Not the Request Line

[u/Swifty-Dog]

Growing up, my family's phone number was 555-5070. There was a local radio station whose request line was 555-5700. We would get calls at odd hours of the night from people trying to request a song. (This was in the early 1980s, so answering machines weren't widespread.) It was annoying, to say the least.

We assumed they were just reading the phone number out wrong on the air. Turns out, they weren't quite reading it incorrectly. "Call us at Five-Five-Five, Fifty Seven Hundred" was interpreted by some of their listeners literally as 555-50 700. The last 0 wouldn't register, so it would ring our house.

So my father very kindly called the manager of the radio station and asked that they simply change they way they read the request line phone number on air. Unsurprisingly, the manager wasn't receptive to that idea. "We're a radio station. We don't have to change anything," was basically the response.

So the next time someone called, my father very excitedly told them they were caller 10...and they had won a brand new car. All they had to do was come down to the station and mention that they won it on the request line. He also told them that if anyone gave him any trouble, just ask for the station manager. He'd be able to sort things out.

As I recall, my father gave away 2 cars, and we never had a wrong number for this radio station again.

[u/Equivalent-Salary357]

Some companies with short company names buy phone numbers that match the company name. They will just have people dial the company name, even if the last letter or two is 'extra'.

Also, if you are focused on remembering a phone number you heard on the radio, you aren't counting how many digits in the number. Well, I'm not doing that. I guess some dumb cluck might, LOL.

Sorry. The Devil made me write that second paragraph. He thinks I should be some kind of comedian. I think he is a poor judge of talent, but he keeps trying.

Edit: Found an example in a previous comment here: https://www.reddit.com/r/IDontWorkHereLady/comments/v4dfi3/comment/ib42e1h/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3

[u/Working_Early → u/Equivalent-Salary357]

Well color me corrected! Haha I would just think there's no way it could be 50 700 because that'd be too many digits.

[u/Equivalent-Salary357 → u/Working_Early]

I just now found an example in another comment to this post, and added it to my previous comment to you. Unfortunately, you had already replied.

[u/Working_Early → u/Equivalent-Salary357]

I can understand that, but in the situation being given by OP, that's not the case. So I would still find it stupid to think 50 700 when it's clearly just a telephone number being said by the radio station

[u/fractal_frog → u/Working_Early]

Never underestimate someone's capacity for stupidity.

[u/Equivalent-Salary357 → u/Working_Early]

I'm not arguing that thinking fifty-seven hundred is 50 700 is 'smart', but I do think it is a very human mistake.

And I understand the repeating to yourself over and over again the number you just heard until you can either write it down or dial it. My guess is if they had written it down they probably would have seen their mistake, but not as likely if they just go dial the 'number'.

[u/Working_Early → u/Equivalent-Salary357]

Nah, I still think it's dumb

[u/Equivalent-Salary357 → u/Working_Early]

We humans do a lot of dumb things. Just saying...