What is WRONG With People??

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

I work for a large cell phone company, in-bound call center (please do not mention any names because they regularly google the company name and I could be in big trouble!) and the last couple weeks have just been sheer madness. I have never been so glad to see a week end.

I have been cussed out for no reason many times in the past and it usually really bothers me… having an annonymous stranger say “I’m gonna fuck you up the ass bitch” because he didn’t like my answer is unsettling. If someone said that to me on the street I could have them arrested, but at work, we have to sit there and take it.

So, tonight… I get this call from an ATTORNEY, and on the first screen that populates, where you verify the caller, down in the lower right hand corner there is a box where special instructions for the account are written. Normally it’s something like ‘so-and-so is to have no authority over account’, ‘high data usage alert’, stuff like that. Well, this one was interesting… it said’Customer is verbally avusive and curses, if he behaves like this transfer to team manager’. WTF??? I greeted him as normal and he says in this sarcastic voice “If I start cursing you are you going to run to your manager?” I replied that that 's what the instructions on the account are, yes. So he starts in with REALLY inappropriate questions like asking me to suck his cock and asking if I am a virgin. I told him that is really inappropriate and he yelled FUCK YOU BITCH and hung up.

I mean… WTF is wrong with people? In what universe is it acceptable to behave like that? My manager had me forward the account info to him and he went back in the memos… this behavior has been documented since 2008!

Seriously… WTF???

Fuck you call #2 for the night… A man interrupts my greeting when I asked for his phone # because it didn’t pull up on the screen. He screams at me to fucking listen up because he’s only saying it once and rattles off his phone # WAY too fast for me to write it down, it all ran together. I apologized and said it was too fast for me and he screams FUCK YOU BITCH and hangs up.

Again… WTF?

What gives anyone the right to speak to another human being like that? I cannot imagine knowing someone that hateful and miserable in real life. If they treat EVERYone like that they are one day going to say it to the wrong person and end up with a switchblade buried in their intestines.

I say it again…

WHAT THE FUCK???

2

Sounds like they want someone to “control.” If heard that being in a call center is one of the grimmest occupations you can have. People are abusive and they pay is for shit.

3

There’s a small subset of the population that will behave like absolute jackasses if they’re given the opportunity to do so without facing consequences. Working in a call center, you’re an easy target and they know it because…

A) You can’t respond in kind, because you’ll get fired, so they can say whatever they want without repercussion, and

B) They’re on the phone, so even if somebody decides “fuck this job I don’t care anymore”, they still don’t have to worry about getting their ass kicked. The worst you can do is yell at them(and get fired), or deny them service and then they’ll just go to the next provider.

I used to work in an inbound call center, most of my calls were pleasant, the ones that weren’t, I’d just make fun of. I knew they couldn’t touch me, they didn’t even know my real name. Let them get mad, let them swear, let them try to insult me or threaten me, that kind of person is a paper tiger, volume without substance. Whatever they say you still get paid at the end of the day, you get what you went to work for. They don’t get what they wanted from you unless you let them. I know it’s harder for some people than others, but try not to let it get to you, fuck 'em.

4

You seem to realize this already to some extent, but keep reminding yourself it’s not about you, it’s about them. If you let it anger/irritate you (easier said than done, I know) then the terrorists have won. They’ve sucked you down into their pit of misery and despair with them.

Do you have something like a sales pitch that you’re encouraged or required to give at all? I think if it were me and someone said something rude/inappropriate and off-topic I’d say (in an annoyingly chipper voice) “Well that does sound interesting, but can I interest you in upgrading your plan to the Ultra-Family Deluxe Anytime Anywhere Jumbo package for only $159.99/month?” I can almost promise you that you will never get fired for responding in that manner, and it lets you blow them off while subtly reminding them that it’s actually you (or rather your company) that has the power over them, and not the other way around.

5

PapSet, is there something that stops you from “accidentally” hanging up on these people? I don’t know that it would part of your employment contract to be routinely subjected to intentional abuse and personal threats.

If it is, then your call centre needs to implement better training for its staff, with the focus on diffusing the aggressive and irrational.

Sorry you have a job that considers arsehole clients more worthy than the emotional well-being of the people that earn it its profits.

6

I work in an inbound call center, too (customer service for an insurance company). I’ve never been actively cussed out, though, and I’ve been working there for over 3 years. Maybe our companies serve a different clientele, or I’m just lucky. Not every company expects you to just sit there and take abuse, though. Where I work, if someone were to cuss at me, I can say, “Sir/Ma’am, if you continue to use offensive language I will be disconnecting this call.” One warning. If they do it again, we can hang up without repercussion. Not that this necessarily makes you feel better. But, if you’re considering a job search anyway, you might consider that other call centers can be better than the one you’re working at now.

Can your call tracker tell the difference between a call dropping from the caller’s end and you manually disconnecting a call? Mine can’t. I’m not above purposely disconnecting a rude caller during a lull in call flow (or if they go to put me on hold)… and making a note that the call was dropped on their end… and I hadn’t pressed “after call” yet, because we weren’t near the end of the call, so I got another call right away and was unable to call the original caller back (if you have to do callbacks, that is). You may want to consider doing this, especially if you’re feeling burned out. It’s better to push the envelope by refusing to be abused (or just say, “Just a moment, sir” and cold transfer him *anywhere *else) than it is to risk snapping and screaming at someone, or having a legit mental breakdown.

Of course, none of this applies to anyone who works in an outbound call center. I feel really bad for those guys.

7

Absolutely EVERYthing is traced on these calls, they can tell who hung up, if I press release, everything. We are not allowed to release the call for ANY reason- it would be cause for termination. I actually talked this over with my manager last week when I had the idiot tell me he was gonna fuck me up the ass. My last call center job was with a loan company, and we did have a script to use if anyone got verbally abusive, and we were then allowed to hang up. Being forced to sit there and be verbally abused is dehumanizing. It makes a person feel worthless. I know it’s not personal, but I can’t help but feel this way.

Transfers are religiously traced too. Most are required to be warm transfers, where I explain the issue to the other department & introduce the caller to the new rep. My manager would be all over that like flies on shit. And… if a call drops, we are required to call the person right back and notate the account thoroughly.

I am looking for other work, but there really isn’t much to be found in my town. This job does pay fairly well. But GOD it feels like stepping into hell everytime I walk thru the doors.

8

That sounds to me like harassment. Did he actually have a purpose for calling other than to be a dick? If this guy has a history of doing this and you obviously have all of his personal information, isn’t it possible there could be legal ramifications to this sort of abuse? I assume your company records all calls.

OTOH I’d imagine they’d never risk off-putting a customer, even an abusive tool.

9

Sounds like fodder for a screenplay. And if actual names happen to be used in it… All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. :smiley:

10

Couldn’t this be grounds for a potential sexual harassment suit? I mean the company can’t control other people, but they don’t have to make you set through it.

11

People can certainly be rude. You are right about that.

I had an attorney call me once. He wanted me to give him the information about who the owners were and all sorts of stuff I wasn’t allowed to give out anyway, but much less so to someone who had just told me he was going to file suit against us because his client fallen down on our property.

When I continued to refuse, he called me the C word and hung up on me.

I should add that he wasn’t saying this person was still out on the ground somewhere at the time of his call. This was something he claimed happened weeks prior.

12

At my company (call center) we have a policy about abusive behavior on the phone;

Warn ONCE
Hang up

Love love love that policy.

I dunno, I guess if my company forced me to listen to people asking me to suck their cock or if I liked taking it up the ass and threatened to fire me if I hung up on these people, I’d be emailing my state’s Attorney Generals office about whether or not this constituted Abuse or Sexual Harrassment or a Hostile Work Environment on the part of my employer. They can get sued for not doing anything about fellow workers doing it. They can get sued for not doing anything about customers doing it to you in your place of employment. So why do they think they have the right to force you to take it from someone over the phone?

Seriously, check that out with your state or county.
If they fired me for it, I would sue the living fuck out of them.
But they keep firing you guys because no one has done anything about it.
But yeah, this last week has been The Hell of Stupid and Rude People both in and out of work. Lots of road construction in my area (get it done before winter hits!) and people are just inobservant, slow and fucking stupid about it.

13

perhaps the Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory isn’t limited to the internet.

14

Maybe it would help to try to remind yourself that these folks must have pretty miserable lives if they feel compelled to behave like that. A happy, well-adjusted person wouldn’t be acting like that on the phone. You should pity them, really.

15

Funny, that’s always been my personal policy at when I answer the phone at work. The first time someone swears at me I say “Sir/ma’am, if you swear at me again I’m going to hang up on you. Now, I’m sorry the grapes you bought last week are moldy, if you want to bring them back we can give you some new ones or give you your money back”
“I’m not driving all the way back there, how about you bring be some new fu-”
-Click-

16

I was a 411 operator for a little while. Remember those?

We weren’t allowed to hang up under any circumstances. We could transfer to a supervisor.

One of my co-workers found kind of an amusing way around this little rule.

As you can imagine, we got a lot of prank calls. Running refrigerators and the like. No big deal.

Now the policy was this, someone asks for john smith and you don’t find a listing. Your response must be, sorry, checking smith, s m i t h (spell it), no john listed. This way the caller can tell you, oh it’s with a y.

So one night, the girl next to me gets a call. I couldn’t hear the question, but her answer made it pretty clear.

Here’s what I hear her say, "Sorry, checking pussy, p u s s y, no harry listed. And then she hung up.
I laughed for a long time.

17

Different industries have different issues. I used to work for a large snack food manufacturer in their call center and got crazy, abusive calls. People ranting, screaming, and frothing at the mouth over broken chips or whatever. I had one memorable guy I had to call the police on because he called and told us he was making his son blow him and wanted to know what else we wanted the boy to do to him. That was probably the worst phone call I’ve ever taken.

I left that job to work in the insurance industry, first in a call center for a property and casualty company and now I work in health insurance. I’m not in a call center any longer but I do take plenty of calls over the course of my day. I get lots of yelling and crying but very rarely is it ever directed at me, it is simply people who have a really horrible problem that they need to have fixed and I have the power to fix it (or the ability to find the person who can fix it if I can’t) and people tend to respect that. I still get yelled at sometimes but it is exceedingly rare and it tends to be brokers or other people in the insurance industry that feel like they are “above” me somehow instead of customers.

The less important your company’s product is to their lives the more vile they are going to be because you have no power over them. Even if I was completely unhelpful at my old call center I couldn’t stop someone from going out and buying a new bag of chips but where I am now I control whether or not your policy pulls up correctly in the system when your son needs his insulin refilled. People tend not to fuck with those that have any control over their medical care. Obviously I would never screw with anyone’s information but the fact that I could tends to stop people in their tracks with that kind of thing.

18

This week I had a guy who had sworn at our lower level techs and demanded a supervisor. Got to me. Immediately went off about how long he’d been waiting to get to someone who could resolve his issue and bark bark bark.

I honestly have no patience for that kind of abusive crap, and I won’t pretend that I do.

I asked him the problem. He gives me an extremely vague issue that could be caused by any number of things. I ask him to do something that will involve like three mouse clicks and will narrow down the issue to exactly what I need to resolve.

“Why would I waste my time doing that?” and screams that I’m the one who has to figure it out.

No sir, I can’t pull the answer out of the air, you have to work with me and frankly, you’re wasting your time and mine by not cooperating.

Starts demanding my name and all my information, demanding to speak to my boss, his boss, etc, because it isn’t his job to figure it out and he doesn’t have time for this crap.

Now, my boss doesn’t take calls. I’m the end of the line. So I tell him my name, but then tell him that no matter who he talks to, he’s going to have to work with us to figure out why it isn’t working.

Dumbfuck threatens to sue our company, screams profanity and hangs up.

Oh well, wasted nearly an hour of his own time and ours because he’s too fucking important to push a button. A problem which will not get resolved until he pushes the fucking button and tells someone what it says.

I honestly don’t get where these people get the idea that tech support people are Wizards who can conjure up the answer to their problem and resolve it without them touching a button. Or why they think that if they act like belligerent assholes (read: three year olds throwing a temper tantrum) that reality will suddenly bend for them.

19

There’s also a subset of companies who train customers to behave like jackasses. How? By a combination of bending over backwards for customers who get abusive, and by refusing to do the right thing for customers who are polite. It doesn’t excuse the use of threats and profanities, but I’ve really had to bite my tongue a few times over things like:

The power company that on a Friday evening told me they wouldn’t come out to take care of a downed power line across my back yard until “sometime Monday” because we still had power. I even threatened to call the police. They still refused. I called the police, who agreed it was a public safety issue. Police called us back a few minutes later and said someone would be there to take care of it, and we should call them back if no one was there within an hour.

Credit card issuer refusing to credit a payment we made because even though we had documentation that they had received it, they didn’t have records of what they did with the money after they got it. It took closing the accoujnt and a registered letter threatening legal action to end that.

Two instances in the last 7-8 years of companies refusing to honor written warranties until I showed sufficient anger.

Not to mention the fact that to report an internet outage, it takes nearly 5 minutes just to get through the phone menus to be put on hold for 30-90 minutes, then I’m asked to restart my computer and modem (I’ve already done that. I can connect to the router, I can connect to the DSL modem, I can ping your gateway and both of your DNS servers, I can’t connect to anything past that. Really? Well just a minute…[Jeopardy music]…Apparently there’s an outage in your area. They’re working on it, but there’s no ETA.)

20

You may not be able to hang up but do you actually have to say something back to them? Can you just take the phone away from your ear until they hang up?

I think Chimera might be onto something there. They should not be able to make you take that kind of abuse and I imagine that the customer may also be breaking some sort of harrassment law. Even if your company does record all calls I wouldn’t trust them to not have erased the recordings if you ever need them for a legal action so:

Next time this happens be ready to write down what the customer says, record the time the customer’s info etc. When Mr Asshole Lawyer says something abusive just say “Could you repeat that please? I didn’t hear you the first time.” This gives you more time to write it down. Then, when you have a decent amount of these calls it’s time to see a lawyer.

My main goal would really be to make the customers who act like this repeatedly get into some kind of trouble or at least be majorly inconverienced. Companies should really drop these people the minute they start acting this way, they’re just tying up the phones so polite people have to wait to get their things taken care of. It’s not going to make a company go broke to drop the extreme assholes.