Well, yeah, what the HELL is that all about?

If you'd like to educate yourself, you'll find that "the red-headed child" is a Langston Hughes (1920s Black Renaissance) story about a ginger man who revisits a black prostitute years after their first "encounter"and discovers she has a red-headed child of about the right age to be his. He says nothing about it, does nothing, takes no responsibility.

The red-headed child is not an object of scorn, but an object of pity. They might GET beatings, but they sure don't deserve them.

You're in Connecticut, right? Where is that other company?

If they're not right next door in Connecticut, THE MOMENT you suss out that someone is looking for the other company, tell them your name and state that you are in Connecticut.

That alone won't solve the problem, but maybe ALL the facts might put a dent in their stupid.

Of course, if you have an 800 type phone number, there's no reason for them to believe anything you say about where you are.

Hey, if they're calling an 800 number, is it possible to stop those calls by having the number work over a limited geographical area?

You should be OVERLY nice.

Tell them that you would be only to happy to make sure they're satisfied. I mean really lay it on.

Then after you get them in a warm fuzzy mood, give them the number of the manufacturer and let them know that the customer service there, will certainly help them get to the bottom of their problems.

That should get them off your ass, and onto the offending bottom feeder.

I don't have an 800 number.  They are calling my local number with CT area code.  I start off each and every time that we are a local CT residential AV INSTALLATION company and do not sell any products online.

I am overly nice.  Just the mere fact that I reply to them to let them know they contacted the wrong company so it doesn't escalate into more frustration where they get more pissed off is proof of that.  I am not an operator and not going to take people through the babysteps of contacting the company they are supposed to.  i have enough of an issue of not having enough free time.

What I should do is give them an address, UPS store or something, to send their stuff back to.  Free stuff for me.

Ah, I missed the fact that you're replying to phone messages. That's WAY more irritating than setting a person straight, live on the phone. Maybe your message should start with "We do not do cameras" or something else that they might listen to before they drift away to just brainlessly listening for the beep.

I used to get calls on my home phone line that was 1 digit off from a local dentist office. Once I figured this out, I started making appointments for these callers...hint hint

We have a regional retailer, Fry’s electronics, that moved into our area and had a phone number close enough to ours that there misdials became our calls. We started offering buy one get one free specials if they came down right now. Well maybe once.

I've known of and have read about two different doctors whose phone numbers were very close to another company's number. The doctor offices were very snippy about the problem until the person getting the misdials started making appointments. Then the doc changed their number pretty fast.

I once needed info on Pioneer TVs, and needed it FAST. The tech department wanted us to leave messages. I tried this but while waiting I ended up dialing different extensions, hoping for someone to pick up. Didn't happen.

But with a simple "extension" like 110, I was welcomed to their message system! Miraculously, no password was needed to change the message? I put on a squeaky voice and left a message to the effect that "we're here but we'll be damned if we're going to just answer the phone, so leave a message. Maybe we'll call you back."

I never did find out if that caused them any problems. It was almost twenty years ago. Good times.

Oh, yeah, then there was the real estate lady who sent out faxes to her California office. This was in the early 90s.

She decided to go in to work early, like at 7 AM.
She's in Florida, I'm in California.
She called my home phone number to fax multi-page lists of addresses and phone numbers on Monday, three weeks in a row.

At 7 AM.

That's 4 AM my time.

I didn't have a fax machine. I bloody well borrowed one after the second time.

So at that point I had her number and a fax machine...
I used a marker to make a LARGE message telling her to freakin' get the phone number right! I made the message ten pages long.
I also told her to pay attention to the time zone she's sending to!

You'd think someone from her California office would have called her attention to the fact that they weren't getting the new listings. But no.

I got a polite apology and that never happened again.

Go to the web site notalwaysright.com. You'll see that this problem isn't uncommon. The herd really needs to be thinned.

Best you use the word "culled." You say "thinned," the idiots will introduce diet and exercise.

A buddy and I were in line at a sub sandwich shop to get lunch, and the girl serving us didn't get what we were asking for. I said "you look perplexed." She said "I don't know what that means."

I was walking along in a mall when two 20isher girls passed me by. One of them said "that was the epitome of everything that's wrong."

I paused for a minute and wondered if I should be that guy. I decided to be that guy.

I said, "uh, excuse me, I don't mean to interrupt, but I had to tell you something. You used that word right, but it's pronounced ee-pit--oh-mee, not eppy-toam." The other girl lit up and said, "Yeah, I've heard that! I wondered what word it was!"



Thought: you know you're in trouble when they go to tell you how you rank among nations as to education... and they can't count that high.

People have used 'thin the herd' for a long, long time. Far fewer people know what 'cull' means.



Looks like something Radar O'Reilley wold say, on MASH- Pierce once said "You look pensive" and Radar responded with "No, I'm just thinking".



Was she blonde?





Remember the saying 'Question everything' that was used during the '60s protests? Look at who controls the education system and who was in college during the '60s.

Coincidence?

I read that as an argument for not learning a new word. Thin the herd doesn't have the sinister overtones that cull has, but you have to learn that.

Last time someone commented on something like this, it was because I used the word melisma. The comment was he didn't think he'd learn any new words here. That's a bit sad.

Think you have it bad?

My wife's company shares the name with the local cable provider. Her company has been in business since the 1990s, cable company changed hands/names a few years ago.

Tons of phone calls from people complaining about service, missed appointments, outages etc. A lot of them are older people and either don't understand, despite her well practiced explanation that they are not the cable company and just keep on complaining.