Not an hour ago, I got the weirdest wrong number I have EVER gotten. I get this call from "Bill Thomas"
He starts off with "Hey brian, it's Bill" - very casual, like between two business associates.
My mind is racing. Who is Bill?
So I take the safe path: "Hello..."
He launches right into it: "Okay, I think I've got it handled. What happened is that Scott had the wrong license keys, and he entered them on the server which unlocked some incorrect modules. Currently we have EFT, lifecycle, and meta modules installed. We're gonna have to pull the keys and I already got in touch with the company but they're in India so it might take a few hours for them to get back to me"
I'm FREAKING OUT at this point. I thought I had forgotten something of VITAL IMPORTANCE. I'm thinking "Who the fuck is this, why have I forgotten who this is and why have I forgotten what he is talking about. It sounds critical."
Bill keeps going. "I'll need you to contact the users and tell them about potential downtime"
This is like one of my worst nightmares come to life. At this point I'm dying on the inside, with the grim realization that it finally happened - I finally forgot something so important that I will end up in prison. A bank or a hospital is going to go down, it'll be all my fault, and I just plain forgot everything.
Finally it dawns on me. I'm NOT crazy. I TRULY don't know who this guy is or what he is talking about. I take a deep breath and say "Ok... ok stop. I think you may have the wrong Brian and the wrong server admin."
A confused pause.
Bill says, "Oh. Isn't this Brian Mack?"
I say, "No, this is Brian Ambrozy. You have the wrong number AND the wrong server admin."
Things like this happen in my life and at least on a weekly basis I find myself saying "WHAT are the chances that ________ could happen?" to which my friend Keebler usually replies "Apparently 100%".
Bill says, "Oh. That explains why you were being so cold to me."
I think I lost about 4 pounds just by using massive amounts of brain energy running through my mental database at 100% CPU.
Come on, weekend. I need you now more than ever.
That is awesome!
To add to the irony and stress, one of my former employees was named Scott. I also work with two guys named Scott now.
So it was all very believable. He painted a grandiose picture of a bad IT scenario.
If you keep getting these phone calls, you'll be in shape in no time! Forget diets and exercise; stress is where it's at!
Yeah that sounded like a very interesting phone call. I kept getting phone calls for a guy named Six Pack...his cousin even called and after I said hello launched into an explanation of how he was going to be in town and that we needed to hang out and go to the club and do "things" with the ladies. But the one that got me was for a week I had an insurance company calling me trying to get hold of a Mrs. Rodriguez while at the same time I had Mrs. R calling me trying to get hold of the insurance company. They kept leaving me messages waiting for my reply but I was always at work....it really confused them both when I told them they were both calling me looking for the other one. Fun to pick up the phone say hello and have a stranger say "Do you speak Spanish I don't speak English I am calling about my claim.?"
I once got a call from a fake Iraqi accent asking "Where do I ship dese tree missols you ask fo?" I was like WTF. I didn't order three missles. It was from some crazy number too like 099-2317-8567.
My mom got one from a guy once. He was like "HEY MANG!! I heard you got shot up and are in the hospital DAWG. I'll get you outta there real soon man!
Then my mom said "I think you have the wrong number"
Then he called my mom a racial slur and hung up
Either people give out fake phone numbers like the cold or this stuff happens more ofter than it should.
I got another call once from a health insurance company in Columbia. A woman asked how I was "feeling" I said I was great but a little hot (it was summer in non-ac dorm) Then she asked if I wanted $95 a week health insurance.
I laughed and hung up