Painful things people who call me at wotk do...

[meganbmoore]

...this one always wants tomake me cry...

Me: "blah blah blah Tecas Driver's Licence numer is one-zero-three-blah blah blah is everything correct?"
Customer: "No, my license is one-oh-three-blah blah blah."
Me: "Right, one-zero-three..."
Customer: "No, that's one-OH-three..."
Me: (mental sighing and tears) "Right, that's what I have."
Customer: "Oh, I thought you were saying something else."

We're not talking slang or preference here, we're talking honestly not realizing that "oh" is the letter and "zero" is the number...

Comments

[southerndave.livejournal.com]

This might be a generational thing (particularly if your customer is my age or older).

Back when I was young I was taught that when reading out numbers other than in a strict mathematical context, "oh" was preferable to "zero" because it was less easy to misunderstand. This was with particular reference to telephone numbers. Ten or so years back when I was living in Dunedin my phone number was four five six oh four oh four, for example.

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

Yes...but that's still preference/slang...what I'm referring to is people honestly not knowing what "zero" is...I can understand it for the first time I said it...but for repeats...