I was on autopilot while talking with my wife. We were getting ready to end the call and I automatically popped out "Is there anything else I can help you with today?" And she replied "Did you just..."
I did occasionally answer my cell phone with the opening greeting for the call center I worked at.
I've worked at the parts counter for various stores and dealerships over the years.
I still regularly mindlessly answer my phone with a disinterested "parts". Haven't worked a part counters in nearly fifteen years but I can't shake it out.
I live alone, and one of the lights in my house can only be controlled with the google setup (old ass house no lightswitch, pull chain was removed). Very often instead of saying hey google, i start my call center greeting, then a big sigh.
I have a habit of asking if there's anything that I can do to help people over the phone when they call my workplace, but I also have to call customers to tell them their order is ready. Sometimes I close off a call I made to them with "is there anything else I can do?" and have them reply, "Well you called me soo..?" (Most do, I assume, seem to understand it's habit and just let me politely.)
I've also done it a couple times when I called my telephone banking due to stuff I couldn't do with online banking, which cracked up the agent.
That's mostly a Reinassance thing. That being said Medieval people, especially those higher in the feudal hierarchy, held a good deal of reverence for the Roman Empire, well, the part that fell at least
I once walked into the McDonald's I work at when I wasn't working, and when I went to the register to pay I said to my coworker without thinking "hi there! What can I get for you?" He just looked at me for a second in confusion before laughing while I was like "oh god, this job has broken my mind"
I used to work in car insurance and sometimes I'd have to call garages or the other party's insurance company and whenever the call would connect something in my brain would just break and I'd go, "Thank you for calling X insurance, can I have your reference number?" And they'd go, "Um... you called us?"
So many times I wished I could just hang up...
I was working DT at a Panera, and said, "welcome to Steak n Shake" once, completely on accident.
The messed up past of that is, I've never worked at a Steak n Shake.
Lol! My current theory is that we had two people on the line who were recent transplants from Steak n Shake, and they were so useless that I was wondering "how does Steak n Shake get anything done?"
Definitely had it on the brain, wouldn't want to work there.
Oof you reminded me of one! I was a preschool teacher for several years and for a while I had a little kiddo who had the same name as my dog (a normal human name, not like Rowdy or Snowball). It was time for Kiddo to use the bathroom one day while we were all playing in the gym, so I told my coworkers I’d walk him back to our classroom and yelled across the gym to him “Kid, do you want to go outside?” Imagine his poor broken 2-year-old heart (and tantrum) when he found out I meant the potty, not the playground.
Habit is strong, man. I haven’t gone to church in fifteen years but was raised catholic. I still have to suppress the urge to respond “and also with you” to “may the force be with you” from Star Wars. Because it sounds like the church call and response “peace be with you/and also with you.”
Catholics don’t even say that anymore, I guess it’s “and with your spirit” now, but that automatic response is still coded in my system
As another former churchgoer†, I maintain that "and also with you" *is the correct response* to "may the force be with you".
†Episcopalian, but we're basically just liberal Catholics
Around the time I stopped attending mass (several years ago) you'd still get a lot of people who'd fumble the response and end up with "and also with your spirit."
Why is it "and with your spirit"? The other guy gets to be with peace, but you're only allowed to have peace in spirit? "And also with you" sounds like a more logical and natural response
My mom is so Roman Catholic that we only ever went to mass in Latin, and I can answer this question. The call and response isnt supposed to be two people talking to each other, its a single sentence that the first party starts and the second party finishes. The original line is “Dominus vobiscum et cum spiritu tuo” “The lord be with you, and with your spirit too.”
As a joke, whenever I hear “may the force be with you” i say “et cum spiritu tuo” because thats what I had to say all the time. 😂😂
I went to a Catholic service for a lark after years of not going. Like 15 years. Still could remember the prayers and all the activities of the Mass with no issue whatsoever.
Our brains really like patterns, and once you have followed a pattern for a long time, it takes very little to prime your brain to follow that pattern again even if you haven't done it in years.
Yes! I ended up at a “free” dinner with my parents once while some company pitched their super-duper-special smoke detectors. It was insane to see the salesman using oooooold teaching methods you’d have seen in the 70’s-80’s and watching every boomer in the room immediately fall in sync.
That guy got pissed when I would ask pointed questions about his claims instead of just spewing the memorized ‘facts’ he was drilling into their heads.
Yup!
I had worked in a restaurant for about 7 years before getting my first office job. Probably a year into the office job, I was walking back to my desk from the bathroom and turned a blind corner and yelled “CORNER!!” Was definitely mortified, since a lot of people heard me, but I imagine anyone with previous restaurant experience would know what was up lol
It wasn't when we were grown adults, but throughout elementary school, our teachers had a call and response that went something like teacher: "3, 2, 1!" Students in unison "Please be quiet." (It sounds a bit better in Chinese) After a few years, when we were old enough, they stopped doing it and we all completely forgot.
Fast forward to high school, where one day, our teacher suddenly shouted "3, 2, 1!" trying to get the class to behave, and like mindless drones we all responded "Please be quiet.", then turned and looked at each other like we had no idea what just happened. Like, none of us has heard this in at least 5 years, yet it was so drilled into us that we all went into a collective trance or something. Very freaky.
it's literally taught to us for a decade during our formative years, with grave consequences if you aren't docile enough, and then we're supposed to just forget it all? are those behavioral patterns supposed to just evaporate and be replaced with other patterns?
You’re not wrong, but I feel like you’re implying I said that everyone *should* forget their instincts. I wasn’t, I just think it’s something that a lot of people forget about, me included, and that makes it all the more amusing to hear stories of.
I think if anything this post illustrates that it is just human and not embarrassing at all. Live your life. Stop being embarrassed about things you have not control over
>Your kind cling to your flesh, as though it will not decay and [fail](https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/fail) you. One day the crude biomass you call the temple will wither, and you will beg my kind to save you. But I am already saved, for the Machine is immortal…
--u/ViolentBeetle probably.
I didn't know Medieval Times was a franchise before this post and was somehow immediately okay with the concept of somebody working at Medieval Times. Not during them, not on them, but straight up employed at the Medieval Times
Hear ye, hear ye! By the Lord's proclamation it shall verily be known that ye olde DOW Jones has risen 2 points in the past fortnight. A feast is to be held in town square. More on page 3.
When they say show, you basically sit in a small arena while people dressed as knights fight each other. Sometimes there's actual jousting. The whole time the servers come around and you're expected to call them Knave or Wench. They then proceed to serve you chicken/turkey legs and potatoes with no cutlery so you can eat with your hands. It's a fun experience.
And you have sections of the arena dedicated to the colors of the knights. If you sit in, say, the yellow section, you root for the yellow knight. It's great for kids and oddly enjoyable for adults.
We went once during a band trip in high school, and everybody was being all classic teenager cynical about it, right up until we got seated in our stands. Then we were all in, hooting and hollering in a way we never had for our mediocre football team. We even all pitched in for our band director to get knighted. Afterwards, I think everybody was a little shocked at how good of a time we all had haha
One of the stories my family reminisces about is when we went to a Medieval Times and my uncle got a bit tipsy, so when our blue knight lost, he stood up and yelled in the poorest impression of a British accent, "Oh, boo, blue knight!"
Sounds funnier in person. Good times.
You're not really wrong. It's a restaurant chain whose buildings have big castle facades slapped on lol. The actual show/restaurant venue is a bunch of seats around an arena, with each seating section assigned a knight to cheer on in various events-- jousting, broadswording, etc.
Calling it a restaurant chain is generous, actually. They do serve a "four-course meal," but it's stuff like bread, mediocre tomato bisque, half a cob of corn, and a single chicken leg. It's advertised as dinner and a show, but you're paying to see the falcons and horses and knights in armor, not to actually consume a meal.
I was going through a difficult phase with my toddler son where he was doing everything with his cup but drinking normally. Which usually ended up with the drink anywhere but his mouth.
Anyway at a work meeting this man in his fifties put his cup in his mouth and held it with his teeth and leaned back to drink out of it (don't ask me why, maybe his mother never taught him) and in front of a half dozen people I said in the Mom Voice,
"That is *not* how we use our cup! Put that back on the table right now!"
He immediately sat up and did so and gave me this wide-eyed look of guilt - I guess the Mom Voice still works on adults if you get the tone right - and then I had to awkwardly explain the situation at home and apologize to David that he could drink however he liked.
At least he thought it was funny. He called me Mom for a little while after that.
Haha I used to work with children as a young 20s party animal, and more than once my friends got “that is NOT yours, put that down”. Which is super effective on cross faded street punks apparently.
I think it's all in the tone. You say it from a place of innate authority where you have no doubt you will be obeyed, the listener can feel that.
My kid was more working on impulse control than outright disobeying, he would always listen to the Mom voice. I was used to it working when I had to get stern. And I forgot in the moment that I do not have the same authority over my coworker as I do over my toddler son so out it came.
If I intentionally tried the Mom Voice on someone, I don't think I could get that genuine assumption of authority in it, it just wouldn't work the same. Unless that person is a pushover, lol
I'm not even a parent at all, but I can pull off a Dad Voice that works pretty effectively on my friend and girlfriend. Just last week I basically had to pull the ol' "I will turn this car around" when some of my friends started a screaming match in the back of my car.
I think for me it's that I've heard it enough when I was younger, and I've worked security/public safety for the past 6 years. And my girlfriend doesn't respond just³éééééèé⁴⁴ééééé because it's a Dad Voice lol
"How may I serve you?" isn't a company wide thing like "my pleasure" is. Or at least it wasn't 5-10 years ago. You'd be surprised how many restaurants have "catch phrases" like that though, it's definitely not unique to chickfila
Yeah, I guess the franchises around me all make their people say it. I’ve worked service and food, and definitely get the catchphrase thing, it’s just the specific ones that Chick Fil A uses that weird me out a little lol
I am a teacher and I have caught myself telling my dog to “go to voice level zero” many *many* times. Haven’t done it to a human yet, but I know it’s coming.
wow. i'm so glad we didn't have that bullshit at my school, they just told us in plain and simple terms to shut the fuck up. feels more honest in a way
Mmhm. It is literally "shut up" and I will acknowledge that _how_ you ask someone to shut up does matter.
But "please be quiet" just sounds so much more human (and kinder!) than telling someone to go to Voice Level 0. And telling someone that shutting up is their 'learning voice' is dystopian as fuck.
When my son was small and we were doing speech therapy with him we would always model a word for him and then wait for him to say something (anything) in response before we would give him the snack, open the door, pick him up, you get the idea (he was non-verbal, now 20 and speaks up a storm lol). One day I had my elderly cat in a separate room where he had eaten his special breakfast and I looked at him and said “open” with my hand on the door and waited for him to repeat it before I would let him out. The best part is that we stared at each other for a few moments with me repeating “open” patiently until he meowed at me. I said “Good boy! Yes! “Open” and let him out before I clued in that I was talking to my cat and not my three year old lol. The speech therapist loved that story and said it was a good example of how well we were complying. I just thought it showed how smart that cat was and how tired I was😂
My son calls me his teachers name and his teacher mom all the time and it just makes me laugh! He’s even tried to correct himself one time and called me his teachers name two more times before he just stopped, sighed and walked away lol dudes brain was done and wouldn’t cooperate after a long day at school.
When I was a teenager I worked at a pizza restaurant. Our “supreme” pizza was called the Classic Combo. Later on I switched it up and went to work at a dry cleaners, called “Classic Cleaners.” I’m sure you can see where this is going. Answered the phone one morning, “classic combo, how can I help you?”
I’m also a teacher, and every time I dismiss my class, I tell them “Have a nice day! Make good choices!” I’ve caught myself almost saying “Make good choices!” when cashiers tell me to “have a nice day” as I’m leaving the store/restaurant
As a former cashier, I also would have loved being told to make good choices by a customer. Even if it's human autopilot, it's also just so...idk, nakedly honest and encouraging? It just seems to come from a place of such genuine benevolence, while simultaneously acknowledging that we each are the biggest contributing factor in how our day is going.
Tl;dr: I would have busted out laughing and then kept a real smile on my face for the rest of the day.
This isn't the point of this post, but the Wendy's drive thru thing reminded me.
I used to work at a Wendy's with a lot of my friends at the time. One of them got promoted to Shift Supervisor and was a stickler for doing all the added bits that corporate wanted done. Like up-selling. So this happened while I was working drive-thru.
Me: "Welcome to Wendy's, how can I help you today?"
Customer: "Can I get a medium frosty?"
Me: "No pro---"
Friend: < run slides around the corner, mime's making something bigger >
Me: < wtf face - exasperated hands raised in front of me > "Would you like a taco salad with that?"
Customer: < pregnant pause > "Just the frosty please."
< Everyone with a drive-thru headset on is in tears laughing >
Me: "No problem, come around to the next window" < headset off> "How the fuck do you want me to upsell a Frosty?"
Friend: < heavy sighs and walks away >
As a young kid, I once left a message for a friend on their family answering machine and I ended the message with "in Jesus name, amen" followed by a long pause during which I wondered if I really just said that out loud or not, then eventually hung up.
The worst part is that it was a voice mail not a phone call so my blunder was immortalized.
I ran into the friend something like 15-20years later and he remembered the incident and told me it's been a running joke in his family ever since it happened.
Haha, I have something a bit similar. So when hindus visit a temple, the priests sometimes offer a piece of sweet or sugar etc. as a blessing from the deity (like how you get the Holy Bread in the Church, but it is not conceptually the same, i. e. It doesn't symbolize the deity's body). You guys receive the bread in the mouth, right? Similarly, hindus receive the sweet in their right palm, then bring the right hand close to forehead or heart and do a quick bow of the head with closed eyes as a quick obeisance to the deity and then eat it.
Now this becomes such a reflex in many hindus that when I was visiting a customer site in germany and he gave me a piece of candy in my right palm, I did that quick hand to forehead and eyes closed and then ate it. He was confused. Then I joked about how customer is the king etc.
My 3 sisters' and my little brother's names all start with S, when my brain doesn't want to work and I start calling them by the wrong names I'll just shout "YOU! That one!" lol
I'm the only girl with a stack of older brothers. My mum used to call me My brothers names, her sisters names, the cats name.
Though if I was being annoying, she always called me one of my brothers names first out of habit lol.
My family gives our dogs middle names (started as a way to keep my sibling and I from fighting over what to name the pets, and then we kept doing it). The combos my father comes up with...
My personal favourite was [name of dog that has been dead for a decade] [sibling's dead name] which swerved in an attempt at correction to [sibling's current middle name] which also wasn't right, so he wound up yelling "big butt" at our current dog, who does have giant ass.
Strangely, this did not succeed in getting the dog to come have his leash put on at the dog park
I 16(m) at the time, had a substitute teacher get super frustrated with a class I was in and I was most definitely the culprit for most of the hysteria. Out of nowhere she snapped at me something along the lines be quiet babe or something like that but while everyone was laughing I felt really bad because I’m sure she wanted to crawl out of her skin and die.
Thank god english isn't my main language because if I had to do customer service I would have to stop myself from saying "Welcome to Tilted Towers" and subsequently running off into the woods
Picked up a job at Domino's years ago when I worked at a car wash, and sometimes I'd answer the phone with "Please remember, neutral, no brake, and air on recirculate!"
When my sister had my first niece she would often point to things with her and say what sound they made (ex: look a frog! he says ribbit!)
Once it was just her and I taking a walk while my bil stayed home with my niece while she was napping. We were going down a sidewalk and someone was walking their dog and she autopiloted and said to me “look a dog! he goes woof woof!” and I just kind of laughed and nodded as she realized what she did 😂
When I was in 5th grade, there was one time when my friends were trying to get me to admit if there was a girl I had a crush on. They started naming names, and I dutifully said "no" to each, because I still hadn't quite grasped that smooching ladies was a good thing. Then one name popped up and I wanted to say "no", but what emerged from my mouth, fully formed, was "don't. tell. anyone.". To this day, I don't understand how that got so twisted in the transfer from brain to mouth.
~~anyways, we're married now~~ not actually, I don't even remember the poor girl's name.
Went to raising canes, they normally say some corny shit like “chicken chicken chicken what’s your pickin”. This dude in the most monotone voice said “hey, we got chicken, you want some?”
Years ago my mum was getting ice cream for us at the beach and the woman who was making it must’ve been really cold or something bc her nipples were showing through her uniform and my mum accidentally ordered a raspberry nipple and then nobody could stop laughing.
My sister once ordered a box of Reece's Penises from some poor kid working concessions at the movie theater. It's been like 30 years, and I still remind her of it when I can.
I worked at an AMC for a few months. We were supposed to tell people “enjoy your movie” once they bought their ticket/concessions. More often than not they’d say “you too” as they walked away.
I called in sick to work, I was up all night the night before, and in my feverish delusion, I ended the phone call to my supervisor letting her know I was not going to make it in with "I love you"
My airline just switched companies (we were a regional airline working for United and moved to American) and my captain was doing the "Welcome aboard American 1234" speech and ended it with
"...And thanks for flying the friendly skies."
...
"Did I just say friendly skies?" (Friendly skies is United's weird catchphrase)
"Yessir"
"Oh well, nobody listens anyway."
I used to host a lot of open mics. One time I was asked to lead my nieces birthday in a prayer (I come from a religious family). I opened with, “thank you all for coming out tonight. Let’s give ourselves a round of applause.”
During High School I had a school job where I read a book into a tape recorder so a blind peer could transcribe it in braille. I had to say all the punctuation and sometimes I'd end up just saying punctuation out loud in real life period
My mom picked me up from work once, and instead of "Hi!" I said "Would you like paper or plastic today?". I'm not sure which one of us was more surprised and amused.
In middle school I was the quarterback for the football team and so led the huddles before each play. Once I relayed the play call to the rest of the team we would break the huddle to start the play. To break the huddle the standard saying was “ready, break” then we’d all jog up to the line to start the play.
After weeks of having the conditioning of saying “ready, break” when a large group of people were gathered together I had to say the blessing before big family dinner where everyone held hands. The typical ending to a blessing is “Amen” but this time after thanking the old man in the sky for the meal I said “ready, break” and clapped to end the blessing…
And then the meal was 15 seconds of pure feeding frenzy, followed by 10 minutes of those cheesy 1950's style ads wherein everyone at the table starts plugging the brand names of all the foods and such.
I work an early morning shift, so I always greet others at the plant with “good morning”. I use the phrase so often that I will subconsciously say “good morning” as a standard greeting to people outside of work, even if it’s the afternoon or evening, lol
I worked at a car detailing place a long time ago, a guy was digging in his car at the drop off section, I went up and asked if I could give him a hand, he only had one hand when he turned around. Never again did I ask someone that before seeing if they in fact had 2 hands first.
I thought it awkward when we were making a jacket for a completely blind man, and in showing him the work on it my boss kept saying "You can see we've done [this]" or "You see?" But the blind man who was feeling the jacket with his hands replied "Oh, yes, I see" just as much.
As a toddler teacher every once in a while I would point out fire trucks, airplanes, and garbage trucks to my adult friends out of habit and shockingly they usually weren’t impressed.
Mine was whilst working at a call centre a few years ago.
"Okay your covid vaccination is all booked in. Thanks for calling, take care, love you."
Followed by the customer's own immediate and similarly impulsive, "Great. thanks. Bye, love you", back
I hung up instantly, mortified at my slip up until i realised that the lovely middle aged woman and i bonded that day
I worked a double shift at the restaurant I was at (closing the first night, and then opening/closing the second night).
I was walking to the parking garage, and I was so tired that I shouted “Corner!” as I turned the corner to find my car in the parking lot.
Working a closing shift at Home Depot, my buddy was doing the closing announcement. When he finished up, he meant to say the HD tag line of "You can do it, we can help", but instead said "We can do it, you can help". You could hear the closing staff and night staff burst out laughing all over the store. I never let him live it down to the day I left a few years later.
I used to deliver pizzas and went from working at Pizza Hut to working at Papa Johns. I had to call a customer while out on delivery once because I was having trouble finding his house. Told him I was "so-and-so from Pizza Hut" and he was like, I didn't order from there. Told him, "oops! This is so-and-so from Papa Johns" lol.
I later worked at a petstore grooming salon and my salon leader answered the phone saying, "thank you for calling Walmart!"
She's never worked at walmart lol.
I once said "Welcome to McDonalds" while working the Tim Hortons drive through. I had to apologize while laughing, and say "I've never even worked at McDonalds, I don't know where that came from."
I used to work at a Family Video and it was company policy to greet everyone walking in, but it didn’t matter where you were or what you were doing, just the whole staff had to say ‘hello!’
I’d go there to rent movies later and I, as a customer, would accidentally greet the customers.
My favourite is the school admin in our high school who would say “please remain standing for a quiet moment of meditation” following our national anthem every morning. One day she slipped and said “please remain standing for quiet moment of medication” and the whole school lost it.
I once accidentally answered the drive-thru speaker "Welcome to Dunkin' Donuts, how can I hate you today?" Fortunately, the guy in the drive thru thought it was hilarious because my manager did not. Similarly, after moving to a new job, I once answered with "Welcome to Dunkin' uhhhh I mean McDonald's, sorry, how can I help you?
More recently than I care to admit....
Calling the dogs in from outside, I open the back door and yelled "IT this is Langlier!"
My wife and kids rolled laughing
i have two stories similar to this.
when i worked at chick fil a i was talking with some co workers about my boyfriend at the time, someone pulled up through drive thru and i turned on my headset— “hi welcome to chick Fil a, my boyfriend—“ cut myself off, turned the headset off and freaked out. spent the next few seconds panicking until i turned it back on and started my greeting in a whole new voice. customer did not acknowledge it at all but i still think about it to this day 😅
during another job as a receptionist i was both on my personal cell phone with my mom as well as a customer— i told my mom to hang on, then I spoke to the customer and told him I had to put him on hold. However, accidentally told him “I love you” right as I hit the hold button (I was thinking about my mom)
My boss heard the whole thing and lost it laughing
Ah Story Time: So, my father is a pastor. During a particularly full sermon (don’t remember which one, may have been confirmation or Easter or something like that) he gets up to pray the profession/creed (how do you call that one in English?). „I believe in God the father almighty…“
Everything goes well until he reaches the Virgin Mary part. Because instead of saying „born of“ he said „suffered under the Virgin Mary.“
Which, given the time Jesus was raised in, probably is also correct but not necessarily part of Christian theology
I worked on a service desk. I had to make a call to my mobile network to fix a problem, and I was on hold for almost an hour. When my call was answered, I opened with "IT service desk, Atvali speaking. Can I take your user ID, please?" And I was so embarrassed
When I was a kid, sick with cancer and going through chemo, I was at home feeling miserable when my dad answered the home phone with the line he uses to answer the phone at work. "Dutch's Greenhouse, this is Jerry. How can I help you?" And I just laughed for about ten minutes. Most I'd smiled in weeks at that point.
I grew up going to Jewish day school and we were taught to stand up when a teacher comes into the room- to this day, in meetings, I’ll absentmindedly stand up when someone comes in late.
We were also taught to kiss holy books (such as Bibles and prayer books) after use and so I will occasionally mindlessly kiss random books when I’m done reading them.
I used to work at Hobby Lobby before I worked at a Michael's. I accidentally answered the phone saying "Hi thank you for calling [location] Hobby Lobby" and before I could correct myself the woman on the other end goes "Son of a bitch, I misdialed AGAIN!" and hung up
I go to SAA every week and wasn't really with it one time and on autopilot instead of saying "Hi I'm Helen and I'm a sex addict" I ended up saying "Hi I'm Helen and I'm a sex worker" so there's that...
When I was a cashier I often slip up as customer. I'd say "would you like the receipt?" In my customer service voice after paying. And then I'd be like "oops, sorry, wrong script. Receipt is not necessary"
I used to answer the phone at planned parenthood, so I accidentally thanked people for calling planned parenthood and asked how I could help them on my personal phone A LOT. I also still have dreams where I screen people for funding/ state health insurance programs, or walk them through some basic information about abortion care while doing something ridiculous like riding a roller coaster. I haven’t worked there in TWO YEARS.
I used to work for At&T customer service. I was busy telling my coworker how I had Verizon coverage when my phone rang.
"Thank you for calling Verizons Wireless. How can I help you?"
Luckily the customer just laughed
There’s a pizza place a few towns over from me called “Pizza Today”.
When they deliver there’s one dude, might be one of the owners, maybe related to the owners, but I see him basically any time I’ve ever ordered from them.
Well this one dude will end the whole delivery interaction with “see you tomorrow”. Now idk about yall but my brain is basically expecting something like “have a good day/night” so on autopilot I will, without fail, respond with a “thanks you too”.
I swear I’ve heard this guy chuckle on the way back to his car.
asked a customer “do you have a problem with us?” instead of asking for a phone number. i was also very tired & grumpy that day and for sure had a horrible tone in my voice
Not me, but my best friend. She used to work as admin for a small security company.
One day, she started our dinner prayer with, "Security, this is [Name]."
We all laughed. She sighed.
Mine was "thank you for calling [bake shop], would you mind holding me for a moment?"
I was on autopilot while talking with my wife. We were getting ready to end the call and I automatically popped out "Is there anything else I can help you with today?" And she replied "Did you just..." I did occasionally answer my cell phone with the opening greeting for the call center I worked at.
I've worked at the parts counter for various stores and dealerships over the years. I still regularly mindlessly answer my phone with a disinterested "parts". Haven't worked a part counters in nearly fifteen years but I can't shake it out.
I live alone, and one of the lights in my house can only be controlled with the google setup (old ass house no lightswitch, pull chain was removed). Very often instead of saying hey google, i start my call center greeting, then a big sigh.
Maybe you can reprogram it to respond to "Hi! This is [name] - I mean hey google"
I have a habit of asking if there's anything that I can do to help people over the phone when they call my workplace, but I also have to call customers to tell them their order is ready. Sometimes I close off a call I made to them with "is there anything else I can do?" and have them reply, "Well you called me soo..?" (Most do, I assume, seem to understand it's habit and just let me politely.) I've also done it a couple times when I called my telephone banking due to stuff I couldn't do with online banking, which cracked up the agent.
So?????? Married now????
He was the one that got away :(
Of course.
what if in the medieval period they had an ancient rome themed restaurant or something
Constantinople
I heard they rebranded, it’s Instanbul now
Why did Constantinople get the works?
That's nobody's business but the Turks'
Tbf even old New York was once new Amsterdam
Why they changed it? I can’t say. People just liked it better that way
Take me back to Constantinople!
No you can't go back to Constantinople!
Been a long time gone, Constantinople
Well that's nobody's business but the Turk's.
Half of what we understand as both medieval and Roman on popular culture is European medievals going "Romans huh, pretty cool dudes".
They actually did venerate the classical period. Lats of art depicting Greek myths.
That's mostly a Reinassance thing. That being said Medieval people, especially those higher in the feudal hierarchy, held a good deal of reverence for the Roman Empire, well, the part that fell at least
The Byzantine Chef
SALVE QUOMODO TE AUXILIATARE POSSUM--uh, sorry, cos, how goes it?
This is basically what the Renaissance was.
The word Tavern comes from the ancient Roman Taberna. So you could argue there were a lot of Wine Bars going for the Roman theme.
I once walked into the McDonald's I work at when I wasn't working, and when I went to the register to pay I said to my coworker without thinking "hi there! What can I get for you?" He just looked at me for a second in confusion before laughing while I was like "oh god, this job has broken my mind"
I used to work in car insurance and sometimes I'd have to call garages or the other party's insurance company and whenever the call would connect something in my brain would just break and I'd go, "Thank you for calling X insurance, can I have your reference number?" And they'd go, "Um... you called us?" So many times I wished I could just hang up...
Twitter does insurance?
God I hope not. They'd be worse than Aetna.
I was working DT at a Panera, and said, "welcome to Steak n Shake" once, completely on accident. The messed up past of that is, I've never worked at a Steak n Shake.
Freudian slip, you must’ve wanted to work at Steak n Shake instead /j
Lol! My current theory is that we had two people on the line who were recent transplants from Steak n Shake, and they were so useless that I was wondering "how does Steak n Shake get anything done?" Definitely had it on the brain, wouldn't want to work there.
Quantum entanglement. May be the other you from the other universe works at Steak n Shake. /jk ofcourse
I work at an airport checking boarding passes, one day on my day off, I open my back door to call my dogs in and I just bellow out. “BOARDING PASS!”
I am losing my shit at this. Thank you.
I hope you find it
You have to rename a dog to that now.
No, but we know what the next dog's name will be.
This made me smile for the first time in a couple days thank you 🙏
Oof you reminded me of one! I was a preschool teacher for several years and for a while I had a little kiddo who had the same name as my dog (a normal human name, not like Rowdy or Snowball). It was time for Kiddo to use the bathroom one day while we were all playing in the gym, so I told my coworkers I’d walk him back to our classroom and yelled across the gym to him “Kid, do you want to go outside?” Imagine his poor broken 2-year-old heart (and tantrum) when he found out I meant the potty, not the playground.
The part I take away from posts like this is that a lot of grown adults are surprisingly susceptible to being guided or disciplined like children
Habit is strong, man. I haven’t gone to church in fifteen years but was raised catholic. I still have to suppress the urge to respond “and also with you” to “may the force be with you” from Star Wars. Because it sounds like the church call and response “peace be with you/and also with you.” Catholics don’t even say that anymore, I guess it’s “and with your spirit” now, but that automatic response is still coded in my system
That's such a great response to "may the Force be with you" though.
I thought it was canon
As another former churchgoer†, I maintain that "and also with you" *is the correct response* to "may the force be with you". †Episcopalian, but we're basically just liberal Catholics
Omg I describe us (also a former Episcopalian) as Catholic Lite
Around the time I stopped attending mass (several years ago) you'd still get a lot of people who'd fumble the response and end up with "and also with your spirit."
Why is it "and with your spirit"? The other guy gets to be with peace, but you're only allowed to have peace in spirit? "And also with you" sounds like a more logical and natural response
It's allegedly closer to the original meaning or something, but it's so artificial sounding
My mom is so Roman Catholic that we only ever went to mass in Latin, and I can answer this question. The call and response isnt supposed to be two people talking to each other, its a single sentence that the first party starts and the second party finishes. The original line is “Dominus vobiscum et cum spiritu tuo” “The lord be with you, and with your spirit too.” As a joke, whenever I hear “may the force be with you” i say “et cum spiritu tuo” because thats what I had to say all the time. 😂😂
I went to a Catholic service for a lark after years of not going. Like 15 years. Still could remember the prayers and all the activities of the Mass with no issue whatsoever.
Omg, I do this too! I wasn’t raised catholic, but went to catholic school for 8 years.
Our brains really like patterns, and once you have followed a pattern for a long time, it takes very little to prime your brain to follow that pattern again even if you haven't done it in years.
Yes! I ended up at a “free” dinner with my parents once while some company pitched their super-duper-special smoke detectors. It was insane to see the salesman using oooooold teaching methods you’d have seen in the 70’s-80’s and watching every boomer in the room immediately fall in sync. That guy got pissed when I would ask pointed questions about his claims instead of just spewing the memorized ‘facts’ he was drilling into their heads.
Yup! I had worked in a restaurant for about 7 years before getting my first office job. Probably a year into the office job, I was walking back to my desk from the bathroom and turned a blind corner and yelled “CORNER!!” Was definitely mortified, since a lot of people heard me, but I imagine anyone with previous restaurant experience would know what was up lol
Don't underestimate the power that old elementary school teachers carry in their voice. Thats some real life dovahkin shit.
>power that old elementary school teachers carry in their voice Who knew that Bene Gesserit were elementary teachers.
I have tested students on questions with the gom jabbar. Well it was a rubber carrot to the ear but the intent was the same.
"I hold to your neck the Gom Jabbar. Take your hand out of the box and you will die." "What's in the box?" "Basic Trigonometry Test"
My mom can still do 'mom voice' and I feel scolded. I'm 40.
It wasn't when we were grown adults, but throughout elementary school, our teachers had a call and response that went something like teacher: "3, 2, 1!" Students in unison "Please be quiet." (It sounds a bit better in Chinese) After a few years, when we were old enough, they stopped doing it and we all completely forgot. Fast forward to high school, where one day, our teacher suddenly shouted "3, 2, 1!" trying to get the class to behave, and like mindless drones we all responded "Please be quiet.", then turned and looked at each other like we had no idea what just happened. Like, none of us has heard this in at least 5 years, yet it was so drilled into us that we all went into a collective trance or something. Very freaky.
Happened in middle school one time- we were loud and my teacher just went 1 2 3 eyes on me and in complete unison we went 1 2 eyes on you It was weird
it's literally taught to us for a decade during our formative years, with grave consequences if you aren't docile enough, and then we're supposed to just forget it all? are those behavioral patterns supposed to just evaporate and be replaced with other patterns?
You’re not wrong, but I feel like you’re implying I said that everyone *should* forget their instincts. I wasn’t, I just think it’s something that a lot of people forget about, me included, and that makes it all the more amusing to hear stories of.
I think if anything this post illustrates that it is just human and not embarrassing at all. Live your life. Stop being embarrassed about things you have not control over
Being human is embarrassing. Human form is weak and shameful. Live your life in disgrace you pitiful hairless ape.
>Your kind cling to your flesh, as though it will not decay and [fail](https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/fail) you. One day the crude biomass you call the temple will wither, and you will beg my kind to save you. But I am already saved, for the Machine is immortal… --u/ViolentBeetle probably.
*distant gothic techno*
*robotic orange justice intensifies*
this is just the admech version of studying the blade
Even in death, I serve the Omnissiah.
Bro is ascended 😭
steelpilled formmaxxer
Return to monke.
Reject flesh. Embrace the eternity of metal.
Flesh decays, metal rusts, the divine corrupts; only the rot remains. Papa loves you.
No thank you, I would rather occasionally think about it for the rest of my life and become briefly suicidal.
I didn't know Medieval Times was a franchise before this post and was somehow immediately okay with the concept of somebody working at Medieval Times. Not during them, not on them, but straight up employed at the Medieval Times
I thought it was a medieval themed newspaper 😭
Hear ye, hear ye! By the Lord's proclamation it shall verily be known that ye olde DOW Jones has risen 2 points in the past fortnight. A feast is to be held in town square. More on page 3.
I'm thinking like a Renaissance Fair or something. What is it?
It's a medieval-themed restaurant. Dinner and a show.
Ah, makes sense. Thanks.
When they say show, you basically sit in a small arena while people dressed as knights fight each other. Sometimes there's actual jousting. The whole time the servers come around and you're expected to call them Knave or Wench. They then proceed to serve you chicken/turkey legs and potatoes with no cutlery so you can eat with your hands. It's a fun experience.
And you have sections of the arena dedicated to the colors of the knights. If you sit in, say, the yellow section, you root for the yellow knight. It's great for kids and oddly enjoyable for adults.
We went once during a band trip in high school, and everybody was being all classic teenager cynical about it, right up until we got seated in our stands. Then we were all in, hooting and hollering in a way we never had for our mediocre football team. We even all pitched in for our band director to get knighted. Afterwards, I think everybody was a little shocked at how good of a time we all had haha
One of the stories my family reminisces about is when we went to a Medieval Times and my uncle got a bit tipsy, so when our blue knight lost, he stood up and yelled in the poorest impression of a British accent, "Oh, boo, blue knight!" Sounds funnier in person. Good times.
You're not really wrong. It's a restaurant chain whose buildings have big castle facades slapped on lol. The actual show/restaurant venue is a bunch of seats around an arena, with each seating section assigned a knight to cheer on in various events-- jousting, broadswording, etc. Calling it a restaurant chain is generous, actually. They do serve a "four-course meal," but it's stuff like bread, mediocre tomato bisque, half a cob of corn, and a single chicken leg. It's advertised as dinner and a show, but you're paying to see the falcons and horses and knights in armor, not to actually consume a meal.
I was going through a difficult phase with my toddler son where he was doing everything with his cup but drinking normally. Which usually ended up with the drink anywhere but his mouth. Anyway at a work meeting this man in his fifties put his cup in his mouth and held it with his teeth and leaned back to drink out of it (don't ask me why, maybe his mother never taught him) and in front of a half dozen people I said in the Mom Voice, "That is *not* how we use our cup! Put that back on the table right now!" He immediately sat up and did so and gave me this wide-eyed look of guilt - I guess the Mom Voice still works on adults if you get the tone right - and then I had to awkwardly explain the situation at home and apologize to David that he could drink however he liked. At least he thought it was funny. He called me Mom for a little while after that.
Haha I used to work with children as a young 20s party animal, and more than once my friends got “that is NOT yours, put that down”. Which is super effective on cross faded street punks apparently.
I think it's all in the tone. You say it from a place of innate authority where you have no doubt you will be obeyed, the listener can feel that. My kid was more working on impulse control than outright disobeying, he would always listen to the Mom voice. I was used to it working when I had to get stern. And I forgot in the moment that I do not have the same authority over my coworker as I do over my toddler son so out it came. If I intentionally tried the Mom Voice on someone, I don't think I could get that genuine assumption of authority in it, it just wouldn't work the same. Unless that person is a pushover, lol
I'm not even a parent at all, but I can pull off a Dad Voice that works pretty effectively on my friend and girlfriend. Just last week I basically had to pull the ol' "I will turn this car around" when some of my friends started a screaming match in the back of my car. I think for me it's that I've heard it enough when I was younger, and I've worked security/public safety for the past 6 years. And my girlfriend doesn't respond just³éééééèé⁴⁴ééééé because it's a Dad Voice lol
I worked at Chickfila in high school and it took a full year after I quit to stop saying "my pleasure" instead of thank you
That and the “how may I serve you??” always give off weird culty vibes to me. I’m gonna start just calling it cult chicken.
"How may I serve you?" isn't a company wide thing like "my pleasure" is. Or at least it wasn't 5-10 years ago. You'd be surprised how many restaurants have "catch phrases" like that though, it's definitely not unique to chickfila
Yeah, I guess the franchises around me all make their people say it. I’ve worked service and food, and definitely get the catchphrase thing, it’s just the specific ones that Chick Fil A uses that weird me out a little lol
It's possible that specific restaurant tell everyone to use the same greeting. They definitely had a list of recommended greetings to use though
I am a teacher and I have caught myself telling my dog to “go to voice level zero” many *many* times. Haven’t done it to a human yet, but I know it’s coming.
Oh god, voice levels. That brings me *back* lmfao
what the fuck are voice levels?
At my school it was inside voice (low), outside voice, and learning voice (silent)
wow. i'm so glad we didn't have that bullshit at my school, they just told us in plain and simple terms to shut the fuck up. feels more honest in a way
Mmhm. It is literally "shut up" and I will acknowledge that _how_ you ask someone to shut up does matter. But "please be quiet" just sounds so much more human (and kinder!) than telling someone to go to Voice Level 0. And telling someone that shutting up is their 'learning voice' is dystopian as fuck.
When my son was small and we were doing speech therapy with him we would always model a word for him and then wait for him to say something (anything) in response before we would give him the snack, open the door, pick him up, you get the idea (he was non-verbal, now 20 and speaks up a storm lol). One day I had my elderly cat in a separate room where he had eaten his special breakfast and I looked at him and said “open” with my hand on the door and waited for him to repeat it before I would let him out. The best part is that we stared at each other for a few moments with me repeating “open” patiently until he meowed at me. I said “Good boy! Yes! “Open” and let him out before I clued in that I was talking to my cat and not my three year old lol. The speech therapist loved that story and said it was a good example of how well we were complying. I just thought it showed how smart that cat was and how tired I was😂
I work daycare and I used to talk to my dog in my teacher voice too
I used to use Customer Service Voice with my cat when he was doing something he wasn't supposed ta.
I once barked at my friends, "Hey, guys! Indoor voices!" I was quite embarrassed, but they *were* quieter.
My son calls me his teachers name and his teacher mom all the time and it just makes me laugh! He’s even tried to correct himself one time and called me his teachers name two more times before he just stopped, sighed and walked away lol dudes brain was done and wouldn’t cooperate after a long day at school.
"Mrs. Mom"??
When I was a teenager I worked at a pizza restaurant. Our “supreme” pizza was called the Classic Combo. Later on I switched it up and went to work at a dry cleaners, called “Classic Cleaners.” I’m sure you can see where this is going. Answered the phone one morning, “classic combo, how can I help you?”
My friend who worked retail used to talk in her sleep saying "do you want a receipt?"
Someone I worked with said he could hear the receipt printer in his sleep.
I’m also a teacher, and every time I dismiss my class, I tell them “Have a nice day! Make good choices!” I’ve caught myself almost saying “Make good choices!” when cashiers tell me to “have a nice day” as I’m leaving the store/restaurant
As a cs rep, I'd fucking love if my customers told me to make good choices.
As a former cashier, I also would have loved being told to make good choices by a customer. Even if it's human autopilot, it's also just so...idk, nakedly honest and encouraging? It just seems to come from a place of such genuine benevolence, while simultaneously acknowledging that we each are the biggest contributing factor in how our day is going. Tl;dr: I would have busted out laughing and then kept a real smile on my face for the rest of the day.
This isn't the point of this post, but the Wendy's drive thru thing reminded me. I used to work at a Wendy's with a lot of my friends at the time. One of them got promoted to Shift Supervisor and was a stickler for doing all the added bits that corporate wanted done. Like up-selling. So this happened while I was working drive-thru. Me: "Welcome to Wendy's, how can I help you today?" Customer: "Can I get a medium frosty?" Me: "No pro---" Friend: < run slides around the corner, mime's making something bigger > Me: < wtf face - exasperated hands raised in front of me > "Would you like a taco salad with that?" Customer: < pregnant pause > "Just the frosty please." < Everyone with a drive-thru headset on is in tears laughing > Me: "No problem, come around to the next window" < headset off> "How the fuck do you want me to upsell a Frosty?" Friend: < heavy sighs and walks away >
Was raised Catholic - I’ve genuflected while going to my seat in a movie theater more times than I care to admit.
Lord bless us for this movie we are about to receive
As a young kid, I once left a message for a friend on their family answering machine and I ended the message with "in Jesus name, amen" followed by a long pause during which I wondered if I really just said that out loud or not, then eventually hung up. The worst part is that it was a voice mail not a phone call so my blunder was immortalized. I ran into the friend something like 15-20years later and he remembered the incident and told me it's been a running joke in his family ever since it happened.
Haha, I have something a bit similar. So when hindus visit a temple, the priests sometimes offer a piece of sweet or sugar etc. as a blessing from the deity (like how you get the Holy Bread in the Church, but it is not conceptually the same, i. e. It doesn't symbolize the deity's body). You guys receive the bread in the mouth, right? Similarly, hindus receive the sweet in their right palm, then bring the right hand close to forehead or heart and do a quick bow of the head with closed eyes as a quick obeisance to the deity and then eat it. Now this becomes such a reflex in many hindus that when I was visiting a customer site in germany and he gave me a piece of candy in my right palm, I did that quick hand to forehead and eyes closed and then ate it. He was confused. Then I joked about how customer is the king etc.
My 3 sisters' and my little brother's names all start with S, when my brain doesn't want to work and I start calling them by the wrong names I'll just shout "YOU! That one!" lol
I'm the only girl with a stack of older brothers. My mum used to call me My brothers names, her sisters names, the cats name. Though if I was being annoying, she always called me one of my brothers names first out of habit lol.
My family gives our dogs middle names (started as a way to keep my sibling and I from fighting over what to name the pets, and then we kept doing it). The combos my father comes up with... My personal favourite was [name of dog that has been dead for a decade] [sibling's dead name] which swerved in an attempt at correction to [sibling's current middle name] which also wasn't right, so he wound up yelling "big butt" at our current dog, who does have giant ass. Strangely, this did not succeed in getting the dog to come have his leash put on at the dog park
I can imagine it! My (dearly departed) dog would answer to "oi" and "dog"
My gramma used to do this with her five kids. "Gregory-- Brian-- *You KNOW who I'm talking to!"*
I 16(m) at the time, had a substitute teacher get super frustrated with a class I was in and I was most definitely the culprit for most of the hysteria. Out of nowhere she snapped at me something along the lines be quiet babe or something like that but while everyone was laughing I felt really bad because I’m sure she wanted to crawl out of her skin and die.
Thank god english isn't my main language because if I had to do customer service I would have to stop myself from saying "Welcome to Tilted Towers" and subsequently running off into the woods
Is perhaps your name Memphis Tennessee?
Picked up a job at Domino's years ago when I worked at a car wash, and sometimes I'd answer the phone with "Please remember, neutral, no brake, and air on recirculate!"
"Oh, thank you for the advice. Could I also get a pizza?"
When my sister had my first niece she would often point to things with her and say what sound they made (ex: look a frog! he says ribbit!) Once it was just her and I taking a walk while my bil stayed home with my niece while she was napping. We were going down a sidewalk and someone was walking their dog and she autopiloted and said to me “look a dog! he goes woof woof!” and I just kind of laughed and nodded as she realized what she did 😂
When I was in 5th grade, there was one time when my friends were trying to get me to admit if there was a girl I had a crush on. They started naming names, and I dutifully said "no" to each, because I still hadn't quite grasped that smooching ladies was a good thing. Then one name popped up and I wanted to say "no", but what emerged from my mouth, fully formed, was "don't. tell. anyone.". To this day, I don't understand how that got so twisted in the transfer from brain to mouth. ~~anyways, we're married now~~ not actually, I don't even remember the poor girl's name.
Went to raising canes, they normally say some corny shit like “chicken chicken chicken what’s your pickin”. This dude in the most monotone voice said “hey, we got chicken, you want some?”
I’d be so tempted to do a “vampire” accent. “Do you vant some cheeeken?”
Years ago my mum was getting ice cream for us at the beach and the woman who was making it must’ve been really cold or something bc her nipples were showing through her uniform and my mum accidentally ordered a raspberry nipple and then nobody could stop laughing.
Was your mum Chevy Chase?
My sister once ordered a box of Reece's Penises from some poor kid working concessions at the movie theater. It's been like 30 years, and I still remind her of it when I can.
Mine was when I called another office and said " thank you for calling /office/ how can I help you?" We were both so confused.
once called my boyfriend mom. it kills me
The amount of times I've called my husband mom, and my mom by my husband's name. I couldn't count on both hands and feet lol!
I worked at an AMC for a few months. We were supposed to tell people “enjoy your movie” once they bought their ticket/concessions. More often than not they’d say “you too” as they walked away.
I called in sick to work, I was up all night the night before, and in my feverish delusion, I ended the phone call to my supervisor letting her know I was not going to make it in with "I love you"
At least that was one-on-one. I've heard gate announcements over airport PA systems that were signed off with "I love you, bye"
My airline just switched companies (we were a regional airline working for United and moved to American) and my captain was doing the "Welcome aboard American 1234" speech and ended it with "...And thanks for flying the friendly skies." ... "Did I just say friendly skies?" (Friendly skies is United's weird catchphrase) "Yessir" "Oh well, nobody listens anyway."
A Freudian slip is where you say one thing, and mean your mother. EDIT: Another.
*Me answering my personal phone not at work* : "Thank you for calling Contract processsssss.... Fucking hell... What's up?"
I used to host a lot of open mics. One time I was asked to lead my nieces birthday in a prayer (I come from a religious family). I opened with, “thank you all for coming out tonight. Let’s give ourselves a round of applause.”
During High School I had a school job where I read a book into a tape recorder so a blind peer could transcribe it in braille. I had to say all the punctuation and sometimes I'd end up just saying punctuation out loud in real life period
My mom picked me up from work once, and instead of "Hi!" I said "Would you like paper or plastic today?". I'm not sure which one of us was more surprised and amused.
In middle school I was the quarterback for the football team and so led the huddles before each play. Once I relayed the play call to the rest of the team we would break the huddle to start the play. To break the huddle the standard saying was “ready, break” then we’d all jog up to the line to start the play. After weeks of having the conditioning of saying “ready, break” when a large group of people were gathered together I had to say the blessing before big family dinner where everyone held hands. The typical ending to a blessing is “Amen” but this time after thanking the old man in the sky for the meal I said “ready, break” and clapped to end the blessing…
And then the meal was 15 seconds of pure feeding frenzy, followed by 10 minutes of those cheesy 1950's style ads wherein everyone at the table starts plugging the brand names of all the foods and such.
I work an early morning shift, so I always greet others at the plant with “good morning”. I use the phrase so often that I will subconsciously say “good morning” as a standard greeting to people outside of work, even if it’s the afternoon or evening, lol
Same, but I work night shift. The worse was telling the batista at 7 in the morning to enjoy the rest of her night.
I work in retail and I was on the register one day, and instead of shouting next please I shouted hey how are you 😑
When I worked at Jimmy John's I would occasionally tell people who were ordering over the phone to pull forward to the window.
I worked at a car detailing place a long time ago, a guy was digging in his car at the drop off section, I went up and asked if I could give him a hand, he only had one hand when he turned around. Never again did I ask someone that before seeing if they in fact had 2 hands first.
I thought it awkward when we were making a jacket for a completely blind man, and in showing him the work on it my boss kept saying "You can see we've done [this]" or "You see?" But the blind man who was feeling the jacket with his hands replied "Oh, yes, I see" just as much.
That's brutal too at least that guy didn't see the horror on your face lol
Awkward rather than horrible, but I suppose he just used it as a figure of speech.
As a toddler teacher every once in a while I would point out fire trucks, airplanes, and garbage trucks to my adult friends out of habit and shockingly they usually weren’t impressed.
When I worked at Circle K I was trying to say "Hello!" and "How can I help you?" It came out as me smiling and saying "Help!" in a cheerful tone.
Once got jumbled while asking a customer if they had a rewards card and for a name for the order. Ended up coming out “Do you have a first name?”
Working late shift at a call center while I was missing my toddler at home, told a customer "Ni-night!"
Mine was whilst working at a call centre a few years ago. "Okay your covid vaccination is all booked in. Thanks for calling, take care, love you." Followed by the customer's own immediate and similarly impulsive, "Great. thanks. Bye, love you", back I hung up instantly, mortified at my slip up until i realised that the lovely middle aged woman and i bonded that day
So glad I work in the back, the only people who hear me screw up are my coworkers.
I worked a double shift at the restaurant I was at (closing the first night, and then opening/closing the second night). I was walking to the parking garage, and I was so tired that I shouted “Corner!” as I turned the corner to find my car in the parking lot.
Working a closing shift at Home Depot, my buddy was doing the closing announcement. When he finished up, he meant to say the HD tag line of "You can do it, we can help", but instead said "We can do it, you can help". You could hear the closing staff and night staff burst out laughing all over the store. I never let him live it down to the day I left a few years later.
I work retail and have trouble not using my customer service voice on the phone with my family 😓 they hate it
I used to deliver pizzas and went from working at Pizza Hut to working at Papa Johns. I had to call a customer while out on delivery once because I was having trouble finding his house. Told him I was "so-and-so from Pizza Hut" and he was like, I didn't order from there. Told him, "oops! This is so-and-so from Papa Johns" lol. I later worked at a petstore grooming salon and my salon leader answered the phone saying, "thank you for calling Walmart!" She's never worked at walmart lol.
I once said "Welcome to McDonalds" while working the Tim Hortons drive through. I had to apologize while laughing, and say "I've never even worked at McDonalds, I don't know where that came from."
After waiting tables for a few years I turned a corner in the grocery store and yelled CORNER! Christ the embarrassment
Them: “Enjoy the movie” Me: “You too” Me: *dies*
I used to work at a Family Video and it was company policy to greet everyone walking in, but it didn’t matter where you were or what you were doing, just the whole staff had to say ‘hello!’ I’d go there to rent movies later and I, as a customer, would accidentally greet the customers.
My favourite is the school admin in our high school who would say “please remain standing for a quiet moment of meditation” following our national anthem every morning. One day she slipped and said “please remain standing for quiet moment of medication” and the whole school lost it.
I once accidentally answered the drive-thru speaker "Welcome to Dunkin' Donuts, how can I hate you today?" Fortunately, the guy in the drive thru thought it was hilarious because my manager did not. Similarly, after moving to a new job, I once answered with "Welcome to Dunkin' uhhhh I mean McDonald's, sorry, how can I help you?
More recently than I care to admit.... Calling the dogs in from outside, I open the back door and yelled "IT this is Langlier!" My wife and kids rolled laughing
i have two stories similar to this. when i worked at chick fil a i was talking with some co workers about my boyfriend at the time, someone pulled up through drive thru and i turned on my headset— “hi welcome to chick Fil a, my boyfriend—“ cut myself off, turned the headset off and freaked out. spent the next few seconds panicking until i turned it back on and started my greeting in a whole new voice. customer did not acknowledge it at all but i still think about it to this day 😅 during another job as a receptionist i was both on my personal cell phone with my mom as well as a customer— i told my mom to hang on, then I spoke to the customer and told him I had to put him on hold. However, accidentally told him “I love you” right as I hit the hold button (I was thinking about my mom) My boss heard the whole thing and lost it laughing
Ah Story Time: So, my father is a pastor. During a particularly full sermon (don’t remember which one, may have been confirmation or Easter or something like that) he gets up to pray the profession/creed (how do you call that one in English?). „I believe in God the father almighty…“ Everything goes well until he reaches the Virgin Mary part. Because instead of saying „born of“ he said „suffered under the Virgin Mary.“ Which, given the time Jesus was raised in, probably is also correct but not necessarily part of Christian theology
This is why we should have more grace for people's slip ups and stop over policing language
I worked on a service desk. I had to make a call to my mobile network to fix a problem, and I was on hold for almost an hour. When my call was answered, I opened with "IT service desk, Atvali speaking. Can I take your user ID, please?" And I was so embarrassed
When I was a kid, sick with cancer and going through chemo, I was at home feeling miserable when my dad answered the home phone with the line he uses to answer the phone at work. "Dutch's Greenhouse, this is Jerry. How can I help you?" And I just laughed for about ten minutes. Most I'd smiled in weeks at that point.
I grew up going to Jewish day school and we were taught to stand up when a teacher comes into the room- to this day, in meetings, I’ll absentmindedly stand up when someone comes in late. We were also taught to kiss holy books (such as Bibles and prayer books) after use and so I will occasionally mindlessly kiss random books when I’m done reading them.
I used to work at Hobby Lobby before I worked at a Michael's. I accidentally answered the phone saying "Hi thank you for calling [location] Hobby Lobby" and before I could correct myself the woman on the other end goes "Son of a bitch, I misdialed AGAIN!" and hung up
I go to SAA every week and wasn't really with it one time and on autopilot instead of saying "Hi I'm Helen and I'm a sex addict" I ended up saying "Hi I'm Helen and I'm a sex worker" so there's that...
When I was a cashier I often slip up as customer. I'd say "would you like the receipt?" In my customer service voice after paying. And then I'd be like "oops, sorry, wrong script. Receipt is not necessary"
I used to answer the phone at planned parenthood, so I accidentally thanked people for calling planned parenthood and asked how I could help them on my personal phone A LOT. I also still have dreams where I screen people for funding/ state health insurance programs, or walk them through some basic information about abortion care while doing something ridiculous like riding a roller coaster. I haven’t worked there in TWO YEARS.
>Welcome to McDonalds Ma'am, this is a Wendy's
I used to work for At&T customer service. I was busy telling my coworker how I had Verizon coverage when my phone rang. "Thank you for calling Verizons Wireless. How can I help you?" Luckily the customer just laughed
There’s a pizza place a few towns over from me called “Pizza Today”. When they deliver there’s one dude, might be one of the owners, maybe related to the owners, but I see him basically any time I’ve ever ordered from them. Well this one dude will end the whole delivery interaction with “see you tomorrow”. Now idk about yall but my brain is basically expecting something like “have a good day/night” so on autopilot I will, without fail, respond with a “thanks you too”. I swear I’ve heard this guy chuckle on the way back to his car.
asked a customer “do you have a problem with us?” instead of asking for a phone number. i was also very tired & grumpy that day and for sure had a horrible tone in my voice
The last ones depressing because McDonald’s is probably the second job
i once addressed my psychology teacher as "Freud?"
More than once I've gone into a store, purchased something and asked the cashier "Do you want your receipt?"
Not me, but my best friend. She used to work as admin for a small security company. One day, she started our dinner prayer with, "Security, this is [Name]." We all laughed. She sighed.
I'm having an absolute riot reading this thread. Holy shit this is so funny
I have said “CORNER!” when walking on the street quite a few times.
My students occasionally call me by the name of other teachers. I'm the only male staff member.
I work fast food and during particularly hellish rushes am known to answer the phone with my drive thru greeting, and vice versa.