It’s two tales and two customers, actually. But that title was too cool to pass up.
Anyway, I worked at a place called Pellegrini Refrigeration for most of the time I spent in San Francisco.1 Part of my job was taking service calls.
Some of the service calls were routine. Some, like the customer who apparently wouldn’t or couldn’t believe what a technician said each time, were mildly frustrating. Mildly for me: I don’t think that customer was having a good time.
And one was in its own category. Make that two calls and two categories.
A Difficult Customer
I don’t remember what led up to the first one. More accurately, I don’t remember what I’d been told about the situation.
I think this was my first week on the job.
I’d been shown how to make coffee, take soundings in the fuel tank and record the numbers: routines that kept the warehouse/office running. I was the only one there full-time, and I’m drifting off-topic.
The point is that what I did was “office clerk” stuff — mostly answering telephones, typing documents, and filing records: what the Occupational Outlook Handbook calls General Office Clerk.2
I’d also been brought up to speed on what sort of calls I should expect. Again, it was mostly routine: except for one call they said I could expect soon.
One of the customers — after nearly a half-century, I don’t remember if it had started with a service call or something involving a purchase.
Either way, this customer had been trying to get out of paying at least one bill. Unsuccessfully. Normally, I might consider the possibility that the customer had a point.
In this case — yeah. After one conversation, I decided that my employer had the right idea.
I am the Office Girl
Happily, I’d handled quite a few service requests before the difficult customer called.
He did most of the talking: starting with a nearly-polite ‘this is [name] [purpose of call]’, then a rapid transition to blustering.
After expressing displeasure at my employer’s failure to do things his way, he explained why I should agree with him.
I gave him the information I’d been told to provide, along with an admission that I lacked the authority to do any more than that.
Then the cycle began again.
Finally, he said something like ‘I’ve been working with the office girl! Let me talk to the office girl!’
That’s when I said, “I am the office girl”.
There was a long pause. Maybe he hadn’t known that guys can handle office work, maybe he realized that he’d been trying to browbeat an “office girl” who sounds a bit like James Earl “Darth Vader” Jones.
Whatever the reason, when he started talking again he was no longer in bluster mode: and called me “sir” before hanging up.
I didn’t get any more calls from him, which suited me fine.
A Calm, Even Jaunty, Customer
Pellegrini Refrigeration/Pelco — two parts of the same company, basically — handled commercial refrigeration units, from the sort of coolers you’ll see near the checkout in groceries to walk-in freezers.
Sooner or later, each unit would need servicing. That’s when I’d get a call, learn what had happened — or not happened — and write up a service request.
Some customers were calm, some sounded impatient, and one sounded — under the circumstances — remarkably jaunty.
I think the name of the place was The Mad Hatter. Among other things, the venue provided ice cream: enough to warrant having a walk-in freezer to keep it fresh.
This call came first thing Monday morning. My memory tells me that it was the Mad Hatter himself, the manager, who was calling. He was, and remains, the most resolutely cheerful person I’ve ever had the pleasure of working with.
He’d received a one-ton shipment of ice cream late Friday, or maybe it was two tons.
It was, at any rate, enough to fill his walk-in freezer. Which, at the time, was in good working order.
Then he locked up and left for the weekend.
Monday Morning, Flowing Mush
Bright and early Monday morning, this exemplar of good humor returned to The Mad Hatter.
And discovered that his ice cream was now a flowing mass of sweet dairy-based goo.
He figured that the walk-in freezer’s refrigeration had failed Friday night or early Saturday.
In any case, what had been one ton (maybe two tons) of frozen ice cream was now, Monday morning, at room temperature: not only useless for his business, but a major clean-up job.
One of his top priorities, of course, was getting the walk-in freezer’s machinery working again: which is why I processed his request as quickly as I could.
I didn’t ask The Mad Hatter if he’d ordered another shipment of ice cream, or if one could arrive in time for his immediate needs.
For one thing, that would have delayed an urgent service call. For another, despite his upbeat manner, I thought this cheerful manager was having a really bad Monday.
As usual, I didn’t learn how that service call got resolved.
I hope The Mad Hatter got his freezer fixed, found enough ice cream to keep the business running until another big shipment could arrive, and had an inkling as to how much his calm — even cheerful — approach to a monumental Monday morning mess impressed this (now-former) office clerk.
More San Francisco memories, and another time when equipment wasn’t working:
- “The Grand Canyon, the Petrified Forest, and the Big Picture”
(March 22, 2025) - “BART Drivers and the Importance of Being Human”
(February 8, 2025) - “Kids, a Subway Station, and Offhand Advice”
(January 18, 2025) - “A Short Look at a Small Dog, and Another Week in Minnesota”
(January 11, 2025) - “Power Failure Last Week, Now Equipment Failure”
(August 2, 2023)
1 An overview of a job I once had:
- General Office Clerks
Occupational Outlook Handbook, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics
2 A couple decades later, Mario Pellegrini sold his companies to his employees:
- Mario Pellegrini
Obituary, Marin Independent Journal
