Thursday, May 28, 2009

This week on the call floor.....

My last call last night, at 11 pm (10 pm, California time) was from a woman who wanted the texting block on her two sons, age 9 & 12, phones. So she could download some songs onto their phones and then she wanted the block back up. Now. I was supposed to get off at 11:15 and at 11 pm, for some stupid reason, some of our programs shut down or start working so slow that it takes 5 minutes just to remove a feature.

I was on the phone with that woman for 30 minutes. I got the texting set up the way she wanted and clicked out of her account and then she added, "oh, I need the internet block removed, as well." I hated her by the time I got off, 15 minutes late...people have no consideration.

I had call from a Russian lady about her bill and when she realized that I was nice and accomodating, she had a bunch of questions. Throw in that I could speak a little Russian AND was a Mormon in Utah and her husband insisted on speaking to me with his own questions. He told me how he wanted to be a Mormon so he could have multiple wives. His wife was yelling in the background "She's a grandmother, Grisha! She has grown grandchildren."

Another call came in from a guy who used to be the voice of one of the characters on the old Yogi Bear cartoon, Boo-boo, I think. He was delightful, in his 80's, getting a cell phone for the first ime and needing all kinds of help (grammar junkies, ignore this) and talking in the cartoon characters' voice. He had a really cool voice and personna. Jimmy Weldon. I enjoyed him. Until he accidentally hung up on me and another call came in.

I get yelled at every day. Most of the time, it doesn't bother me. Getting whined at makes me want to go to peoples' houses and slap them. But yesterday, I got chewed out royal by a lady who sounded just like Roseanne Barr. She had an extra $40 on her bill and she wanted it off! "And hurry up about it, I don't have a lot of time." Turns out she had plenty of time to tell me off about all her life problems. Her stepfather has a bad heart and he and her mother live in the mountains and need an expensive phone and ATT wouldn't give it to them. Give being the operative word.

She was skeptical when I told her I'd adjusted the amount off her bill. She kept saying, "Are you sure? If I call in tomorrow, will that be on my account?" Finally, I said, "If you call in tomorrow and that $40 is back on your bill, I will send you my oldest child and his dog."

Silence....then she said, "I hate kids. And I hate dogs, too."

Finally, I told her my name and said, "that's my real name, you can call me at home and yell at me."

She softened just a touch and said, "Well, I know all this isn't your fault..."

And I said, "Oh, it's okay. I've enjoyed talking to you. You sound just like Roseanne Barr."

After a moment of silence, she said, "I hate Roseanne Barr." And slammed the phone down.

All in a day's work.

4 comments:

Sunshine said...

I used to work at the call center in Logan. I got a guy who claimed his phone got shut off during a court appearance, cuz he was a lawyer and all, he was pretty pissed. Unfortunately I was young and the call was being quality controlled. I got in trouble for telling him I don't care what he does for a living. If you don't pay your bill then your phone gets shut off.

Fun times... fun times... oh, and I was also working 14 hours a day.. on the phone..

annegb said...

I didn't know that, Sara! Oh, I get so mad and frustrated with people I think I might have a stroke. But I haven't lost my cool, I just put the phone on mute and punch holes in the cubicle.

I had a drunk guy crying to me last night telling me he just couldn't pay his bill and I finally adjusted it to get rid of him.

It's the really stupid ones who drive me crazy.

But 14 hours, I couldn't do that. I'm going to go down to 6.

annegb said...

When I retire, I'm going to say all the stuff to customers that I'm dying to say.

Like when they call in and yell at me because their kid ran up their phone bill to $900 on the internet, I'm going to say, "go into your bathroom, look in the mirror, and smack yourself really hard up the side of the head."

Sunshine said...

I know exactly what you mean. Dumb, dumb, dumb people out there, and then there are those ones that are just so nice and polite that you want to bend over backwards to help.

I can't remember how to do it, but there is a button that you can push on your keyboard to hang up on a call. (without pushing the hang up button) I did it once because, well, I wanted to go home and it was going to be a super long call!

"go into your bathroom, look in the mirror, and smack yourself really hard up the side of the head."

Classic....