Voice Recognition

A lot of hotel receptionists find that after a certain amount of time has passed, they develop a kind of voice recognition device in their mind, which enables them to pinpoint straight away who it is they are talking to on the phone, without that person actually announcing who they are.

I think it’s safe to say that anyone who knows me, will know that I am not one of those receptionists, and those of you who don’t know me will soon come to realise when reading the story of two telephone conversations that took place over the course of last Fridays Shift, between the hours of 2:30pm, and 10:30pm.


The first conversation happened at around 4:00pm in the afternoon as I was sat at the desk flicking through the Daily Mail when I was suddenly interrupted by the phone ringing

“Good Afternoon, Fawlty Towers, How can I help?” (Just Kidding!)

“Hi, Hi Hello it’s me”

The person on the end of the phone spoke in an accent that could have come from anywhere between Wales and the borders of Western Europe, I had no idea who it was, but I thought given time I would eventually be able to work it out. And so I responded

“Hi, How are you?”

“I am not good! I just come back from doctor”

“Ok”

“He tell me, I have inflamed nerve”

“Oh Dear!”

“Yes, so he tell me I must no work for 3…. Weeks! You Understand?”

“Yes”

“So I tell you I have inflamed nerve”

“Yep”

“And I must no work for 3…. Weeks”

“Yes”

“OK”

There was then a pause that lasted for around 5 seconds before I was left with no choice but to ask the following question…

“So do you work here or.......”

“YES! YES IT IS ME! I work in kitchen”

Well she didn’t tell me that! When she said she worked in the kitchen I got it straight away but because I haven’t got one of those voice recognition gismos I was completely lost prior to that statement.

Anyway half an hour later my boss was informed, and when I say informed I mean he found a piece of scrap paper underneath the daily mail which had “inflamed – 3 weeks” scribbled on it. Once I explained what it was, My boss managed to get it all sorted out and we all got back to our evening as it was, which leads me to the next story, of telephone conversation number 2.

It happened at around 8:00pm when my boss called me from home , to ask if I could ring one of the waitresses to find out whether it was her or one of the other girls working the lunch shift the following day, I jotted down the number, and as soon as I came off the phone I punched it into the switchboard, picked up the receiver and waited for the line to be answered, which it did after 2 rings. A male voice spoke

“Hello”

“Hello can I speak to Amy Please?”

“You what?”

“Can speak to Amy, It’s Emma calling from work”

“What are you on about”

“Er…. Sorry, I think I’ve got the wrong number”

“Em are you taking the piss?”

“Excuse me? What are you on about? Who is this???”

“It’s Phil!”

“Phil who”

“CHEF!”

“What?”

It took around 3 seconds, and then it hit me! I realised exactly what I had done, I was unable to explain it to chef straight away due falling off my chair in an horrendous laughing fit but it… was…. Funny!

The explanation for the mix up, was that Amys number had began with the same 3 digits as the internal extension to the kitchen. When I had dialled I had not pressed 9 for an outside line, and inadvertently put myself through to the kitchen thinking that I had called Amy’s house and when chef answered I just presumed I was talking to her dad.

Now I don’t know what offended Chef more, the fact that after knowing him for 5 years I still can’t recognise his voice on the phone, or that at just 27 years old I could mistake his voice as that of the father of a girl aged 23. But at the end of the day because I haven’t been blessed with one of those fabulous voice recognition thingys it makes it very difficult for me to figure these things out! All I can do is apologise! I’m sorry chef!

Anyway, much as I would love to carry on, it’s time for me to go because as I’m writing this the fire alarm siren is going off like crazy and it’s very, very distracting as the main box is only about 10 feet away from where I’m sitting.
Also this weirdo keeps on ringing the desk going on about silencers and reset buttons. I have to keep hanging up on him cos I'm waiting for the duty manager to call me from the annexe to tell me what to do about the alarm.

It's all good fun!