Is there anything we’re more attached to than our technology? Whether we’re in Zoom meetings with clients, calling home to speak with loved ones, or metaphorically arm wrestling our credit card providers, our phones have become our second selves. So who’s to blame when things go wrong—us or our phones? Either way, after reading these Redditors' wild tales you’ll be triple checking to make sure one of you actually hung up.
1. Honesty Is The Best Policy
I once worked as a secretary in an office that for some reason got pocket-dialed a lot. During one such occasion, I got to listen in while some gentleman from New York absolutely roasted one of his employees. The employee said, “Well what the heck do you expect me to do"? The boss's response was legendary. "Honestly, Tom, honestly, if it wasn't for the fact that I'm sleeping with your sister, you would be out of here right now”.
2. Think Of The Children
I once went to a friend's house to borrow her phallus-shaped cake pans for a bachelorette party. We sat there for a few minutes talking about them. She had two different sized pans, so there were some jokes told…then I noticed the most mortifying thing. I was sitting on my phone and had pocket-dialed the Child Welfare Provincial Emergency line.
It was on speed dial because I worked for a Children’s Aid Society at the time. It was so awkward.
3. Budding Bromance
A few years ago a guy was on the phone with my boss while we were in his work truck. He had the speakers on and I could hear everything. The guy goes to sign off and out of habit from talking to his kids he said, “Okay, love you. Bye”. But this is what made the moment perfect: My boss didn’t skip a beat and replied, “Love you, too, brother. Bye”.
4. Let Them Eat Cake
I work in a hospital and last week the operator was having a conversation with someone at 3:00 am. She did not realize it was broadcast over the entire hospital PA system. The conversation went like this: “I can’t believe they gave those nurses stupid cupcakes for nurses week. They should have gotten a bonus instead”.
I just about peed my pants laughing, but you know what? That lady was spot on.
5. Beyond Tasteless
One time I got a call from some lady at a call center, and from her voice you could tell she was a hefty type of gal —she was the heavy breathing type. Anyway, the call ended but I didn’t press end since I assumed they would. They didn’t. I could hear this lady talking to her coworkers about fried liver and onions.
The way she talked and gushed over it made it sound so lewd. It was disgusting. She said she has it at least once a day as her meal. She even made slurping sounds followed by some type of moaning. I’ve never felt so disgusted in my life listening to someone describe food.
6. She Who Shall Not Be Named
My grandfather was once on the phone with his mother while his mother's sister was sitting beside her. When his mother went to hang up she said, “Love you, bye” as normal, but she forgot to hang up. It went from normal to tragic in an instant. The sister said, “You don’t really love him do you”?
To which his mother said, “No, not at all". Unfortunately, she outlived all her kids, but she passed on last year and I still refuse to call her my great-grandmother.
7. In Praise Of Silence
I called a tech support number for a work-related issue. The tech support guy was clearly at home and I could hear a dog whining in the background. He got my error code straightened out and we both said bye, but before I could hang up my phone I heard, "Who's a good boy! Are you a good boy"?
I said quietly, "I am". I heard laughing and he said, "I am sooo sorry"! and then hung up. I was disappointed. I wanted to hear his puppy...
8. Elective Amnesia
Oh, God. The horrible memories. I put my call on mute/video off as I was only needing to listen. In a hurry, I decided to bring my phone in the shower to listen while I was getting ready for another meeting. Well, the ringcentral app was buggy and it was all on. I was clued in when I heard someone say, “Do I hear like shower water running”?
A coworker kindly disconnected me. But that wasn't the worst part. I talked to her later and she confirmed…everyone could see my chest. I was vomitously embarrassed.
9. Bless Your Heart
I’m from the Deep South and have an obvious accent. I called one of our New York City suppliers and while I supposedly was on hold I heard one of the salespeople mocking my accent with various insults and uproarious laughter. As soon as she came back on line, I purred in my most Southern drawl, “Y’all are fired” and hung up.
My boss agreed and that company lost a valuable contract. Don’t bite or mock the hand that feeds you.
10. A Good Mind Boggling
Years ago I worked at a cold-calling call center and I had a customer who was kind of panting and trying to sound normal at the same time. As soon as the conversation ended, it became all too clear to me what was going on. He obviously thought he hung up because he started to talk dirty to his partner, complete with full-on sounds.
They just continued on with whatever they were doing before answering the phone. What boggles my mind is the fact that he answered the phone to begin with.
11. Kind Of A Pig Deal
I once had a guy who worked in the construction industry join a morning conference call with a client from a portable toilet. But there was a really crucial thing he didn't count on. He didn’t realize his phone’s front-facing camera was on, and he stood up from taking a dump only to accidentally show his hog to about 20 or so people.
12. Task Failed Successfully
A couple of years ago my grandpa pocket-dialed me while going through the drive-thru. I thought it was the most adorable thing ever. He had just gotten a cell phone and had no idea how to use it. I was so surprised when I saw I had a voicemail from him. It's just two minutes of him ordering a big mac, fries, and a coke, but he passed a few months later and I listen to it sometimes when I miss him.
13. Come Acid Rain Or Shine
Once, while inside one of those drive-thru carwashes, I accidentally dialed a girl I was kind of seeing and left a long voicemail. It might not have been so bad if not for the fact that I was going through an old childhood habit of making commentary on each step of the washing process.
It sounded something like "Here come the hula dancers!...The rain! The rain! It's a monsoon!...Those spinning Russian hats are attacking the car!...Okay! Time to dry off! Hot wax makes me shine"! Later I found out she thought I was tripping on acid in a laundromat. I was almost more embarrassed by the real explanation.
14. I Love You, I Hate You
Once, we were hiring a new employee who seemed like a totally normal guy and was soon to be married to his fiance. Mid-interview process, his phone somehow called our human resources guy in the middle of the night during a vicious domestic with his boyfriend.
Yelling, screaming, crying, glass breaking, accusations, “I love you”, the whole bit. We still hired him and we never told him that we overheard their dispute, but I think just the potential embarrassment of that situation is enough.
15. Where Credit Is Due
Someone once made an announcement over the hospital PA system that was totally appropriate, but then they forgot to hang up and started ordering a pizza. It got so, so disastrous. They read out their credit card number with all the needed details, then they forget to hang up again and announced patient identifiers over the PA system.
I have no clue how it went for so long, but it was insane. I feel bad for the person on the phone, but I also feel terrible for the patient.
16. A Too Close Call
I was waiting for a speaker to finish for my turn to address a group of 100 or so employees in a small auditorium. After her presentation, the speaker hurriedly left the stage and the auditorium without passing me her lapel microphone. It wasn’t a big deal because my voice really projects. Less than a minute into my presentation, we hear it.
An extremely loud poop broadcast over the PA System followed by a huge sigh of relief and the speaker’s voice as she remarked to herself, “That was close”. After listening to the toilet flush three times—each flush making me cringe—we eventually saw her come back into the room and calmly take her seat, hot microphone still on her lapel.
17. The Pint Of No Return
My father-in-law was an independent truck driver whose office was inside his home. One night my husband and I were staying there when he got back from a long haul. He went to the bar before going home to wind down, called my mother-in-law, and spoke to her on speakerphone while she was cooking.
After they “hung up” we hear, “Well that’s done. Okay, people, I have $1,000 in my pocket! Drinks are on me”! We all froze. My mother-in-law then slowly put down the spatula, walked into the office, and grabbed the work phone. Meanwhile, my father-in-law is just steady running his mouth.
She called the bar and asked for him. We hear a muffled “your wife is on the phone”. She then very calmly said, “There had better be $950 in your pocket when you get home or don’t come home”. She finished with “and hang up your phone”.
Then she hung up and busted out laughing so hard she was crying. I assume he came home with the money since we didn’t hear them arguing when he got back. My mother-in-law was great. She was just as calm as could be through the whole thing, then lost her mind as soon as she hung up. Man, I miss her. Rest in peace, Mom.
18. Mea Culpa
Once when I was playing Destiny and I got a call from my mom. I picked up the call without realizing it while I was talking about “how obnoxious this woman can be”. Her reaction broke my heart. When I put the phone closer to my ear I could only hear her in a shy voice say, “Oh, I'm sorry. I wanted to know how your day was”.
I don't know why, but it hit me harder than it should and the tears came up. I'm sorry, mom.
19. Troubleshooting
I work with a guy who used to work at an IT helpdesk. He made a habit of muting himself and very aggressively chewing out whoever it was he was on the phone with, then unmuting himself and acting as if nothing happened. I knew at some point he was going to miss that mute button. One day I’m on a conference call with him, another company, and another individual at the director level within our company for some troubleshooting.
After a bit, we decided to call it a day and reconvene in the morning. Suddenly, we heard him unleash a string of loud expletives followed by silence. The director said, “Excuse me”? After a brief second he dropped off the call and we apologized on his behalf. But it didn't end there. He came in the next morning with an immaculate story about how he spilled hot coffee on his leg and had to drop his pants outside his car.
He showed everybody in the office this massive burn mark on his leg. The interesting thing is that he had been on this call with us for about four hours, away from his home, and in his car this whole time with no access to a fresh pot of coffee. If there was coffee in his possession, it was very likely cold by this point. My guess is he realized he had messed up, so he went home and staged an injury to avoid persecution, but we’ll never know.
20. Of Angels and Demons
I had a job where I was in the position to write-off a substantial phone bill because the customer said her mother was dying overseas. She said her mother had dementia and needed to hear things in her daughter’s voice to believe anything, including the doctor’s instructions. She was heartbroken and sobbing about how if she had the kind of money to pay this phone bill, then she would have just gone back to her country because the flight would have cost less.
She was right about that. I wrote-off the entirety of the phone bill. She cried like a jilted lover in a rom-com and went on and on about how people like me are angels sent from heaven. After we were done I wished her a good evening and she obviously thought the call had ended. She turned to someone and said in a perfectly normal voice, “Well, that worked”!
21. Silent As A Fish
My daughter's school had an author come on a Zoom call to do a reading of a book called The Pout-Pout Fish. The school wanted to get the kids in on the reading, so the teachers set it up so that the kids would join in towards the end. They rehearsed it as such: “Okay, everyone, on the count of three, we'll say ‘blub blub blub’” and proceeded to read the book.
When they got to the part where they wanted the kids to join in it went something like this: “Okay, everyone, on the count of three. One...two..." and whoever was in charge of the meeting unmuted 300 children at once at the count of two. It was chaos. Imagine 300 children screaming “BAAAAHHHAAA BLUUUUBB AAAAAAAAHHHHHH SKKKKRREEEEEE FFFIIIISSSHHHHHH BBLLLUUUUUUBBBB” until they immediately muted everyone again.
22. Kiss And Tell
I accidentally pocket-dialed someone and left about a two-and-a-half-minute voicemail of my son and me badly singing “Kiss” by Prince. But I had made an even more fatal error. See, the person I called was a DJ, who then turned it into a five-minute song mix. It was given to someone I worked with and eventually it made the rounds.
23. Fluent Sarcasm
A couple of decades ago I was at a meeting with a few BizDev guys from a Japanese company we collaborated with. At the end of one of the design sessions, one of them said something to the others in Japanese and one of our artists who looked the part of a large, late-90s rapper responded in fluent Japanese. The meeting stopped, they stared, then asked for a few minutes alone.
Apparently, the exchange was: "I hate working with these guys, why do we continue this"? Trev, the rapper, said, "Of course you do. I mean, just look at us" or something to that effect. Ahh, memories.
24. How To Lose 150 Pounds In One Day
In the early days of Facebook, my former father-in-law was just starting to discover it and connect with old friends. He was having fun seeing who gained weight, who got divorced, who’s a millionaire now, and so on. One guy he connected with gave him his phone number, so my father-in-law called him. The guy didn’t answer, so he left a message.
He said something like, “Hey Bill, it’s been a while. Just wanted to catch up. Give me a call back”, then he hit the end button and jokingly adds, “and I heard you got fat”! He looked down and to his horror the call was still active and recording the message. It probably sounded like, “….and I heard you got fat!….oh no! Oh my God, it didn’t hang up. Oh no, it’s still recor….click”.
To my knowledge, Bill never returned that call.
25. Karen Mode Enabled
I once got a call from one of my three least favorite patients at a dental office. Her tone was always accusatory, even when she was calling to ask if we were open that day. After we hung up, I saw her call again on the caller ID.
I couldn’t pick up because I was now talking to another patient in person. Then I noticed line one (her line) is on for a long time…like she’s leaving a...five-minute message? I check my voicemail and indeed, I have a long message of her walking around a grocery store with her daughter.
She had pocket-dialed me. I listened to the whole thing. She was trash-talking our office, but the thing is she kept outlining how we went above and beyond: “Oh, they think the problem is resolved just because they called me back three times and I didn’t answer after I didn’t text them back”.
It was clear we were giving a ton of effort to this patient and she was unhappy anyway. She thought it made us look bad. About a year, later she finally transferred to another dentist. They asked for records and I sent X-rays and such. Eventually, she filed a complaint against that dentist.
I don’t know why. Anyway, we were asked to provide our records to the state board. When that happens you dig up everything you possibly can or it can look like you’re hiding something. I knew just what to do. Luckily, I had saved that voicemail, included it in an mp3, and sent it down on a thumb drive with everything else.
I don’t know if they even listened to this woman needlessly complaining about excellent service, but I do know her complaint was dropped by the state board.
26. The Call Is Coming From Inside The House
I was invited to my friend's house for a girls night. My friend has a kid and when I arrived it was already past his bedtime, so I decided not to ring the doorbell but to call my friend on her mobile and ask her to let me in. I dial and then...nothing.
I wait and wait for the call to go through, but nothing happens. Okay, then. I hang up and try to get my friend's attention by gently knocking. It works, she lets me in, and we begin drinking. Shortly after, my friend gets a voicemail and listens to it. She goes pale, swears, and plays it for all of us.
It's some pretty loud heavy breathing. The sound of someone getting it on, basically. Gross. We're all pretty freaked out, wondering who would do something like that, and if they called her phone on purpose or if it was just some random dialing a random number.
After much discussion, she decides to use the "call this number back" option, and as she is too spooked to talk to whoever might be on the other end, I bravely volunteer, prepared to chew out some pervert for messing with my friend. You can guess where this is going.
She hands me the phone, having already dialed. Everyone is waiting with bated breath and my heart is beating like crazy. It rings, rings…And my own phone on the table starts ringing! Turns out that when I was waiting in front of the door, completely out of breath after having biked there for 30 minutes and then climbed four flights of stairs, the call did in fact go through to her voicemail.
My heavy breathing sounds remarkably like getting it on.
27. That’s Wassup
When I was a college exchange student in Germany I asked my mom to call my home university's housing department on my behalf to inquire about my assigned dorm room for the next school year. You couldn't book online back then and their telephone hold times were legendarily long. To call the university from Germany was way too expensive, so my mom called on my behalf.
She explained that I was abroad on exchange, but when the lady put her on hold to check on my assignment, she didn't mute the phone. My mom heard, “This lady is calling for her daughter. When are these parents going to make these kids grow up and manage their own lives"?
She then returned and told my mom that I didn't get my first or second building request, completely unaware that my mom had heard her. Guess who got their first building and room pick upon return?
28. A Creature Of Habit
During one of my cold calls at a call center, I was speaking to a seemingly very sweet if not a little sad-sounding old lady. She very politely told me something like, "No, I don't think so, it's just not a good time". We said our goodbyes, but as I'm navigating my software to hang up I realize she was still on the phone. Then it got really creepy.
I hear her walk a few paces, presumably to a sink where the faucet starts to run, and then she begins talking to herself. She repeats only that one phrase on a loop as if she's rehearsing it: "No I don't think so, it's just not a good time". She said it over and over in the same cadence and tone, for roughly two minutes before the creepiness got the better of my curiosity.
29. The Math Ain’t Mathing
On my 21st birthday, I stupidly drank myself into oblivion. At the end of the night, I staggered over to the skytrain where there was this glorious 10-foot-tall stone abacus. Naturally, one's first instinct while under the influence is to play with an object of such wonder. It absolutely crushed my hand and broke through my fingernail.
But do I need a doctor? No way! I sauntered onto the train and proceeded to bleed profusely. A stranger handed me a glove to wrap around the wound and the rest of the night was a blur. Apparently, I had pocket-dialed my significant other when I sat on the train and he could hear people trying to offer me help while I screamed, "Don't trust the abacus! Screw the Abacus"!
Apparently, this went on for a long time before I started telling people that I injured my hand in the battle. The moral of the story? You can't trust the abacus.
30. The Way Of The Dododo
One time when I was using voip software on my work computer I was leaving a message for a client about data conversion services. After I left the message I thought I had hung up and I started singing the Jim Henson song, “Mana Mana Doo Doo Dododo”. Then noticed I was still on the call, so I hung up. I thought it was the end...it wasn't.
The next morning I come in to check the conversion voicemails. There was a very clear and professional message left by the client. He left his contact number and said to have a nice day followed by a short pause. Then he starts to sing the same song from the first message, picking up where I had left off when I realized I was still being recorded by the voicemail.
It was hilarious and made my day.
31. Pulling Double Duty
I got a voicemail from my nana asking me to return a glass dessert dish she had brought over for dinner one night. The voicemail she left was over three minutes long, which I found intriguing for such a simple request. As she “hung up” she must have set the phone down and soon after asked my papa to come sit next to her on the couch.
He replied, "I probably shouldn’t because I'm about to toot". My nana then shared with him that she had to clean the couch only a few days before because, and I quote, he “left a skidmark on the couch”. She goes on to tell him he needs to wear pants on the couch, and he says he does, causing her to plead that he wears two pairs next time.
My girlfriend and I practically skid marked my car seats laughing so hard while listening to it. I saved it. I cherish it. It will be with me long after they’re gone to remind me of them, as outlandish and sick as it may seem.
32. Unfinished Business
Back when I was in the army I got the chance to call my girlfriend and I took it. It was a nice call. She told me what she'd been up to and all that. We made plans for some leave that I would be getting soon, said goodbye, and then she hung up.
I still had a few minutes and I was just sitting there holding the phone so that the next guy wouldn't hassle me for it. The next moment made me want to die. This is what I hear from her line. Male Voice: "So when's he coming back"? Ex-Girlfriend: "Not for a couple of weeks, we have plenty of time".
Male Voice: "You're going to breakup with him before that, right"? Ex-Girlfriend: "Of course"! I hung up and felt terrible, then I ghosted her when I went on leave. Later I found out she'd been seeing the other guy for a while.
I didn't see her for years and years until one day I was taking my kid to get pizza at a place in a strip mall and there she was, standing next to an SUV, staring at me like she'd seen a ghost. I waved, went inside, and that was it.
33. A Slow Burn Romance
My uncle, who is a carpenter by trade, remarried this lady and she turned out to be really entitled. Her mother was living with them in a brand new house that my uncle had just built himself. One day the mother called my uncle while he was at work and said that a log had rolled out of the fireplace.
He told her to either put it back in the fireplace or put it out. Apparently, this was too difficult of a task because she left a series of voicemails describing the continually burning log. It got so out of control. By the time he got back home the house was completely burnt down. I mean a big pile of rubble.
To explain how ridiculous this is, the log rolled out onto a hardwood floor and the voicemails spanned like a 20-minute period. I never got to see that house. My uncle soon divorced that lady and she ran off with a good chunk of his bank account.
34. Bored Silly
I sat in on a remote interview in which we were in the conference room with two screens, one showing the interviewee and the other showing us. Nearing the end of the interview I noticed my boss had seemed to develop an unusual neck spasm.
He would face the screen, suddenly look to the side, then face the screen again. At the end of the interview, as the candidate was exchanging thank yous, etc, I leaned over and asked if my boss was okay. His answer was just loud enough to be picked up by the microphone: "If you twist fast enough you can see your own ear"!
Needless to say, the job offer was not accepted, but the memory makes me smile.
35. Swatter No Swatting
Back when I still worked in an emergency center, I got a call that was pretty obviously a swatting attempt (where you prank send officers to an address). They described a horrible situation a few feet away from them, but it was silent in the background, they were using a normal tone of voice, and the phone location was not showing remotely near the area they described.
I started two calls with one located where they claimed it was, just in case it was true. I started another call where their phone actually located them, so we were covered in case of real issues, but still actually investigating what was likely happening. Anyway, they said they had to hang up because it was not safe to stay on the phone.
Then I heard pocket rustling sounds and the same person talking in the background. They were laughing and going on about how "that brat Anna is gonna get what she deserves when them 'Poh-leece' show up and point them pieces at her". It was clearly not meant to be heard by me. But karma was about to get them.
Law enforcement found them pretty quickly because the area they had actually called from had a very low-density population. Hearing them panic when they saw the flashing red lights outside of their house was a special kind of fun.
36. Girl In Progress
I have a friend that is awesome to hang out with, but she can be super flakey. Her brother was dating another friend of ours and they lived in Thailand together. The mutual friend was back home for a bit and was heading back to Thailand the next morning, so we met up with a few other friends.
The flakey friend said she would be there, but surprise! she flaked. When I called to see if we could get a hold of her, it went to voicemail and I thought I hung up. Here's where I made my big mistake. Instead, she got a voicemail from an exasperated me saying, “She always does this. I don’t think she shows up more than a third of the time we make plans”.
She confided in me a year later that she’d got it, but thanked me because she said she hadn’t realized how bad she’d been about keeping plans. The voicemail had her reflecting. After that, she started making a point of keeping plans. She even said it helped improve her depression. I was so embarrassed, but I’m glad there was a happy ending.
37. There, There
I overheard my boss talking to his daughter after I gave him my notice of resignation: “He said his biggest regret was losing me as his manager”. He was an average manager at best and I never really commented on his management skills one way or the other.
38. Coming Soon To A Pocket Near You
My parents are divorced and remarried. When I was 17 I lived with my mom and would see my dad on the weekends. I knew that my dad and stepmom were possibly trying to have kids, but they hadn’t really said much to me about it. Then one, day I got an accidental pocket-dial from my dad while they were breaking the pregnancy news to my stepmom’s parents.
I answered and I could hear my step-grandmother saying, “Congratulations, we’re so happy for you both”. I listened for a couple of minutes and was able to put together what the congratulations were about. My dad and stepmom told me about the pregnancy the next time I saw them and I acted surprised.
I didn’t want to ruin it for them. I didn’t tell them until years later that I had found out about my future brother from inside my dad’s pocket.
39. Well, This Is Awkward
The last group call I ever knowingly participated in where others didn’t know it was a group call was in Junior High School. My friend was dating this guy, Brian, and I had a huge crush on his friend. So she’s like, “Let’s call Brian! You stay quiet and I’ll casually bring you up and ask if his friend ever talks about if he likes you”!
In hindsight, I should have known that was a terrible idea. It could have really crushed me. Luckily for me, it didn’t even get that far. Something worse happened. As soon as he answered he told my friend that he didn’t like her anymore and that they were “broken up now”. I sat quietly on the other line listening to my friend bawl and beg this guy to not dump her before it just got so awkward that I had to hang up.
40. Did I Stutter?
I used to work in a call center. It mostly sucked, but whatever. There's a mute and a hold button. Hold gives them the music and mute is just silence where they can't hear you. One time I had this lady on the line that just kept going on and on about all her problems and stuff.
At some point, I thought I had hit the mute button and I plopped my head on my desk and said: “Oh my gooooddd I don't caaaarreeeee!!” Kinda like Jim Carrey in Dumb and Dumber. To my surprise she goes, "I know ya don't care but I'm telling ya anyway!"
She carried on while I sat there kinda dumbfounded. I was like “whoops…” but she didn't seem upset and 30 seconds later she said, "Okay, thanks again. Bye". Then she hung up. It was different, but it was still funny.
41. I, Object
I was wrapping up my work in a small office where we communicated with our field employees by radio. Our assistant manager noticed I had a call from our new bank representative, who was apparently a very attractive woman. This was our undoing.
The assistant manager put the phone down for a moment while he radioed our owner with the banker’s question. The owner responded, “Are you talking to our new banker?" The assistant manager responded "yes” and the owner said, "Tell her if she’ll bend over, I’ll drive her home”! He obviously thought he was funny because he let out a series of “Haw haw haw!"
The assistant manager reached for the hold button, but it was way too late.
42. Oh My Cod
In middle school, my best friend at the time had been conducting a year-long prank on me. I was too stupid to know any better. She claimed to have a brother that had seen me on campus and who had a crush on me. She did a very convincing voice impression of a guy and would sometimes hand-off the phone to her brother when I would call.
She was living with her grandparents while her other siblings, which included two sisters that were real and the brother that wasn't real, lived with her mom. So when I went over to visit I never saw him and never suspected a thing.
One day I was talking to this fake brother and it was starting to get a little intimate. I was a romantic, what can I say? He abruptly tried to end the call and he thought he had when I heard my best friend say, “That was close, she almost got me”.
I didn't talk to her for months. But there was another side to the story. Later on, due to other events I won't get into, I suspected she was a lesbian who actually had a crush on me and was in denial. I don't know where she is now and it's been years since I've heard from her.
43. Let There Be Life
After thinking I'd hung up on my customer, I said, "We'll be making babies tonight, you should really come". Without context it made it sound like I was inviting someone to some kind of adult party for a game of Russian roulette to impregnate my wife.
Then I heard my customer say, "Uhhhh…sounds like fun, but no thanks". I wish they'd known the real truth. In reality, I was telling one of my college students, who wanted to skip class for something, that they should come to the biology lab because we were learning about meiosis by combining little discrete cardboard chromosomes into "complete people" with various alleles of interest.
Yeah, that's definitely not how it sounded to my customer. I couldn’t stop laughing.
44. The Wonderful Pharaoh Of Oz
While I was in Italy a few years ago. My freelance work wasn't doing great, so I was applying for any job I could find, and I had a job interview scheduled on Skype. The job offer was pretty vague, but I had nothing better to do, so I gave it a shot. Five minutes into the call I had a stomach-dropping realization. It was an obvious pyramid scheme.
I let the guy finish the introduction of his pitch, then I said, "No thanks" and hung up. He must have thought he had closed the call or perhaps Skype glitched, I’m not sure, but I could still see him, looking disappointed. I could also still hear sounds on his side. I heard the unpleasant voice of an old lady come from off-screen.
She had clearly been there the whole time and the dialogue went something like this: Her: "He didn't fall for it"? Him: “Nah”. Then the call finally ended for real. It still makes me laugh.
45. An Unsubtle Bubble
My brother-in-law got a friendly reminder that the company he works for can still hear him even when he puts the customer on hold. This was because he was taking a big bong rip while waiting on the customer.
46. Time Is Money
A patient called and left a voicemail for a refill on his prescription. He thought he hung up, but he didn’t. Instead, he proceeded to negotiate a price with someone for the refill he had just requested.
47. Earth To Dad
One time, back when my dad used to be a coach bus driver, he left his phone on after calling my sister. It was in his pocket while he was still on the job. The radio was on inside the bus and my sister, who was still listening on the other end of the call, could hear that it was playing our local station.
My dad often listened to this station and phoned in for quizzes and anecdotes. Then my dad heard something super strange. My sister had called up the station and managed to get the radio host to make a live air announcement to tell my dad to turn off his phone.
48. Beyond The Gyno Veil
Oh boy. My experience of this was the most harrowing thing I've been through. This was how I found out a girl I was dating had end-stage terminal cancer. She was on the phone with me as she walked into her “gynecology appointment”, then proceeded to put her phone in her purse, but I think she mis-tapped or something.
I listened to a 30-minute conversation that was to the effect of: “You have four months to live. There are no treatment options”. She'd been aware of it for three years but refused treatment because essential oils can cure any malady, am I right???
49. Prius At The Disco
One day, I randomly get a call from this girl who's never called me once. We would only ever text. I shortly discover she pocket-dialed me while she was driving around with her mom and they were having a nice conversation about what she decided her major was going to be. I sat and listened for like seven minutes because I had nothing better to do.
I planned on mentioning how creepy I am in a lighthearted retelling of this silly incident. That's when the nightmare started. I heard a scream and some tires screeching followed by a crashing sound, then the call ended. I was worried, so I dialed her and got her voicemail. Not good.
I repeated this three times before considering calling an ambulance, but then I got a text from her saying she just saw a really bad accident between some Prius and a tow truck, so now traffic is blocked up and “why are you blowing up my phone”? I was relieved, but man, I won't forget that fear I felt.
50. Woman Overboard
A colleague of mine dialed into a meeting of two or three managers plus about 25 sales representatives, only for everyone to suddenly go quiet. One person told him the meeting was cancelled and he could drop the call, as they were just chatting about sales stuff. He pretended to hang up and stayed on the line. That's how he found out the truth.
They were basically planning a mutiny because they didn't like that their regional manager was a woman. They had a whole strategy for how they were going to cause a massive screw-up that would cost the company a ton of money and make it look like it was her fault so that she would get fired. The idiots even did a little "are we all in agreement" roll call at the end.
We worked in a call center, so his end of the call was recorded. Within a week, every last one of them was fired and within a month they were replaced.
Sources: Reddit,
