Consider this... Customer Service

I know that things are tough. Believe me, I know. I understand people are out of work, people are scrimping and saving, people are losing their homes/car(s)/luxury/staples. It really sucks and we'd love to have someone to blame. But it isn't your local customer service/technical service representative. How do I know? Because I'm one of them.

I know that we (I) make mistakes, sometimes very costly mistakes. But usually when you call in, it wasn't MY specific mistake. When you get me, you can almost bet it's the first time we've spoken and whatever problem you're facing wasn't caused by me. And yeah, you can want whatever it is that's wrong fixed right away. But you need to realize I have rules that I have to follow or I'll be just like those people out of work, scrimping and saving, losing their home/car/luxury/staples... oh, wait... I am one of those very people except I still have a job at the moment.

Case in point. Customer calls in wonder what the hell he's being billed $600 for. I check his account, find he was disconnected early last month then reconnected about mid-month. This caused a whole new account to be built for him. Whoever was processing the disconnected account forgot to check to see what this was all about and billed the account for early termination and non-return of equipment. The equipment alone is $300.00.

Now, I totally understood that this man was upset that one night he goes to sleep with money in the bank then wakes to find someone's hand in his cookie jar stealing his last crumbs. I don't blame him for being upset. But really! Do you think he's going to have ANY luck getting that money redeposited THAT MORNING???!!! Well, apparently he did.

So, while waiting for a supervisor that he demanded to speak with come on the phone, I had the privilege to sit there and listen to him rant for 30 minutes. How could I work for such an evil company? How could I uphold any company who would do this to another person/taxpayer/American? I so wanted to remind him that no matter what his circumstances, HE was the one that allowed his account to become disconnected for non-payment for services. If HE had had the backbone to realize that HE couldn't afford the service and ... but I digress... this all began because he had gone in over his head like so many of us did in the years leading up to this financial crisis.

My point is, when you call in to any call center looking for help for a situation you need fixed, please don't shoot us. We're only trying to help. If you get one with an attitude or seems to not give a shit about your situation, realize this. He or she has had it with callers like above. You don't give a shit either, I know... nuff said.