; being fired (or euphemistically listing mutual agreement to resign my position. Here's a free tip from a recruiter, we know what that means! We're not complete idiots.); misspellings of EPIC proportion (true story: if you worked at Sparkle Market, but your resume and application both say Sparkel Market, I cannot in good conscience hire you. You must, at a minimum, be able to correctly spell the name of your employer. Additionally if your resume says you own your own business called Victoia's Candle Shop and your name is Victoria, I feel that you should, at a minimum, be able to correctly spell your OWN DAMN NAME!) I can overlook a typo, I'm not *that* anal, but c'mon! If you can't proof your resume enough to get the important details right (like, I don't know - your NAME? ), how are you going to do when you're working with a patient's health record and precision kinda' counts?
Ok, again I drifted - sorry! I guess my biggest issue with Mrs. Receptionist is her disapproving looks and irritated tone when an applicant calls to check the status of their application and she insists on rifling through my office to find the application and then asks me what I want to do with it. I don't want to do anything with it. If I felt this person was good, I would have called them and scheduled an interview. When I tell her that (for the 463rd time, by the way) she proceeds to read aloud their qualifications. When I point out the aforementioned gaps in employment or the fact that they've left 2 jobs in 8 months due to "health problems", she shakes her head and says, "Well, I think you should at least talk to them. They might have a really good reason that you don't know about." You're right RECEPTIONIST, they might have an excellent reason, but I DON'T CARE!!! I have a stack of qualified candidates over here who show up for work and don't have "health problems", or are at least smart enough to not put it on their applications. *sigh*
I don't really have an ending for this and it's much longer than I originally intended. I think I just needed to get it out because it was seriously starting to get to me. I try to be pleasant (at work at least) and non-confrontational, but I just don't know what to do about her anymore. Any suggestions?
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