More Pizza Fun

The phone rang last night. It was a woman who was looking for the pizzeria for which we get more calls than they do. My simple "Hello" wasn't enough for this lady. She demanded to know whether it was Papa John's that she reached. When I told her she had the wrong number, she insisted that she didn't and demanded to speak to my manager.

I had no choice but to return to the phone, using the very same voice, and say "Hello this is Mark, how can I help you?"

She explained that she had called earlier and asked for another location's number - but that number wasn't working. I suggested, "You might want to consult the Internet."

"THE INTERNET? I DON'T HAVE AN INTERNET CONNECTION! WHY WON'T YOU JUST GIVE ME THE NUMBER," she insisted. I explained that we were "super busy" and that if she didn't have an Internet connection, she might want to let her "fingers do the walking" and look in her telephone book. I even explained that the poor telephone books have experienced such a downturn in popularity that they would be thrilled to be used. She was not amused.

"Are you serious???" was all she could muster up. I told her yes, and asked if she planned to place an order.

She asked if we delivered to Buckhead. Stifling raucous laughter, I said, "Oh no. That's too far. We don't deliver there." That's when she really lost it.

"Your address is Buckhead - and YOU DON'T DELIVER HERE?"

I didn't expect that. It became impossible for me to keep a straight face. I had to hang up.

All I wanted to do was take an order. I didn't plan on THIS. Managing an imaginary pizza joint ain't easy.

Telephone Fun

Settling into a new house sure can be rife with interesting and unexpected events. Case in point: our new telephone number.

Initially, we had our telephone connected by Comcast as part of a triple-play package. It turns out Comcast is a company that wrote the book on how NOT to handle customer service. But that's a story that will be told in another blog entry -- after my television service is completely hooked up and working. Judging by the way it's been going, this may not happen for a long time. But I digress...

After the debacle with Comcast was finally ended, we elected to turn to BellSouth for telephone service. They issued us a new (easy to remember) telephone number, and it's been great - except for all the calls requesting pizza delivery.

As I sit writing this entry, the phone has rung twice with people looking for Papa John's Pizza - a third-rate pizza delivery service akin to Domino's, but with less panache and Italian integrity. At first, we thought we were given their old number, but a quick internet search turned up a single-digit difference between us.

The fun of this is that we do not get upset, we do not shout at the callers and we do not tell them they've misdialed. Rather, we have decided to answer the phone "Good Afternoon, Papa John's" every time the caller ID shows us a name we don't recognize. It's funny how many people just believe you. To date, we've taken orders for:

• 22 large plain pizzas
• 19 large pizzas with some sort of topping
• 53 medium pies
• all sorts of side dishes and drinks

I believe you really need to embrace it when you are faced with a situation like this. There's no real way to fix it without changing your telephone number. So in the meantime, I've been calling Papa John's to see if they're getting my calls.