Sometimes, you receive a call that makes you feel like you’re stuck in a loop.

So, what would you do if a caller insisted your office ran a hotline that didn’t even belong to your organization? Would you see if you can help her with her needs? Or would you keep trying to calmly explain that she needs to call the hotline again?

In the following story, one nonprofit receptionist deals with this situation and does what she can. Here’s what happened.

I work as a receptionist for a legal non-profit (free lawyers) … so you can imagine the calls I get.

Me: Hello, Legal Non-Profit.

She: I need those papers that the hotline was supposed to send.

Me: Hotline? Did you mean the intake department?

She: No, the hotline you run.

She was trying to figure out what the hotline was.

Me: …

Me: Legal Non-Profit doesn’t have a …. “hotline.” What kind of papers were you needing?

She: I called the hotline, and she said she was going to send papers.

Me: What KIND of papers?

The woman wasn’t letting it go.

She: For custody and visitation. I called back the hotline, but they didn’t answer. Why don’t you answer the hotline?

Me: Because it’s not our hotline. I just Googled it, and it’s with the State. It’s not affiliated with Legal Non-Profit at all. You need to call the hotline back.

She: But I need those papers for the court. Can you download the papers from online?

Me: You can download them from the website dot org, yes.

To help, she offered to let the woman speak with an attorney who was already assigned to her.

She: She was supposed to print them out and send them to me.

Me: Then you need to call the hotline back.

She: They don’t answer the phone.

Me: You have a file in our system. Did you want to speak to the attorney you were assigned?

Finally, she got the point.

She: No, I want to speak to the woman from the hotline.

Me: Then you need to call the hotline. We’re not the hotline.

She: ….

She: Okay, then.

Wow! Some people just refuse to listen.

Let’s see how the folks over at Reddit feel about this situation.

Here’s a good thought.

According to this person, it’s hard to keep up with these things when going through a divorce.

This person would just give them the number.

For this reader, these calls are frequent.

The woman clearly needed help.

If you liked this post, check out this story about an employee who got revenge on a co-worker who kept grading their work suspiciously low.