Diary of a Mad Receptionist

This is the true account of the records I kept regarding the behavior of a receptionist at the furniture company where I worked. The receptionist, hereafter known as Katherine, was unaware that she worked for a furniture manufacturer, and referred to the business as an Interior Design company. It was her job to sit near the front door so that she could admit visitors and employees and also type order acknowledgements for clients and purchase orders for work rooms so that the furniture could be built according to specifications. She was given hand-written (or in my case, typed) pages which she then typed onto forms in quintuplet, so that there would be a white copy, a blue copy, pink, yellow, and goldenrod copies. Her typewriter had memory, and so she would first type the copy into memory, using a dummy sheet of appropriate size, and then insert the form so that it would be printed in quintuplet. This was admittedly not a very interesting or stimulating job, but someone had to do it, and typing was the main skill Katherine possessed. Her interpersonal skills left much to be desired, and so her position at the reception area was somewhat misfortunate, as will be revealed by the notes below. The personnel department requested that I keep this diary.

February 18, 1994
1:45 p.m. Read catalogues addressed to others before beginning to sort mail.

February 22
10:50 a.m. Babbled with guest who was trying to fill out application form, obviously annoying the guest.

February 23
Mercifully absent.

February 25
10:00 a.m. Harassed visitor waiting for Ellen

March 4
9:30 a.m. Talked incessantly with visitor waiting for appointment. Completely stopped typing to gossip.

March 10
9:30 a.m. Alternately coughed & moaned and complained about cello instructor who had rejected her for being too stupid to learn cello.

11:09 a.m. Complained about having to answer telephone when Henry is out sick.

March 14
8:30 a.m. Answered my "Good Morning" with a grunt and several weary sighs, followed by repeated groaning.

11:10 a.m. Refused to talk to guest who came to the door. Instead, she yelled rudely at me to go to the door to talk to the guest. I had to tell Katherine to call Cathe to help the woman, who had come to see her painters. Katherine could not even ask the woman to sit down and wait until she could help her.

2:56 p.m. Came in a huff to complain that I had not written in "check rec’d" for a check that was received after I had written the order. If she had checked to see when I had written the order, she would have known that I didn’t have that information at that time, but she preferred to interrupt me and make a scene.

March 17
2:00 p.m. Refused to help Henry’s temp replacement when she asked her a question about a delivery for SSL. Bruskly told her to ask someone else, offending the temp with her rudeness.

March 18
8:35 a.m. Stood at front door with door open smoking and blowing smoke into the doorway.

3:00 p.m. Refused to transfer a call to an extension number I gave her until I answered irrelevant questions to satisfy her instrusive curiosity. This also gave her the opportunity to keep the caller on hold for as long as possible.

March 21
9:40 a.m. Yelled at me from her desk instead of calling to let me know that the UL inspector had come to see me.

March 23
8:37 a.m. Left front door open with no one at front.

9:22 Rang door bell many times, yanked on door, and then left door open so she could smoke in front of the door while the wind blew smoke into the building and papers off her desk.

March 24
12:37 p.m. Although she is not doing anything, she let phone ring five times before she answered it with a weary "Hello," not identifying herself nor whose phone she is answering. When asked to find someone or relay a message, she mutters to herself, "I don’t have time for this," obviously irritated that her idleness has been interrupted.

2:00 p.m. Repeatedly yelled at me while I was in a meeting with a salesperson from Dallas. Then when I finally walked by, she verbally told me to call someone else right in front of the salesperson, who did not need to hear about my messages, which she was supposed to be writing down.

2:15 p.m. Refused to answer Susan’s phone while I was on another line.

2:25 p.m. Yelled all over the office for Jeanette instead of taking a message. Started swearing because she had to write down a message.

March 25
10:18 a.m. Answered phone with a very feeble "Hello," and then started screaming at Jeanette.

April 26
4:30 p.m. When I returned Shelly’s call from Toscanella, Shelley asked me who had taken the message because they were very rude to her and would not identify themselves. I told Shelly it was Katherine and apologized to Shelly for Katherine’s rudeness. Katherine heard me say her name and came to talk to me to complain about giving her name to Shelly. I asked Katherine why she didn’t give her name to Shelly when she asked her, and Katherine said it was a matter of principle and that she didn’t like people asking who she was. She said she didn’t have to identify herself (or in any other way let people know what office they had reached) and that she would or could not give her name on the phone because she was afraid someone might complain about her or report her to her superiors. I told her this would happen anyway whether she gave her name or not and that withholding her name would only make people mad and more likely to complain. This seemed to have the effect of making Katherine even more paranoid, but I told her that if she simply identified herself at the beginning of a call, this would all be avoided. She, however, preferred anonymity to cooperation. We both ended up somewhat frustrated.

May 26
8:40 a.m. Turned the ringer on her phone so low that no one can hear it or be able to tell if a call has been transferred to her line. She also has the speaker on her phone so low that it cannot be used.

June 2
Noon While she was at lunch, I answered the door and was unable to call the person who had a visitor because Katherine had lost her phone list.

August 31
11:00 a.m. While there were three interviewees in front of her desk, Katherine screamed out to anyone in the office that she had a client on the phone and that he was really mad. Then she ran around the office until she could find someone to take the call. Nancy then talked to the client, who told her that he was really happy to talk to a "normal" person for a change. His complain was that he had to listen to too many commercials while he was on hold. Nancy told me that Katherine had impressed her as being "very negative" while everyone else at the company seemed nice to her.