Pop quiz, hotshot

Let's say you buy something -- pizza, let's say. You pay for it with a credit card. The person you're paying hands you two receipts. One is marked MERCHANT COPY and has a line for your signature. The other says CUSTOMER COPY and has no such line. You sign the merchant copy.

Now: which of the two receipts do you give back to the pizza man?

A) The merchant copy, which you signed and is clearly marked as belonging to the merchant.
B) The customer copy, because obviously they would have needed you to sign your copy, for reasons passing understanding.

If you answered A, congratulations! You're smarter than my customers.

If you answered B, you are one of my customers. And I hate you.

Bank shot

I don't know what happened to it, but there used to be a bank somewhere in our area that had a very similar phone number to ours. As you might expect, we received quite a few misdialed calls. Most of these were quick: "Thank you for calling Pizza Place, can I help you?" "Oh, I'm sorry, I dialed the wrong number." End of story.

Sometimes, though...

As I've discussed, people just don't listen to you when you answer the phone. So we'd go through a few more difficult calls.

"Thank you for calling Pizza Place, can I help you?"
"I need to speak to someone about ordering more checks."
*groan*

One day, Mini Boss had enough. When a woman called asking the status of a deposit she'd made, he played along. He managed to get her account number, her social security number, and her driver's license number. Then he told her that her account had been closed, she owed the bank over a hundred dollars in fees, and that the only person she could talk to about it was on vacation for the next several days.

I imagine the conversation she finally had with the bank was an interesting one.

Worst soda ever

It's not always easy to understand someone when you're talking to them on the phone. It's easy to become distracted, and words can sometimes be difficult to discern -- you'd be surprised how hard it is sometimes to tell the difference between "thin crust" and "thick crust" over the phone. And don't get me started on Avenues B, C, D, and G.

But the most common problem with telephone orders is that people simply don't listen to you when you ask them a question. Instead, they'll supply whatever response they like.

"What's your phone number?"
"2144 Ash Court."
"..."

We're often confused with the far more successful and famous Pizza Conglomerate, which has a location across the street from us. Even though we answer every phone call we receive with "Thank you for calling Pizza Place, can I help you?" customers generally don't realize we're not Pizza Conglomerate until well into the call, if ever.

But sometimes, you get some pretty interesting answers when the person you're talking to isn't listening. Like this exchange: a customer was using a coupon that got her two pizzas and a 2-liter beverage.

"What kind of 2-liter did you want?"
"Garlic sausage."

...What?

What question did she think she was answering? And am I the only one who thinks that Pepsi wouldn't be above a Garlic Sausage Mountain Dew? Maybe.