Phone Etiquette

Today I had to call a long list of subscribers to tell them that their normal seats would be occupied for a certain performance and that I would happily exchange them to better ones. A man called back and after helping him do what he needed doing, he says to me "...a bit of constructive criticism---when you're leaving a phone number on an answering machine, say it slower. People can't hear you." This made me pretty angry of course, because it's one thing to do a job where you talk to death's shadow all day, but it's another when that ominous shade feels entitled enough to give you unsolicited pointers. I felt like retorting, "well as a matter of fact I've got some constructive criticism for you too sir: people hate it when jerks like you tell them how to do stuff better that they already loathe doing in the first place." If I was Charlie Brown or Cathy the top of my head would be full of scratchy lines.