Raccoons & Other Reasons I Can't Come To The Phone

As I've mentioned before, work is a huge source of stress for me, but also a huge source of laughter (mostly because of of the things our misfits do and say). One of my co-workers, Barbie, (not her real name, but it's what I call her - I have a nickname for pretty much everyone) and I laugh frequently during the day about ourselves and other misfits. Barbie isn't really a misfit even though she does sing songs about butt cracks (she says it's a song her daughter sings, but I'm not buying it) and downloads random viruses to her computer while searching for the latest "Celebrity Rehab" news. Barbie and I spend a large portion of our day on the phone - talking with customers and dealing with issues. About five times a day (sometime more, if we're lucky) a telemarketer calls asking for me, or the person who makes the marketing decisions, or the person who deals with the merchant account, and the list goes on. You can usually tell who the telemarketers are by noticing the delay from the time you say "Hello, Carpet Warehouse" to when they say "Hello" back or because they ask for a generic person (i.e. person who makes the marketing decisions) or because you hear a bunch of other people in the back ground.

Well, Barbie has this new game she likes to play with telemarketers. Instead of just saying that I'm out of the office or in a meeting or helping a customer (even though I am never doing those things and am often less than 20 feet away from her) when a telemarketer calls, she tells them something crazy. The funny thing is that even though what she's telling them sounds crazy - I could feasibly be doing it, that's how fun it is to work at Carpet Warehouse. Here are some examples (keep in mind it is very possible that I could be doing these things):

Barbie: Hello, Carpet Warehouse - this is Barbie.
(Pause, with lots of mumbling in the background)
Telemarketer: Hello, I'm selling crap - is Stephanie in?
Barbie: No, I'm sorry - she is:

• Letting the raccoon loose -we work at such a fancy location that we often have raccoons as office mates. A couple of months ago, we caught nine raccoons in as many days. Every day we caught a raccoon, we had to go let it free on a the golf course near the office. Variations on this excuse include, "playing with the raccoon", "talking to the raccoon" or "feeding the raccoon".
• Pushing the button - no, I didn't start working on the "Lost" island, but from time to time our water goes out and someone has to walk about a block to push a button to get the water to start again. Again, I think it goes without saying - but, we work in a pretty swanky facility.
  
• Pooping at Office Depot - sometimes, even after we push the water button (see excuse immediately preceding this one), the water doesn't come on. This means we can't flush the toilet. We're okay with mellow yellow, but if it's brown - we go to Office Depot. I feel guilty about just using the facilities at Office Depot, so I usually pick up some supplies while I'm there.
  
• Filling up water jugs - even when the water in our office does work, it's not drinkable. In order to make coffee every morning, we have to fill up gallon jugs at home and bring them into work.
  
• Picking up dog poo from the warehouse - yes, this has happened, see It's a Molly-Day.
• Waking up the hobo - yes, this has actually happened too, see above post.
• Bailing an employee out of jail - this hasn't happened yet, but did I mention that I work with misfits and it is a real possibility? We did have one misfit who couldn't come into work because he was in jail, but I didn't bail him out.
  
• Throwing out the food with worms in it - one day, I thought I was doing a good thing by bringing in a bunch of extra granola bars we had in our pantry. Well, I guess they'd been in the pantry a little longer than I remembered, because one of our installers opened one up and there were little wormy things crawling in it. We actually had one misfit who ate two of them before noticing and after we told him about the worms he said, "well, I did notice some white stuff on it".
  

(I know after reading many of these things, you're thinking "How can I work Carpet Warehouse?". Well, we're not currently accepting applications, but if you don't have a problem with raccoons, hobos, dog poop or toxic water - you're already on the top of the applicant pool.)

Barbie is so good at this game - she has actually stopped a few telemarketers mid-sentence. After she gives them one of these excuses, they say "Ok, please have her . . . what? what is she doing?" I have no idea how she keeps from cracking up on the phone (goodness knows, I'm almost peeing my pants in my office), but we just roll laughing when she hangs up.

Ok, I've gotta go - and by the way, I won't be available by phone for a while, I'm taking porn off one of our misfits' computer.