Ludicrous
- 1 minLast night I took an impromptu trip to see “Murder on the Orient Express” for it’s last show in the local theatre.
Rather than booking the ticket for it and a second show online, I wandered around the corner to secure my spot in person. Unfortunately the box office was closed, however I could book the ticket over the phone.
Fabulous.
Given there wasn’t any rush, I ordered a cup of tea from the theatres cafe to make the booking followed by a little work.
As soon as I dialed the number, the phone rang behind the box office counter and an assistant walked over and picked the handset up. After an exchange of greetings, we got down to making the order. Given we were 20 feet apart, whilst talking I walked over to the desk, making it clear I was the person on the other end of the phone.
“Shall I hang up?”
“No. We only do bookings over the phone at this time of day.”
“But you can hear me without us being on a call.”
“It’s the rules.”
What followed was a surreal experience where I was talking to someone three feet away from me over the phone. I wasn’t allowed to hand my card over to take the payment, or even for them to read the details themselves, I had to say the numbers over the phone.
It reminded me of an anecdote from a Simon Sinek TED talk.