Albert, Mr. Zondo and the sister

One thing I really enjoy about working is the in-jokes you can share with your colleagues. It's those kinds of situations that you and your colleagues find hilarious, but when you tell your friends about it, they look at you blankly or give a forced chuckle. Also known as "location jokes".

Such as Albert - the guy from Venda who kept phoning about his books and wouldn't understand that he didn't deposit enough money into our account. When eventually he twigged on, he deposited too little (AGAIN)! We were so sick of receiving his phonecalls, we sent the books anyway - deciding the R 5 he was short was just not worth it. We were so glad to finally get rid of him, that we could just laugh when, after we had posted the books, we received a fax of a deposit slip: Albert had deposited another R 10 into our account!

Or then there's Mr Zondo, an irate customer who called me one Friday demanding his book. It had been on order for nearly a month and he had called continuosly only to be told it was still coming. He got so upset with me I had to call a superior to help me handle it. I followed up at the publishers and head office, only to find that the order never went through. After much pressure, the publisher sent the book to us within 2 days. I was so glad to see the book, and paged through it with glee. To my horror, though, I discovered that towards the end of the book the pages had been bound upside down!! This rarely happens, but of course it had to happen with Mr Zondo's book...

Then there was a customer whose book ended up being less than he expected, leaving him with a credit of about R 60. Since he was out of town he informed me that he would send his sister to buy some stationery. As usually happens on a quiet day, we were all assembled at the front desk, discussing this particular customer that had a credit and his sister that was coming in to buy stationery. Suddenly a customer appeared in front of us and announced: "I am the sister".

What's a day at work if you can't laugh at least once.