What follows is the transcript of a three way conversation that I had at work today (I work in a credit card centre sorting out peoples credit card problems/requests). The participants were Myself, the customer and my inner monologue.
Me: Good afternoon, welcome to [censored] you’re through to [me] how can I help you?
Customer (who from this moment forth shall be referred to as hystrionic gibbering chimp - HGC): Yes, I was looking at my credit card statement and there’s $400.00 on there that I don’t recognise.
Me: Okay, before I look at your account I need to ask a couple of details for security.
Customer (HGC): Why? Do you think I’m some sort of thief?
My inner monologue (or MIM): Well lessee, you’re acting aggressively, being pushy, trying to intimidate me and refusing to answer any security questions. Well, if it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck…
Me: No, no, no not at all, it’s just a proceedure we have to go through. It won’t take a second.
HGC: I’m a fee paying customer and I refuse to be humiliated any more than I have been already by being interrogated. I don’t need erudition from the likes of you?
**MIM: Erudition? Ooh four syllables. Gee I must be talking to a professor or at the very least a doctor of English. I’d best start my bowing and scraping now lest the brilliance of her wit exposes me for the illiterate, semi-lucid, dirt common little street urchin that I am. Pity the word you were looking for was probably approbation. And what’s all this ‘likes of me’ talk? You mean the likes of those who don’t have such a piss poor grasp of English that they expose themselves as being hopelessly out of their depth by the third line of a conversation? **
Me: I’m a fraid I really can’t help you without asking these details, I’m sorry.
MIM: Why, in the name of Christs holy pogostick, am I apologising?
HGC: Ok fine, Date of birth 12/11/47 mothers maiden name Seema.
Me: Thank you. Now you said there was a problem with a 400.00 entry on your statement?
HGC: WELL THAT’S WHAT I SAID DIDN’T I?
MIM: Hello? taps mic Hellooooo? Is there an echo in here? Or did I just ask you a rhetorical question that you utterly failed to recognise? Nah, must be an echo.
Me: I’ve had a look at the 400.00 and it appears that it was actually a payment from us to you. You requesed 400.00 to be taken from the card and placed into your bank account. We had to debit the credit card to do that.
HGC: Well I KNOW that.
MIM: Well why the Fuck did you pick up the phone to ask me then? That’s what it fucking is.
HGC: You’re useless, get me a manager.
MIM: And you’re a fucking loon, get thee a lobotomy. at least then you’d have an excuse for dribbling your incomprehensible gobshite into my ear.
Me: With all due respect I see no need to involve a unit manager, the entry on your statement is a transfer of funds that you have requested.
HGC: AND???
MIM: And WHAT? You gormless cocksprocket, that’s what it is!!
HGC: I don’t WANT the funds to go there, I want them to go on the card.
Me: Well at some point you must have requested the transfer. We don’t do them without explicit permission.
HGC: I’m going on holiday soon and I need the funds.
Me: Ok, just bear with me one moment. Would you mind if I put you on hold?
HGC: No, don’t you dare, I…
Me: Ok then (I put her on hold anyway)
*At this point I go off to check her account details. I notice two things (a) She has a credit limit of $14, 000.00 (wonder who she must’ve been sucking off to get that) and it’s nearly clear so she obviously doesn’t need the 400.00 and (b) she has note after note after note on her account saying things like “C/H(cardholder) is extremely volatile” “C/H is extremely difficult to deal with” “If C/H phones pass her through to a unit manager IMMEDIATELY as she is extremely difficult to talk to.”
“Aw shit.” I think to myself, “What have I gotten myself into”. I then return to the conversation.*
Me: Hello?
HGC: Yes!
Me: If you want that 400.00 to be put back into your account you’re going to have to contact your bank and arrange a transfer. Do you want me to give you the appropriate account number and sort code?
HGC: NO! I want you to do it. And I want you to do it right now.
Me: I’m afraid I can’t authorise a transfer on your behalf, you need to speak to them to give permission
HGC: My bank will understand.
MIM: No they fucking won’t you acephalic fetal halfbirth! The Data Protection Act explicitly forbids discussion of your account by anyone other than you and your bank. Now I know that the Ape creatures of the Indas probably have a clearer grasp of the English language than you but I would have thought that even a hystrionic simpleton like yourself will have grasped this extraordinarily simple premise.
HGC: You’re obviously incompetant, let me speak to a manager.
Me really starting to lose my grip: THey’ll only tell you the same thing. I’m afraid there’s nothing we can do, I’m sorry.
HGC: Am I hallucinating? Or did I not just tell you to get me a manager?
MIM: Am I hallucinating, or are you a cunt? Now I don’t know what your parents did to you to turn you into the colonic parasite you are today and frankly I don’t wanna know 'cos it must’ve been pretty fucking hideous but if you say one more fucking word I’m gonna cut you off right now 'cos there’s no way in hell I’m gonna inflict you onto a manager. I have to work with these guys tomorrow. Besides, now it’s personal. I’m gonna sort you out.
Me: I assure you I’m perfectly adept at dealing with your query.
HGC: Well you’ve done a pathertic job so far! I want that 400.00 put onto my barclaycard immediately.
**Me & MIM: Excuse me? Did you say barclaycard? **
HGC: Yes?
Me: We aren’t Barclaycard.
HGC: But you’re the ones who transferred the funds. It’s your mistake
Me: With all due respect we didn’t make any mistake. We were acting on your wishes
HGC: And why would I wish to do something like that?
MIM: I don’t know, perhaps one day you were coming down off the same sort of PCP induced frenzy you’re currently experiencing and decided it would be fun to play ‘investor’ and switch some money around. Or maybe you’re just a cunt who can only function on a daily basis by regularly pissing on those employed to help you.
Me: I don’t know but if you want the funds to go to barclaycard you should be on the phone to the Bank right now arranging a transfer to barclaycard.
HGC: Get me a manager now you stupid boy (she actually said that!)
Me: No. You go sort your own fucking problem out I’ve had enough of your crap (I actually said that too!)
At this point I hung up.
Unfortunately the old cuntsore rang back and presumably bullied the poor soul she spoke to next into speaking to a manager where she made a formal complaint the result of this being thatI got a formal ‘disciplinary’ (3 of them and yer out).
And they say there’s justice in the world?