Ah, duffer, in a way your OP reminds me of when I told a “customer” who was in civilian clothes and ranting at me for pointing out to him that not only the regulations but also the laws stated he couldn’t get what he wanted (free trip to Hawaii; no kidding). I didn’t know what his rank was so I put the manuals away and sat at my desk. He stopped ranting and said to me in a calm voice, “What do you think you’re doing?” I responded, “I don’t put up with that behavior from a four-year old. Why should I put up with it from you?” My CPO had another PO2 talk to the “customer” while the Chief talked to me about my comment to that ranting LT. The Chief supported me, as did another Chief a year before when I hung up the phone on a different Chief who was ranting and raving.
Ain’t it the truth. Get out, duffer. Somewhere there is a way.
That fuckin’ blows, duffer. Like a whole mess of other posters have said, no job is worth that shit. Get out as soon as you can.
BTW, welcome back to the boards.
I appreciate the sympathy and support from everyone. I’ve already taken steps to get my resume out to a few other companies in town, so we’ll see what happens. I used to love this job and honestly saw myself with the company for possibly my entire carreer in one depsrtment or the other. It’s just gotten to the point, though, that I can almost feel my spirit being broken more and more each day. Ever been in a situation where you can just sense your soul is being sucked dry bit by bit? That’s where I am.
It’s a good job, I like what I’m do, the company is solid and the bennies are beyond anything I’ve ever had before. It just doesn’t seem worth it anymore. I’ve always been loyal to my employers, but I can no longer allow that loyalty to take such a toll on my personal life nor my wife’s. I guess it’s more depressing than maddening. Just needed to get it all out. Thanks to everyone that took the time to read the screed.
As far as the guy that brought all this about? No, he isn’t paying the bill. The owner of the store is paying it. I just found out today from a co-worker that that owner (of 18 other stores to boot) has been notified of the incident and that that manager was issued a written warning from no less than the Corporate headquarters. In some small way it makes me feel a little better that someone recognizes the brunt of responsibility is on him. Yet, I’m still out a promotion for at least 4 more months, lost an average of $250 a month in bonuses, and the fact that I truly understand how much they value me.
I’ll tell you something. The $15 to re-up is worth it just to get this out of my system. Everything else is gravy. 
Yeah, I’m kinda like a case of herpes. I may go away for awhile, but I’m never really gone. 
I’m sorry to hear that; I lost my loyalty to employers a long, long time ago, but I’m still saddened to hear about another formerly loyal worker getting his loyalty beat out of him. Actually, I’m saddened by the whole adversarial corporate culture - it should be a symbiotic relationship between employers and employees, not them trying to screw us and us trying to minimize the screwing. We need them, and they need us - I wish they would learn that.
First off, duffer, I’m glad you’re back.
Second, can’t you take the fact that the manager was issued a written warning back to the boss that bitch-slapped you? “Excuse me, sir, but Corporate wrote this guy up for being wrong. Doesn’t that alter your view on the situation with regards to how I handled it? Sir?”
And good luck on the resumes.
Former manager here.
I worked in a place that catered to customer service. But under no circumstances would I allow people to yell at my employees. Ever. No one makes enough money for that crap. If EVER did a customer start yelling at my employees, they transferred them over to me. If I determined that they were being unreasonable (for instance, something got messed up and we offered to fix it right away and that, dammit, just wasn’t good enough) they weren’t allowed to do business with us (and on the other hand, if the employee was being a fuckoff, they got a write-up). We lost some customers but gained a lot more because the DECENT people who came in saw that I respected my employees and expected people to treat them like human beings and not automatons. Under no circumstances should you have to get yelled at to perform your job duties - it’s unreasonable, and no money is worth being miserable at work all day.
And don’t you have to have some kind of degree to play therapist? If your company is expecting that out of you, they should pay for you to go to school, and then you can take that degree and get a job as a real therapist.
~Tasha
I have no solution to your problem, which sounds like your company is an asshole employer. and I don’t agree with people here who are saying you should just suck it up: most decent customer-facing companies have an “abuse procedure” and an escalation process.
You might, however, appreciate this. A few years ago my wife had an airline job that involved her getting abusive calls from irate customers on a regular basis. It was destroying her emotionally, so she resigned eventually. She worked her four weeks’ notice period, but on her last day gave a false name to every call. When some douchebag eventually started to abuse her, as she knew they would, she listened to the abuse, then said:
“Madam, I don’t give a flying fuck about your problems.” and hung up on her.
Totally unprofessional, but fucking satisfying.
This is beautiful on so many levels
I occasionally have taken calls from members of my station/network’s viewing audience. About every six months I found it necessary to either put the phone down on my desk and continue on with my work until the squawking stopped, or just hanging up on the bastard and using caller ID to send all future calls into the ether.
Luckily my managers recognized that I was in the right. I’m sorry you’re not so lucky.
Agreed. My brother worked tech support for a local ISP many years ago. His supervisors made it clear that he did not have to take abuse from callers. He once hung up on a customer, telling the guy to call back when he could speak civilly. My brother’s boss may have been a dick overall, but at least he backed my brother up on this issue.
I’m sorry you have to deal with such crappy management, duffer. No one deserves to be treated like that. I know you said that moving is out of the question, but you might want to consider it. There may be better job opportunities for you in other states. Good luck to you whatever you decide.
duffer, I’m a supervisor in a call center for a company which has numerous J.D. Power awards for customer service. We’re kinda known for it. NOBODY has the right to treat our reps like this. We require our customers to maintain a minimum level of civility and courtesy and our reps are absolutely allowed to disconnect calls if a customer will not maintain those basic levels of decency. If some asshole escalates to me after abusing one of my reps and dares to take the same tone with me he will hear a very politely worded but definite rebuke from me–I don’t hold with oversized tantrum throwing toddlers armed with phones being allowed to drag the whole goddamned world down to their slimy level. Anybody who can’t state their issue and dissatisfaction in acceptably polite terms and tone can fucking well take a timeout until he/she grows the hell up.
Just today one dickhead kept calling back on the same issue–thirty five reps and supervisors kept telling him the exact same thing but he kept calling back, being a jerk, threatening, cussing–finally one supervisor told him if he calls back one more time we’ll treat it as harassment. Asshole Boy didn’t listen, and got his account cancelled. My guess is that after the legal department reviews the account he won’t be allowed to resume it, either. Good riddance–NO company is SO hungry they need customers like this one. This one stupid asshole prevented at least fifty other people from getting a timely resolution to THEIR issues by his selfish monopolizing of our agents time and attention. Every time a customer calls us it costs the company six bucks. This guy spent well over four HOURS talking to customer care by 1330 PDT, and probably another three or four hours by the time I left work at 1800. Thirty five reps, times six bucks each, this guy used up over 200.00 in ONE DAY of our time–and he has yet to pay one thin dime toward his account. We need this ass barnacle? I don’t think so… :wally
As for your chickenshit bosses–they are the only scum worse than the fool on the phone with you. Fuck 'em. Walk. There are better jobs out there that don’t involve being undermined while trying to maintain your human dignity in a thankless environment.
duffer, besides being hilarious, your post served as a reminder to me. I’ve only been in my Office Space-type job for about a year now, but when I hear about things like this, I seriously wonder how people can put up with shit when it happens, and I also wonder how long it will be before something like this happens to me.
God yes, twice, and lemme tell you: getting the hell out of Tucson was the best thing I ever did! In both cases.
Once I moved on, I discovered just how badly those situations had sucked me dry. I hadn’t doodled or months, hadn’t written anything in months… the creativity is the first thing that goes, for me. So now when I notice I’m not creating, I know things are getting bad and it’s time to “fix it or ditch it”.
Yes; it takes longer than you’d think. Apparently there are some chunky bits at the bottom.
Your job description might not actually say, “you will be required to stick your ass in the air and take it like a bitch”, but if it says “answering phones” it’s the same fucking thing.
If it’s your wife telling you to go to hell, that’s one thing.
If it’s your kid telling you to fuck off, that’s pretty serious.
If it’s your mom telling you you’re worthless, that’s a problem.
If it’s your siblings or your friends, problem.
But, some anonymous asshole on the other end of a phone line unleashing his frustration on whoever happened to pick up when he called tech support? If you’re going to take that shit personally, you better find another job.
duffer, I know your pain. I worked for almost a year in a job where an upset customer was always the fault of the employee, regardless of the real circumstances. I was a cashier in one of the big chain retailers. If I believed in an afterlife, I would tell you that I’m certainly going to heaven, because I’ve already had my hell on earth.
–I was once nearly fired because an obviously mentally-ill woman threw donuts at me and ran up and down the row of registers screaming her head off.
–I was once written up because a woman claimed I had cursed at her children, even though another employee who witnessed the transaction swore that I had not.
–We had to threaten to sue to be allowed to take bathroom breaks.
–At the time, I was under medical treatment which required that I keep constantly hydrated. The management vehemently opposed me having a drink with me at the register. (Never got a satisfactory explanation as to why seeing a cashier sip some water was so grossly offensive in their eyes.) After I gave them a letter from my doctor, they grudgingly allowed me to have a bottle of water up at the register, but it had to be hidden from sight, and I was not allowed to consume any if there were customers around who could see. Of course, having a constant stream of customers at the register precluded me from following my doctor’s orders, and I once passed out as a result.
–There was no way to avoid getting in trouble since an upset customer was always your fault. They had a long-running habit of putting items on sale and “forgetting” to change the price in the computer.
To further aggravate the situation, they made you call for a price check every time the item came to your register, even if you had just checked it two minutes ago. You had to call over the intercom for an employee of that department to call your register, wait for them to call back and confirm the price, and get their intitials. You wrote this information down on a sheet of paper, which we were told was given to the “computer guys” every evening, so they could change the prices, but amazingly enough, the same item would be on sale for weeks and the price would never be changed.
To add insult to injury, their policy was to under-staff the floor. One employee might be in charge of say, grocery and health/beauty, expected to answer all calls, and help customers locate items. Since they may have never worked in this department before, these things took a long, long time. They could not leave a customer to answer a call, so you’d often hear a dozen impatient summonses for grocery over the intercom while the poor, panicked employee searched desperately for something they had no idea was located.
So, the customers waiting endlessly at the registers would complain, and I would get into trouble for making everyone wait. Once, I waited for what seemed like hours for a price chck on soap. The manager came over, and gave me a look like I was a complete idiot. "Just give it to them, he said, stuffing the soap into their bag. He apoplogized profusely, shooting what-a-moron looks in my direction. (Yeah, as if they wouldn’t have fired me and possibly charged me with theft if I had done that.)
– I once made the mistake of asking if I had to wear socks because I don’t like to do so. After that, one of the managers made a point to come over to my register every day and lift the cuffs of my pants to make sure I was wearing socks. Bizarrely, she would check both legs, as if I might only wear one sock to fool her. It was degrading and humiliating to be checked like a child in front of God and everybody. (And if she had to lift my pants out of the way to see, what did it matter if I had on socks or not, especially behind a register where my feet weren’t seen?)
–This one didn’t happen to me, but I saw it: They had one “cart boy” on shift at all times, sent to retrieve carts from the parking lots. They were required to wear uniform coats which were little more than wind-breakers. One winter, it was bitterly cold, and the “cart boy” used to come into the entryway to warm up a little every now and then. He told me he wore sweaters beneath the coat, but he was still cold. Whenever the manager would see him in there, she would swear furiously and rush to chase him out of there. No matter that he had already brought in all of the carts. He wasn’t paid to stand around! He should be out picking up trash for lack of anything else to do. He could warm up on his break time.
They hired me the day the store opened, along with 500 other people. When I left, they had less than two dozen of the original staff. Everyone else had quit. They had the nerve to wonder why.
Rule No. 1: The customer is always right.
Corollary to Rule No. 1: The boss is always right.
I sympathize with the OP and I know it’s not fun to be cursed at over the phone. However, it is not abuse. You can hang up. You can just let their words flow over you like water and when they pause for breath you can repeat the things you just told them. They can’t reach you; they can’t hit you; they can’t even see you. Abuse is a lot more up close and personal. The person cussing on the phone is just raising his own blood pressure; don’t let him raise yours. Like Trunk said, don’t take it personally if it’s not personal.