Free reign to name the worst customers you experience in your particular line of Customer Service. Warning to observers: Naming a racial group is NOT racism, it is generally a fact of customer service, although to be certain, it almost never applies to every single member of any group.
When I was in Security;
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College Athletes (at the college). Self entitled assholes who thought the world revolved around them even at a Division III school. Wake up sunshine, five years from now you’ll be putting that “Sports Medicine” degree to work at Sportmart. Far and away the worst people I had to deal with in that field.
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College Professors. Only a very small number of them, but when they’re bad, they’re bad. Had a black psych professor call us and demand we call the cops over a black man she didn’t know being in the building. Turned out to be the husband of another professor. That was one incident where I was glad I followed my usual “Check out the situation in a friendly manner” procedure rather than flying into a “Danger! Danger Danger!” panic like my former cop bosses wanted us to do.
During a massive sprinkler failure in a science building with flooding water and 30 responding firemen trying to get it shut off, had one professor jump right in the middle of it all demanding that we get it cleaned up and we all leave NOW because she had a class in 10 minutes. The firemen had to threaten to have her arrested and plead with me to get her out of the way.
And don’t even get me started about the Art Professor and his “art gallery”. -
Older white professionals. Fuck you, I don’t care if you’re an Attorney/Doctor/Astronaut/Manager. The rules still apply to you. I say white, because I seldom had this issue with black, hispanic or asian professionals. it’s always some pumped up “scream at the world about how important and powerful you are” white person who demands to walk through a closed area, or that we re-open something for them, or that we ignore their behavior, because you know, “I’m an Attorney!”
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Gang members of any race. I know, it’s part of trying to make yourself look tough and get your so-called friends to respect you more by messing with anyone in a uniform and anyone looking at you crosseyed. Oh my, how strong and tough you are! :rolleyes: Look pal, if you start something and manage to kick my ass, you’re going to jail. Probably get beat down solid first because when the cops respond, they’re doing to come in swinging. If I kick your ass, you’re going to jail AND you look like a pussy in front of your friends by getting beat up by a middle aged white guy.
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The Delusionally Self-Important. See also #5 below. Yeah, yeah, your load of toothpaste is so important that we have to clear you through the gate without checking your load. Or your once a week bank deposit pickup is so critical to our courier business that we have to change our entire schedule and skip three other regular customers so you can have yours picked up early and go golfing today. And if we don’t, you’ll sue us, call our corporate headquarters, and get us all fired. :rolleyes: Fuck off Sonny Jim, we have a contract with you and those other people. You don’t get to change it on a whim.
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Black Women under 40. Sure, start fights with everyone around you, scream and throw temper tantrums, then scream “racism” because you got kicked out of the restaurant for trying to start a fight with five other women in the restroom. Or please, come in to the restaurant at 3am, order some food, eat the whole fucking thing, then declare that you’re not paying for it because something was wrong with it. Clearly there was not because you ate all of it, but hey, it’s worth screaming and carrying on for a free meal, right?
In Call Centers; -
New York City Jews. Seriously, ONLY NYC jews. I had to think about it for a while, and I do not recall anything similar with Jewish people from ANYWHERE else. If your name is Moishe and you’re from Tuscon, I’m probably less likely to have issues with you than if you were John Smith from Tuscon, and “all other Jews” would not make my top 100 worst customer groups. But these people are the absolute worst possible customers to deal with on any level. Demanding, snide, condescending, outright mean and delusionally self-important to a one.
Obviously it is the location, because… -
All other New Yorkers. Get over yourself. All of you.
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(East) Indian men. If I get an escalation where the lower level tech says they can’t get on the same page with a customer and the customer is screaming that they don’t care what we support or what our warranty says and they demand to speak to a manager right now, chances are at least 1 in 3 that it is a guy from India. I have fewer pleasant experiences with this group than I have unpleasant experiences with them.
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Middle Aged Business Women. Yeah yeah, I’ve heard it before in other lines of work. About how you HAVE to be a screaming bitch to get any respect. As I have told other women long before this job, that doesn’t get you respect. If gets you grudging compliance from the people who have to work with you, along with a lot of hatred and disrespect. And hey! Guess what! I’m on the phone, a long ways away, and I don’t work for you. So shut down the stream of disrespectful “superior” attitude and speak to me like a real person or just fuck right off.
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The Delusional Important People. I’ve had a guy claim to be one of the top guys in the tech field in a southern state and when I googled him, he turned out to be a high school football coach. Attorneys and Police Officers occasionally fall into this category too. No, we’re not going to disregard our company policies because you’re a fucking divorce attorney in Georgia or a Police Officer in Louisiana. You’re not half as important as you’re trying to make out. Hey, notice how all of these examples were from the south? Yeah, they tend to have more of these people in the south, but truth is they’re all over.
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Teenagers. Don’t lie to me about what you did or didn’t do. I can figure it out. Don’t be snide or sarcastic because I don’t have 100% of the answers off the top of my head. You sure as hell don’t or you wouldn’t have called me. No, we’re not giving you a free computer because you don’t like how some program works or because you think someone here hurt your feelings by insinuating that you were lying when you very clearly were.
