Wednesday, June 16, 2004
I've been feeling a little angsty about work recently. These days, I'm working for a contractor (I'll call it Company Y) that is nearing the hustling end of a contract with an agency that has yet to do anything towards convincing me that the Federal government employs anyone with a fully functioning brain. The pay is decent and the commute is relatively short, plus I can wear sweats and my bosses encourage me to bring Sophie to the office, all of which helps to mitigate the low points. Truthfully, these lows are merely annoyances compared to the occasional day-ruining dramas of previous jobs. And for the sake of REAL comparison, I read this and was reminded that I should just consider myself lucky that I work with data and not people.
I haven't had a lot of jobs, let alone crappy jobs, but the two where I worked the front lines (a.k.a. Customer Service) provided fresh glimpses into hell each and every day. For a few months after graduating from college, I worked for a nationwide paging company whose nastiest clients weren't drug dealers as you might expect (although every month around billing cycle cut-off time we did get a few calls that began "Bish, don' turn mah jonk OFF...") but REALTORS. There's just no reasoning with a person who is convinced that 2 minutes of system downtime cost her the commission on a $450,000 house.
My personal favorite obnoxious customer story? A litigious one, natch. Back when I was still in college, I worked in the HR office of a large department store and occasionally filled in at the customer service office. There was frequently a backlog of customers in the waiting area so the store had set up posts and velvet ropes to funnel customers into neat little lines. One day, a woman and her approximately 7 year old son came into customer service - can't recall why, maybe to pay a charge card bill - and the kid preceded to run amok while the mother took care of her business. When the boy started yanking on the ropes, one of the customer service employees informed the mother that the posts weren't bolted down and could end up falling on the kid. Naturally, that resulted in a nasty response from Mom of the Year, who was pretty pissed off that someone would have the AUDACITY to suggest that her son should discontinue what he was doing but didn't seem at all concerned about the potential that the kid could injure himself.
Not surprisingly, within seconds the kid pulled a post over onto himself and launched into a hysterical crying fit. The mother immediately started screaming about lawsuits and was quickly escorted into the Executive Offices to talk with the General Manager and Security. Fortunately, our Customer Service area was equipped with security cameras that captured audio as well as video. They showed the tape to the mom, pointed out that the tape clearly showed her disregarding the service associate's warning about the unstability of the posts, and basically laughed in her face about her lawsuit threat.
As far as I know, that was the end of the story. The incident became somewhat of a legend among store employees, mainly because that particular retail conglomerate is notorious for their "the customer is always right" policies.
What's your most nightmarish customer story?
# posted by Amanda at 10:11 PM |
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