RECORD STORE TALES Part 228: The Phone

I has been a long time since I’ve had to answer the phone at the record store. As long as it’s been, sometimes I still find myself answering my phone at work, and it just happens: “Good afternoon, [name of record store].”  I’ve stumbled over that a couple times before realizing what I’ve said!

Every time it happens (like today), it takes me right back in time!  The memories flood in all at once.

There were several ways we were supposed to answer the phones at the record store. “Good afternoon, [name of store]” was the main one. Our boss used to answer the phone with “good afternoon” no matter what time it was. 10 am: “good afternoon”. 8 pm: “good afternoon”. I used to tease him about that.

Later on when we got more locations, we changed the phone greeting to, “Good afternoon, [name of store], [address of store].” This was done for customers who were too confused to figure out which location they had just dialed. Although that didn’t stop one guy, who went on an extended cuss-infested tirade because I didn’t have his special order…even though he called the wrong store! You can’t fix stupid.  (This story was recounted back in Part 104: A Nightmare on Cocknuckles Street.)

At Christmas we’d do other variations of the greeting. I personally enjoyed “Merry Christmas, [name of store]” because I for one don’t like “Happy Holidays”. The name of the date on the calendar is Christmas, whether you celebrate it or not, you still get a stat holiday like everyone else.  Happy Holidays my arse.

Tom came up with a few interesting greetings. “Happy Ho Ho, [name of store]” was a good one. Another time he answered “[Name of store], Santa’s little rock shop.” He tried to have fun with it.

Still, the worst answering of the phone that ever happened was on my watch.  It was a busy night, and some kid asked to use the phone for a moment.  We usually obliged such requests, instructing the person to be quick.  Well I turned my back for a moment on this kid, and next thing I knew he had walked halfway across the store with the phone and was having a whole conversation.  I made my way out to retrieve the phone, but it was too late.  The kid had a “call waiting” and answered the store phone for us.

“Hello?  Uhhh, hold on.”  Then he finally acknowledged me.  “It’s for you.”

Idiot!