Yeah, but the animal trainer in me just can’t help trying to fix bad behavior… 
Yup. Anyone who has had to deal with customers knows this.
It’s the big noses. They get in the way of the receiver, so they sound funny.
Now who is the racist. Big nose jokes?
In other words, you can’t defend your own arguments. Too bad.
My thoughts as they occurred.
Free reign to name the worst customers you experience in your particular line of Customer Service.
Oh, stories about rotten customers. These are often funny.
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.
Uh oh. This is going to be racist, isn’t it.
Rest of OP
Yes, yes it was.
“Dude, you just dropped a hard J!”
“No man, he is of Jewish descent and that is a lot of toilet paper. That is going to take a lot of time to clean up. I was thinking about the context the whole time.”
Just for you, OP: I took a work comp call last week from the Jewiest Jew I’ve ever knowingly talked to. Lived/worked in New York City, had the classic accent, had ten dependents (the most I’ve ever, ever heard of in my 3+ years there), works at a kosher catering place and monitors the kosher level of their food, and mentioned that he hadn’t returned to work yet only because it was the week of Sukkot. And you know what? He was super nice. He was the most memorably polite caller I’ve had in a really long time, and that is really saying something because I talk to dozens of people on a daily basis.
Kiss my ass, you racist scumbag.
The worst customers ever are racists who use the screen name Chimera, and then create a phony pit thread about customer service as an incredibly lame excuse to spew racist garbage.
I think you’ve just associated your twisted perception of the various backgrounds and cultural associations of these people with their ability to tell what a useless customer service rep you are. If I was your brother-in-law I’d fire your ass.
As a one time security guard, I knew what the extent of my ‘power’ was. I was getting paid to exercise that power, otherwise they wouldn’t need me to do it. The problem normally arose when some person who didn’t work at a ‘menial’ job figured that they didn’t have to follow the rules I was there to enforce.
So, I could have let any idiot into your offices because they showed up with an easily copied business card saying they forgot their keys, but even this ‘menial’ could figure out why that would be a bad thing. And a few of my ‘betters’ made the same comments that you have even though I always told them the reasons why and was invariably polite to them even when they didn’t deserve it. Who was the most likely to cause problems? Lawyers. Never remember their key card and expect me to break the rules just for them.
I thought the same thing at first… but if he really is a miserable little petty tyrant projecting his inadequacies and failings onto the world around him, why would curlcoat identify with him?
Having worked in different offices doing CS since 1995, I try to be nice when on the phone, but I will also note that in general people fall into 2 categories. Helpful and raving assholes. Unfortunately most people fall under the raving asshole category. It is probably because they are told they have to be rude to get what they want. Blame the damned magazines and internet for articles/blogs on how to get what you want.
Hell, anybody remember last year about this time [I think] when some of us got upset because Readers Digest had an article telling people to reserve the handicapped rooms in hotels so they get more room?
OP, I think you should change your profession.
As a security guard or call center worker, you are probably dealing with people at high levels of stress. Or seeing more bad behavior than normal. This is feeding the misconceptions you already have about race. That’s how I see it.
You know, maybe you can’t help it because this kind of nonsense was pounded in your head during your formative years, but you can grow beyond this. When everyone can see it but you, it’s time to pull your head out of the sand and at least look at the possibility that maybe, just maybe, you have some problems with race. Just a thought.
This whole thread is either HILARIOUS or I’ve been reading FAR too much Tosh.O.
Translated into proper English: Cue the stream of hyperbole and recreational outrage.
To wit, a prime example being;
So cops are “menial” too, and therefore beneath you and their power doesn’t appy to you, so you pull out the phony “overcompensation” argument?
You’re a prime example of the Delusionally Self-Important. You think that you are above people, so their authority in their area doesn’t apply to you. Therefore they are abusing their authority and there is something wrong with them if they expect you to follow the same rules as all of the other “menials”.
You’re not that important. You’re just some dick who doesn’t want to listen to people he sees as “below” him.
Going forward I will remember that the idea that you’re past all the shit that people have ragged on you for over the years on this board is patently false.
Has been fun for all the wrong reasons. ITD rages on me for being racist while deliberately ignoring parts of my post, then throwing out her own racist joke. Guin goes back to her “wait to see where the wind blows then pile on” past. Steophan shows himself to be a self-important jerk with anger management issues when it comes to authority figures and at what level he percieves them to be. Others scream “racism!” and mention one particular group that I posted about while ignoring all of the others, which was a pretty broad swath including a fuckload of white people.
And really, no one I would consider to be of any import has joined in.
Not to mention that he holds these jobs and, by his own admission, is middle aged. That must increase the impotent bitterness, like, a thousandfold.
Oh, but in his own mind, he’s probably John fucking McClane.
I’d like to start the ball rolling in actually answering the OP, because I respect Security Guards and their jobs are damned hard.
I was in CS for 8 years, but I never saw my customers as I was only on the phone and didn’t get close to them. I treated each as a numpty (idiot) and was never disappointed, and rarely surprised. I was very knowledgeable in my job, taking every break to read up on more info. Colleagues would come to me for advice and I would have lengthy discussions with bosses about the wider world of our industry. I think because I put so much work into my job I focused less on the customers and more on my service.
I only remember one bad customer amongst the thousands I spoke to, but I remember many, many times that number of good customers. I assume that’s because I was good at my job and had a good attitude. I learnt early on if they’re going nuts it’s not because of you, they’re just venting their fury about their own inadequacies. Let them vent, pause, pause some more, then ask them how you can be of help. It works … every time 
It is always interesting to see how much of people’s self worth is tied up in their perceived importance of their job. And how much of their perception of the worth of others is tied to the importance of those people’s jobs.
My job is just something I do to pay the bills and allow me to do other things. As I learned a long time ago, “There are no jobs that are beneath you. There are only jobs that you don’t want to do”.
And that there are a cosmic fuck ton of very insecure and frightened people whose lives are lived on the knife edge of retaining their perceived position in life and keeping themselves above others. Maintaining their self-worth with the illusion that they are better than the people they want to see as beneath them.
Must be hard living with that much inner terror over maintaining one’s superiority.
My “racist joke” was an example of hyperbole to illustrate the absurdity of your line of thinking. The idea that you can categorize people ethnically over phone, without the cues Rachellogram obviously had. You are serious in your assertions; mine was a stereotypical mirror of that. Satire, y’know.
Just because every example isn’t racist, just ugly, doesn’t mean the others are not. No one is screaming racism at you. You started by saying this isn’t racist- which opens the door for people to disagree. You threw the gauntlet down, with contempt, prejudging anyone who might assert racism. Pre-judging, of course, is the theme of your entire post, so quelle surprise.
You then accuse anyone who disagrees with you as not reading, ignoring or not comprehending. This type of argument is the last vestige of the closed mind. You blindly ignore the possibility that outside observers have an insight you lack in this situation.
So whatever dude. This bit of trollery has been a delight, but I am off to more interesting reads. I hear there’s a My Liitle Pony thread. Really? What’s up with that?
Well, to be fair, Chimera, grabbing those lawyers’ packages to see if they were circumcised was bit over the top, don’t ya think?
“OK, everyone, I know you’re probably going to think this stuff is racist, but it’s not - it’s really not, I promise!”
racism
“Wow, that was really racist!”
“LOL I KNEW you would think it was racist! You’re so stupid! It wasn’t racist at all!”