The Old Switcheroo
I have been serving Big Ass Fans as our Receptionist Extraordinaire for just over 2½ years now. During that time, I’ve managed to gain somewhat of a reputation among the office, as well as from callers, as being an exceptional gatekeeper. Well, that may be putting it nicely. To quote a couple of my beloved co-workers, I may be better known as the “Salesperson’s Nightmare” or my personal favorite, “The Nazi Receptionist”. (Thanks Karen!)
I’m sure that the majority of receptionists out there can probably feel where I am coming from, especially if they consider themselves any kind of a gatekeeper at all. I was consistently surprised at the lengths that salespeople would go to in order to break through my carefully built “gate”.
Our poor, busy receptionist
One morning, a couple of years ago, I had a solicitor call me repeatedly – I’m talking like 5 times between 8:00 – 9:00 in the morning – for our Marketing Director, for the sake of the story, I will just call him MD. Knowing that MD was in a meeting, I had sent the caller to voice mail. Finally, he told me that he was with a bank and that he was calling about MD’s account, because he feared that it had been hacked into and money was being stolen from it.
Naturally, I found this a little fishy and when he told me that he didn’t have MD’s home or cell number, I saw red flags all over the call. I called MD out of his meeting and explained to him what the caller was telling me and MD agreed that it sounded weird but took the phone call.
Within just a few moments, MD called to tell me that as soon as he answered the phone, the caller started talking about Big Ass Fans advertising during the Super Bowl!
He interrupted the caller to ask what all of this hoopla with his “bank account” was about, and the caller denied ever having said anything of the sort! Naturally, MD wasn’t buying it and promptly ended the call. I hope that caller realized he didn’t just lose a potential client with that stunt, he cost his company credibility.
I wish I could say that this was the only dishonest solicitor I’ve had over these years, but unfortunately I can’t. This prompts me to ask, what crazy phone calls have ended up at your desk?