A well known . . .
. . . telecommunications (i.e. phone) company did not have their own printing department, so the company I then worked for used to receive their data, format it for them, and print and mail their billing statements.

The statements used to contain a Bank Giro Credit Slip for people (who were so inclined) to pay their bills in such a way. It was a legal requirement for the phone number of the company who printed the Giro Slip to be printed on the slip itself, so if a complaint was made to Girobank about a slip, they were able to contact the company who printed them.

As I was the developer who wrote the program that generated the statement and slip, my work phone number was the one printed on the slip. It was nothing to worry about as it was in a 6pt font, and printed vertically and completely unobtrusively at the very bottom of the slip.

Obviously the customers of the phone company - should they find anomalies with their bills or accounts - would never ring this unobtrusive little number, instead using the number printed in bold, 12pt, at the top of the bill, along with helpful hints such as "For any enquiry about this statement, please ring . . ." ?

Right?

Er, no.

A typical complaint would run as follows:

Me : Hello, [Bloggs] Print & Mail?
Bozo : Hello, I have a problem with my bill.
Me : Ah, are you a customer of [phone company] ?
Bozo : Yes, I rang the number on the bill.
Me : The one at the bottom?
Bozo : Yes.
Me : Yes - well, you need to ring the helpdesk number printed at the top of the bill.
Bozo : I'm not ringing someone else. Why can't you help?
Me : We're the company who just print the bills, and are not part of [phone company]
Bozo : Yes - it's you I need to speak to then, it's the bill I have a problem with.
Me : What seems to be the problem?
Bozo : You've charged me for some calls to a number I don't recognise. I want a refund.
Me : You need to phone the helpdesk. We're not part of [phone company], we just print the bills.
Bozo : [sigh] can you put me through to the helpdesk?
Me : No, we're a completely separate company. I can't connect you.
Bozo : Why can't you just get me a refund?
Me : I don't work for [phone company]. I work for [Bloggs}. We just print their bills.
Bozo : IT'S THE BILL I HAVE A PROBLEM WITH!
{and so on in an infinite loop]

It soon became clear that [1] people could not understand that the phone bills were not printed by [phone company] but by a completely separate company and [2] people thought their bills are individually prepared by employees who look carefully at their accounts and then lovingly type out their bills personally, instead of being generated by computer systems and printed in a quarter of a second.

Eventually, after a couple of months I gave up explaining, and simply dealt with every complaint (whilst making suitable typing noises on my keyboard). 0% success but 100% satisfaction - no one ever called me back.

Also once a woman phoned me at work and asked to cancel her doctor's appointment for Tuesday, which I duly did. Or rather didn't.
(SneakyPete, Wed 31 Dec 2003, 10:50, Reply)