Phone Calls

I was sitting in my office talking to my boss this morning when the phone rang. It was a lady from a company trying to sell us supplies. I assumed my boss didn't want to talk to her as he was violently shaking his head and mouthing, "I'm not here, I'm not here". She has called before and I have given him the messages but he chooses not to call her back. Nothing I can do about that. I have since stopped reiterating that he needs to call her and now just humor her by pretending to take the message. However, I was not prepared for this. Here is our conversation:

Sheila: Hi, this is Sheila calling from [Company]. Is [Bossman] available?

Me: No, sorry, he's not in right now.

Sheila: Does he have voicemail?

Me: No, sorry, but I can leave him a message.

Sheila: OK, please have him call Sheila at 1-800.

Me: Uh huh. (merely listening and not writing anything down)

Sheila: [xxx]

Me: Uh huh.

Sheila: [xxxx]

Me: Uh huh.

Sheila: ext. [xxx]

Me: OK, got it thanks.

Sheila: Could you do me a favor and repeat that information back to me?

Me: (Oh. My. God.) Uh uh, um, uh, I, um have it written down elsewhere...

Sheila: (very snottily) Right, thanks. Click.

I immediately felt like a real a-hole. Would it have been that difficult to pick up a pen and jot a few numbers down whether I was going to pass them along or not? Apparently so. So I decided in order to make myself feel better, I would make someone else feel like an a-hole!

My next phone call:

Me: Thanks for calling [Company]. This is Dana, how may I help you?

Lady: (most likely calling from Taiwan) Yes, I need to know the name of the man who is in charge of maintenance.

Me: Excuse me?

Lady: Could you please tell me the name of the man who is in charge of maintenance?

Me: Well, why would you ASSUME that a man is in charge of maintenance? I am, in fact, in charge of maintenance (I am soooo not in charge of maintenance).

Lady: Er, oh, um. Click.

But that didn't make me feel any better. Having a conscience sucks. I decided I had to prove to Sheila that I had her information elsewhere and that I was passing it along to my bossman. I scoured old emails and notes until I came across what I hoped was the right number and extension and sent my boss an email. I then forwarded that email to her with my boss' email address just in case she wanted to email him. I felt a teeny weeny bit better.

But why stop there? Next I forced my boss to actually call her back. He begged and pleaded with me not to make him do it but there was no use fighting with a girl who had set out to prove she's not a complete bitch. He called her, mentioned that I had told him she called and then actually had a productive conversation about a part he needed.

Bossman: It's item number PSOT090775

Sheila: OK, I got it.

Bossman: Now Sheila, would you mind doing me a favor and repeating that information back to me?

Now who's the a-hole?