by Michael S. Kaplan, published on 2007/08/29 16:05 -04:00, original URI: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/michkap/archive/2007/08/29/4633356.aspx
Those were the exact words of the person on the phone, those words in the title.
I should back up a minute.
I have a land line phone with Verizon that I only use for emergencies like that recent power outage and also to torture telemarketers (I am not on the do-not-call lists; I only give the phone number to the sort of people who might sell things so I can treat every call like entertainment if I am going to even bother answering it).
The phone has every service stripped down and it is listed (another source of telemarketers, the phone book!).
Anyway, where was I?
Oh yeah. This guy on the phone asked "Are you Mr. Kaplan?"
I figure there is no harm identifying myself since the number is listed. "Yes," I respond.
"Vice president of Microsoft Customer Service?" he asked.
Hmmmm.
"No, that's not me," I reply.
He ends the call quickly. "I'm sorry, I must have a wrong number."
I guess he was looking for Richard Kaplan. Perhaps just going through the phone book calling all the Kaplan entries in the Seattle metropolitan area.
I must admit that it is an interesting way to call product support!
I might have commented had he not hung up so quickly.
And you know I always tell people that I am not Microsoft product support, but Richard can't really get away with that, I suppose.
I'd love to know how this all turns out but Richard and I are not golfing buddies and I am pretty sure we aren't related, so I guess I'll never know....
As an FYI to people, this is likely not the most effective way to get in touch with customer support (and also I never answer technical questions on that phone so it is not the best way to get a hold of me, either!).
This post brought to you jointly by ℡, ⌕, ☎, ☏, and ✆ (U+2121, U+2315, U+260e, U+260f, and U+2706, a.k.a. TELEPHONE SIGN, TELEPHONE RECORDER, BLACK TELEPHONE, WHITE TELEPHONE, and TELEPHONE LOCATION SIGN)
Dean Harding on 29 Aug 2007 7:18 PM:
Hmm, if I were Vice president of Customer Service at Microsoft, I don't think I'd have a listed number :-)
Mike on 29 Aug 2007 8:04 PM:
I had a flashback to the famous Telephone sketch of Elaine May and Mike Nicholls. "That is Kaplan? That is
K as in Knife,
A as in Aardvark,
P as in Pneumonia,
L as in Luscious,
A as in Aardvark again,
N as in Newelpost,
Kaplan?"
William on 30 Aug 2007 9:19 PM:
Maybe he was following this article:
referenced by