Miscommunication is an inevitable part of life. Many of us have had calls from strangers who were convinced that we were somebody else. The best that we can do is to try and clarify the issue so that everyone’s on the same page. That’s sometimes easier said than done!
Redditor u/SirXanthor went viral on the r/IDontWorkHereLady subreddit after opening up about a surprise call he got in the early hours of the morning. The caller? An incredibly standoffish and tone-deaf woman who demanded that the OP come in to work the weekend. The twist? The author didn’t even work at the store. Scroll down for the story in full, as well as the internet’s reactions. Bored Panda has reached out to the author via Reddit, and we’ll update the article as soon as we hear back from him.
Many people have had strangers call them after mixing up phone numbers. It’s not a lot of fun when that happens at night
Image credits: Andrea Piacquadio / Pexels (not the actual photo)
One person shared just how ridiculous things got after a stranger got the wrong number and demanded that he work on the weekend at some random store
Image credits: YuriArcursPeopleimages / Envato (not the actual photo)
Image credits: SirXanthor
The story raised some serious red flags about how management treats their employees
Image credits: Christina Morillo / Pexels (not the actual photo)
Redditor u/SirXanthor’s story showed that the woman who called him up was completely unwilling to listen to reason. She had a whole bunch of preconceived notions. And she seemed to expect backtalk and excuses. That is not a good way to go into any conversation—whether you’re dealing with an actual employee or a complete stranger.
The OP decided to have a little bit of fun and pretended to be the worker in question. He demanded better pay for weekend overtime. What’s more, he called out the caller for disrupting his sleep. It took a while and two actual callers for the store employees to finally understand they’d made a mistake. Ridiculous!
Aside from some people’s unwillingness and inability to listen to reason, the redditor’s story also highlights another important issue. Namely, how some managers are very ineffective leaders, treat their employees poorly, and could use some training in effective communication. Calling your staff at God-awfully early hours is horribly demotivating. Yes, some lines of work mean that people do their jobs at odd hours. But unless you have a written understanding that they can reach out to you so early in the morning, you, as a manager, should wait for a more reasonable time to place that call.
Everyone needs rest. Everyone wants a healthy work-life balance. You cannot expect your employees to do a good job if you’re troubling them before or after work hours. And if you are, you should offer fair compensation for disrupting their sleep or whatever else they were doing during their spare time.
Moreover, managers should not be springing surprise weekend shifts on anyone without proper notice. Things do happen at the last minute and stores do need the extra help from time to time. Maybe someone else had a family emergency. Maybe there’s a lot of additional work and it’s an ‘all hands on deck’ sort of scenario. But you cannot force your employees to work overtime unless it’s in their contract.
Let’s not ignore just how resistant the store staff were to the very idea of overtime. Employees value fair wages, career growth opportunities, as well as support from management. They also thrive when there’s good communication and empathy from their superiors. Many of these things appeared to be lacking at the caller’s company.
Getting random calls gives you the opportunity to practice talking to complete strangers
Image credits: Hassan OUAJBIR / Pexels (not the actual photo)
Even if you think that you’ve cleared up a misunderstanding several times, things don’t always work out neatly. Sometimes, no matter what you do, you can’t change the fact that your phone number used to belong to another person ages ago. Sometimes, the previous owner of the number has a very widely-known reputation.
Case in point, yours truly has been receiving calls to fix random people’s computers for over 15 years now. Why? Because, at some point, the number used to belong to a very capable IT pro. A lot of people used to turn to them for help and advice.
Even if you clear up the misunderstanding with a few dozen callers over the years and ask for the info to be updated in various databases, the calls can still keep on coming. Eventually, you become pretty good at handling these situations with speed and grace.
You politely inform the person what’s what. You explain to them that, no, you aren’t another IT specialist who might be able to help. And you learn to enjoy the humor of the entire situation.
Getting angry or frustrated about these sorts of things will only drain you. Especially when you know that these aren’t spam callers, but simply regular folks like you or me, who have been misinformed.
Most people are remarkably understanding and apologetic if you give them the benefit of the doubt. But for those moments when the caller refuses to actually listen to you? A bit of fun at their expense can help them come to their senses.
Many readers were worried about what this all meant for the employee whom the manager meant to call
The author later clarified a couple of things in the comments
Some folks had similar stories to share about wrong numbers
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