About 15 years ago I worked at an e-commerce website and answered the phones. One day a guy called in, gave his name (which sounded vaguely familiar to me), wanted to do an order over the phone, and have it shipped to an address in lower Manhattan.
I thought the address was weird because it had no apartment number, it was just like 144 E 13th Street or something. So I asked if it was a business because we got a lower rate for shipping to commercial addresses and he says something like, “Uh no, it’s my home.” So I kinda knew he had to be somebody to have that address.
Then a lightbulb went off in my head and I go, “Didn’t you write Joe vs. the Volcano?” And it definitely caught him by surprise and he was very gracious as he accepted both my praise and offer of free overnight shipping.
Another time, a co-worker there got a “don’t you know who I am?” from Seth Godin when they refused to bend over backward to fix an order he placed.
It was so funny. I heard her half of the conversation getting into an argument with him and she goes, “No, I don’t know who ‘Seth Godin’ is and I don’t care.” I guess he threatened to write about how bad her customer service was on his blog.
To be fair our customer service was terrible. When a customer asked for our manager, I had a fake email address that I’d give them that I was in charge of. I probably fired myself about a half-dozen times.
> When a customer asked for our manager, I had a fake email address that I’d give them that I was in charge of. I probably fired myself about a half-dozen times.
Might be all that HN exposure turning me cynical, but I kind of assumed this is what everyone does.
We sold Brookstone-style massagers and some yoga/exercise equipment. At the time we ranked well for a lot of massage/yoga search terms and did pretty brisk business for a tiny website run out of a random guy’s garage.
I thought the address was weird because it had no apartment number, it was just like 144 E 13th Street or something. So I asked if it was a business because we got a lower rate for shipping to commercial addresses and he says something like, “Uh no, it’s my home.” So I kinda knew he had to be somebody to have that address.
Then a lightbulb went off in my head and I go, “Didn’t you write Joe vs. the Volcano?” And it definitely caught him by surprise and he was very gracious as he accepted both my praise and offer of free overnight shipping.
Another time, a co-worker there got a “don’t you know who I am?” from Seth Godin when they refused to bend over backward to fix an order he placed.