Keilbasa by Tenacious D
[audio:http://www.archive.org/download/tenaciousd2006-12-03.mk4v.flac16/tenaciousd2006-12-03_mk4v_d1t02_64kb.mp3]
So, I’m no longer working at the Center for Survey Rsearch and Analysis, and I’m happy about that. Wasn’t a bad job, but it was pretty stupid. Easy, but stupid. So while I was wasting time waiting for the end to come, I remembered one my favorite exchanges that I had with someone on the phone.
We have these questions that are asked at the end of every survey, no matter what the subject of the survey was. One of these is ‘How many phone numbers do you have?’. The question is trying to ask about landlines, but its phrased badly enough that it confuses a lot of people. The worst of which went as follows:
Me: “And how many phone numbers do you have?”
Her: “What?”
Me: “How many phone numbers…landlines. How many landlines do you have?”
Her: “…None.”
Me: “No no, phone numbers, how many phone numbers do you have?”
Her: “Oh. Seven.”
It took me a second to realize what she had said, and a little more to realize what she meant. I sigh and mark her down as having one.
There are other stories, but none of them work well if I was to retell them. It isn’t a very funny job, you need to make your own humor.
I had a really difficult time starting phone calls after I realized that once my opening line became lazy, it changed from “Hi, my name is John” to “Hi, my name-a-John” in true Borat fashion. That’s the first thing I say, and I had to keep from laughing for a while afterwards.
But its over now. On to bigger and better things.