Monday, February 14, 2011
A recent AOL Jobs report ranks Spokane as a national leader when it comes to the proportion of residents who are batshit crazy.
“Insane Customer Service Calls” recounts such stories (from other cities) as the symphony patron who was convinced that, throughout a recent concert, the “gay” trombonist was staring at him, along with the guy who wondered if his HMO would cover a religiously motivated act of self-castration.
But the article presents, as its leading example, the testimony of a woman who worked as a customer service rep at a Spokane-area TV station.
(Melissa Voelker’s photo tells you all you need to know about what it’s like to talk to John Q. Public in Spokane.)
Voelker fielded complaints about her TV station, of course — but she even got complaints about the broadcasts at other stations.
Here at Spokane’s altweekly, we can corroborate that kind of behavior. Happens all the time: Readers call in inquiring after that one article we ran about two weeks ago — they can’t remember the writer or the headline, but it was a really nice piece, and they’d just love to have it for their scrapbook.
Except it wasn’t in The Inlander two weeks ago. It was in the Spokesman six months ago.
Oh. Never mind. ---
My friends in California think they know five things about Spokane: 1. Rains all the time. 2. The anti-gay gay mayor you had. 3. Love that gone-ZAH-guh basketball! 4. Cars sliding down icy hills. 5. It’s a suburb of Seattle, right?
Now we get to be known for something even more colorful: Folks calling in to report that they’re picking up messages from E.T. in their dental fillings, and what exactly do we plan to do about it?
Tags: Melissa Voelker , customer service , Culture , Arts & Culture