People are CRAZY: FBI edition.

I was concerned that my call center job wouldn't provide as much fodder for amusement. And, well, it kind of doesn't. I mean, there's just a special kind of crazy you get when dealing with peoples' food. And when dealing with people who deal with peoples' food. But rest assured, there be crazy fucker ev'rywhere.

So far, my favorite calls this week were .....

1) A hearing-impaired gentleman who talked kind of like Special Ed. And yes, I know I'm going to hell for enjoying that link so much. I was on the phone with Ed for about half an hour, and when I hung up all I could do was laugh. He called about an account in somebody else's name, but he was an authorized user on it. He asked how many receivers were on the account, and when I told him, he erupted into a tirade about sending a technician out because he wasn't going to be responsible. He started telling me how he and his brother got "jumped" by some of the other tenants and he had broken ribs. Then he was asking "what if they smash up those boxes and throw them in my entryway! Then what!" Then he asked if he'd get something if he got everyone in his complex to sign up with our company on their own. Somewhere in there, he claimed that his landlady was 1) in the loony bin, 2) in jail, and 3) sold the place.

With all that, it took a long time to figure out just what in the fuck was going on. Turns out his landlady had two accounts with us, but had the wiring run to five apartments per account. Which is totally illegal, by the way. I don't know how she got the technicians to set it up like that. Anyway, Ed said he had been paying this bill - with the charges for receivers in other apartments. So he wanted the other receivers turned off. Now, that would be simple enough .... except for the fact that we have a specific department that deals with situations like this, and somehow they already knew about it. The notes on both the accounts were very confusing, I don't know if Ed or Ed's Landlady had let the cat out of the back. But once those guys are involved? I can't do anything. Which is what I told Ed. Multiple times. Unfortunately, Ed had other ideas.

See, Ed thought his landlady had been collecting the monthly bill from everyone in the apartment complex, and pocketing the nine extra payments. Which, hey -- maybe she was, I don't know. What I do know is that I have no authority to send the local police out to Ed's building. Nor do I have the authority to send the friggin' FBI to investigate. Yes, Ed actually asked me to do that. And did not understand why I couldn't.

The next day, I had an interesting gentleman can in with a remote problem. The problem? He wanted two remotes to control television ..... one for when his hands were dirty, and one for when they were clean. Um, okay. So for the next 45 minutes, I attempted to walk him through the steps to program a second remote to his box. Should've been ten minutes tops, even with the new remote I ended up sending out. So where did the other 35 minutes go? Oh, into him periodically dropped the phone and screaming at his dogs, for one thing, and telling me over and over he had two German Shepherds and one was seven months old and I should never have to two dogs. And then there were the chunks of time where he was bitching about how he bought a house with a VA loan and now it's surrounded by drug dealers who are circling his house and the area is so terrible ..... and how the Mafia was going to kill him and he needed the FBI to come out.

Honestly, I was hoping for a hat trick. Unfortunately, on day three, nobody mentioned any government agencies. To me, at least .... someone else had a crazy guy screaming he was going to report us to the state attorney general because he didn't want to pay his $132 bill.