How do you spell T.J.?

Ah, blessed Tuesday.

I finally made it to my day off. It's been a long haul, believe that. Not only has it been 7 days between days off, but it's sooooo fucking busy at work lately.

The tow companies have been going insane. It seems like every 10 minutes we've been taking a tow call, most for impound from law enforcement. At least they're pretty easy. You only need to get the dispatcher's name, where they're calling from, if the tow is for impound or an accident, what type of vehicle, and where they are.

If that doesn't seem easy, you should try one of the roadside assistance calls. In addition to the information above, you also need a driver's name, contact number, a tow-to location, their coverage amount, and a purchase order.

Those can be further compounded with all the stupidity it is humanly possible to add.

Have the tow driver call first. Have him call for further details. You name it, they've asked for it. Couple all this with the fact that our drivers all have alpha pagers, so I have to type all that crap in and then page the driver with it and you begin to see my dilema. The best part is, when they start to go hog wild with information, they can sometimes give us too much.

Not in the 'I've been having a problem with explosive diarrhea' too much information way, but there is a limited amount of message that can be transmitted to the pager. Which means the driver has to call in and clarify exactly what we're trying to tell him.

It's great.

I don't need to tell you that I get asked some pretty stupid questions. I think I've gone through some of the customer service Hell I go deal with on a daily basis. My favorite one in a long time came yesterday.

It was a tow call, of course.

The dispatcher was talking over me, trying to give me information out of order (for us) and was too impatient to let me ask questions.

She was also not a native English speaker, so there was some of the 'cultural rudeness' that comes from not knowing the cadences of polite speech.

The best part however was when she asked me my name. I told her, and she said, I shit you not 'How do you spell that.'

C'mon, it's 2 fucking letters. How hard is that?

Oh well, guess I'm through bitching. Now I get to go pay my insurance and see if I can find some trouble to get into on my ONE day off this week.

Buenos con queso,

T.