Imagine working in a call center for a pizza chain. What would you do if a customer called on one of the busiest nights of the year and insisted on speaking to someone else? Would you explain that you’re perfectly capable of taking her order, or would you put her on hold?

In this story, one person is in that exact situation, and she ends up letting the customer sit on hold for an hour.

Keep reading to see if the customer ever gives in and lets her take her order.

You want to speak to the supervisor?

While in college I worked as the escalated transfer supervisor at a call center for a large Canadian pizza chain.

One new year’s eve it was so busy in the call center that the customer service department started taking orders to ease the traffic, myself included.

Suddenly I get connected with Karen. Before I even have a chance to speak she is already irate and rude.

K: Why in the hell was I on hold for 30 minutes?

Karen insisted on speaking to someone else.

Me: Mme, I apologize for the wait, but it’s new year’s eve and everyone in the country is ordering pizza.

K: That is unacceptable, I demand to speak to a customer service agent

Me: I can transfer you if you’d like, but I am in the customer service department and can talk to you about your complaint.

K: Like hell you are! Transfer me to customer service immediately!

Time to comply.

Me: Ok, but due to the busy day, you may be on hold for a while…

K: I said NOW.

So I added her to my customer service queue which was 20 calls deep.

After 30 minutes, she is up.

I knew this was going to happen!

Me: Hi, you’ve reached [company name] customer service, my name is Superfleh, how may I help you?

K: (yelling) I was on hold for 30 minutes waiting… Hold on, wasn’t I just speaking to you?

Me: yes Mme

K: (still yelling) This is outrageous, i insist on speaking to the manager.

By the way, OP is the manager.

Me: absolutely, please hold.

And add her to my queue once again.

Now keep in mind that the escalated transfer supervisor (me) is the final stage of customer service so when a customer asks for a manager, the ETS was the end of the line.

I continue to take orders for for another 25 minutes or so, the pick up Karen’s call

OP explained the situation.

Me: Hi there you’ve reached Superfleh, I believe you asked to speak to a manager, how can I help?

K: (in a desperate tone) You’re the manager too?

Me: yes Mme, you see because it is so busy, I have been taking calls all day to ease the traffic and make things run a little quicker.

K: oh my goodness, I’ve been waiting for over an hour.

Karen finally relented.

Me: I did tell you that I could help when I took your initial call.

K: you did.

Me: would you like me to take your order now?

K: yes…

It was so satisfying to let all the air out of her like that.

That’s a lot of drama to order pizza! It’s not like it’s that complicated to take an order.

Let’s see how Reddit responded to this story.

This is a good point!

One person expected the story to have a different ending.

This isn’t your typical Karen story.

Here’s a similar situation.

She made that phone call take much longer than necessary.

If you liked that post, check out this post about a rude customer who got exactly what they wanted in their pizza.