Yes, I was a customer service rep. And the saddest story I ever heard--one which, in the middle of, I inappropriately burst into laughter--was told by a lonely, old woman who had me on the phone for 20 minutes before telling me the reason for her call. She was sitting on her bed as she spoke with me--still dressed in the blue nightgown her daughter had given her for her birthday. "I'm 79 years old now," she said, paused, and added. "I'll be 80 next year."

Her daughter now lived in Texas and mailed the nightgown the week before. It came with matching slippers, which was good because she didn't like to turn the heat up too high on account of the gas bill. Her daughter's name was Christine and she liked to travel. She said she didn't even have to get out of bed to call and she found that funny. I couldn't imagine why until she told me (20 minutes in) that her bed was now sitting on top of her neighbor's kitchen table one floor below. They weren't home and she didn't know what to do. "It's an old building," she said. "The floor just gave way."

Information had given her my number (my number being AT&T customer service). She'd be 107-years-old now. What are the odds?

After reading this story, you might think I disagree with Sprint's decision to shut off 1000 customers for calling into the call center too often. I don't.

After spending about 45 minutes on the phone with this poor woman and getting my new supervisor to try to trace the call, I had blown my maximum call time by 39 minutes and reduced my "Reach out America" sales by--well, my sales always sucked, so that hardly matters. And CSRs know that if they spend too much time on the phone with a customer, they're screwed. They can blow their metrics for the whole week by giving someone the time of day.

Petty, you say, to worry about my metrics when a sad, lonely woman needed my help? You'd be right, were it not for my re-telling this story at lunch that day and finding out that over the last several months every one of my fellow reps had taken a call from that women. They called her Floora. And she was a hoot.

It's still sad that Floora thought she was in the wrong room and even sadder that she was left alone long enough to have lengthy conversations with AT&T's customer service department every day. People get lonely for all kinds of reasons, and sometimes an 800 number is all they have.

But business is business. And if Sprint has spent millions of dollars on customer service systems and millions more in software that allows them to identify high-value customers, and everyone tells them that's good business, then they ought to be able to target non-valuable customers and get them off the phone. That's good business, too.

Besides, as an ex-CSR, a little red flag goes up in my head anytime I hear of someone spending that much time talking to customer service. Nobody's customer service is that bad. Not even Sprint's.

E-mail me at tmcelligott@telephonyonline.com.