Just to jog your memory, I moonlight as a relay operator wherein I type what I hear and voice what I read... this service is ostensibly for the deaf...
Caller: Operator, I am calling in sick at work. Please dial the USPS...
Operator: One moment... (thank you. dialing number)
Ringing 1...
2...
[Automated Machine]
Operator: Please enter your United States Postal Service Employee Identification Number...
(entering number provided)
For status of vacation hours press 1. To provide a reason for possible absence press 2. To hear a list of...
Caller: Press 2 pls.
(pressing 2)
Operator: For absence due to... Illness, press 1. Emergency, press 2. Community Disaster, press 3.
Caller: Press 1 pls.
The call went on a bit longer, the machine prompting for dates and shift times etc. (wherein it became evident that you could call in sick a week ahead...) But my perplexity stops at the pithy phrase Community Disaster...
First... they imply that you have to call in if you have a community disaster. Assuming that would be in your hastily sketched list of priorities... "Oh fudgeyfingers! The reanimated corpses of the Jehovah's Witnesses have trapped us in the cellar and there's me leaving my cell phone in my other pair of slightly-less-soiled pants. How am I possibly going to inform my work about my impending absence?"
Can you imagine getting called on that by your Team Manager? "Well Todd, we're very sorry about the cyclone and all but we did provide an opportunity to call ahead and let us know. Help us help you Todd."
Second... what in the name of Zeus's foreskin IS a community disaster? A rained-out bake sale? A blackout during American Idol? I can just see a Postman telling the operator:
Caller: Press 3 please operator.
(pressing 3)
Operator: Please state the nature of the community disaster after the tone (beep)
Caller: Say Me, motherfuckaaa!!!
6 comments:
This made me laugh hysterically. I nearly choked on my own false sense of security. ;)
Maybe a tornado? Or is that an act of God? Hmm. Rat invasion? Stakeout?
Go see my response to your comment
Community Disaster:
The neighborhood's stray cats unite, don balaclavas, barricade all the roads out of town and demand more kibble. "No one's goin' no where till we get the chow!"
shiver....
patrick - false sense of security kills too many people... next time have a tall glass of milk at hand...
eve - rats! or a rat tornado!! holy crap!!!
lucy - 'the time is miaow my fish-bre[a]thren!'
Shiver...shiver....
It's all just too purrrfectly dia-cat-ible...
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