Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by bryan l on November 9, 2011 at 12:16am

well thank you for your input kelly. i totally agree with the whole customer service thing. i been there and done that. actually kind of miss it. i've always been good with people, for the most part just want to see a smile on their face. but i decided to become more mechanically inclined. there is always something to learn. i wish i would have started a little younger but it is what it is. i like taking things apart and getting my hands dirty. just a little bit about me i thought i would trow out there.

don't feel like the "new guy" for that long. you will soon see that i suck at this whole blog thing. 

oh, and the thing that gets me. is the type that sit there and lie to everyone face while trying to take credit for all the work.  and when they aren't doing that they just try to push people's buttons.

Permalink Reply by kelly bartelle on November 9, 2011 at 9:54am

You got it Bryan about people who lie at work. Then there are those who are so sweet to someone and the minute their back is turned they are bad mouthing the very person they just appeared to be best friends with. Some people use people for whatever reason serves their purpose. A lot of ppl think this is only in female workers but I have seen it in both. Then their is the brown nosing the boss. This seems to be the most disgusting.

On day at the bar when the regular golfers came in and one of their group wasn't with them I had to laught to myself 'cause you wouod have sworn it was a group of ladies talking about the one who was ot there.

The last 4 years of my employment wee not behind th bar because I could not stand for lengths of time and I couldn't carry cass and such, Being who I am, I was not going to have someone else do my work. So I found a job at a hospital working with a group of women.  As mt health gotworse and I had to work part time, they all liked me less and less. I couldn't be able to help out in a pinch but it was duly noted that 20 hours was all I could work, They din't care about mt health issues, not that I would expect them to. The only yhing they were concerned about was that I was not of any extra use to them in helping out when someione called in.  But, when I went to 20 hours, it was the managers job to find someone to fill those 20 hours I could not be there.

When everyone was upset due to something regarding the manager and we were all talking about it; what I said went straight bck to the Manager. Someone was being evil to the max. I ended up not only with physical pain but emotional pain from how they were treating me.

I too loved Customer Service. I loved pleasing people and putting a smile on their face for the enjoyable time they had. I treated both old and young with the utmost respect. 

Then their are the customers. That is a whole new post for there are many diffeent kinds.

kelly

Permalink Reply by bryan l on November 10, 2011 at 12:19am

funny how you mention the golfers. that sounds a lot like the majority of people in my work place. don't get me wrong. there are decent people that i work with.

as far as how you where treated at the hospital, i can also totally relate. more on the emotional level for me. as time passed i realized that part of my problem was that i was letting people get the best of me. so now i am in the process of seeing what's best for me. keeping a positive attitude and doing what i do best, working hard. that's what got me into the whole situation i'm in. but that's fine with me. and i find that everyday i walk in with a smile and give the same attitude back, the one's the thought had control of the situation are now being controlled.

customers in my opinion where just part of the job. and now that i look at it. basically the same the same as i get from some coworkers. i just didn't think i would have to deal with that doing what i do. i guess no matter where you work. your gonna have to deal with those bad customers.

i had a long day. i could go in to many directions. that's all for now as well.

Permalink Reply by kelly bartelle on November 13, 2011 at 10:17am

You got the right attitude btyan 1. You can't let them get the best of you. You have to have an attitude that you are no better and no worse than they are. It isn't easy that's for sure.

Towards the end before I had to quit, I had this attitude. When it wa time for me to leave I left with my chin up and didn;t care what they thought. Either way, if I would have tried to stay nd help out when I didn't have to, they still would have had the same attitude about me as not being able to give more than I could give. it wasn't my fault I was disabled. I would rather work anyday. This is no picnic. It sucks. 

It took me 2 years to get over depression and anger from not being able to work. I talked with a counselor for 2 years and she helped me to overcome this. Heck, she would tell me her problems in her life. She even got rid of the "everyone's better than me" which I held within me.

So keep your chin up high and let others know you are their equal. Don't let them get to youand if they do, try not to show it. it's what they want.  Work places are a hard place to be now days. maybe they always were. But one spends so much of their life there and they should be ablke to enjoy the time they are required to be there doing whatever it is that they do.

Permalink Reply by youhavetoforgiveme on November 13, 2011 at 5:19am

The stories I could tell (I'd get fired for it toooooo). I work in technical support for one of the major players in the IT arena, you may (or may not) have even heard of them. I've been promoted since then, but I spent a little over a year doing their phone support. On the surface it was a GREAT "work hard, play hard" environment, but the performance minimums were brutal. This is what you had to do after their training class, really had to do....

 

Say you ordered a burger, a Coke, and some fries at McDonalds' and after you reached your table in the restaurant, you found that your order wasn't quite right. So, you come back to the counter to get what you paid for and get it done right. My job was to make sure that you got your order done right (fix the problem, if possible) and meanwhile, sell you another burger (renew your current products) or much better, sell you a milkshake in the process. Now here's where it gets ugly. You're graded on whether or not you fixed the problem or not and on average, you have to sell a minimum dollar quota per day, and finish the call in 14 minutes or less. Mind you, on average it will take at least two of those minutes just to get the customer into their account so you can really talk to them about anything other than the local football game and their shoe size.

 

It wasn't funny at the time, but now it almost is.... There is a certain kind of person that either unconsciously or consciously knows that the phone call is being recorded (they ALL are, trust me) and they know that you can't hang up on them without getting fired before the end of your shift that day. As the saying goes, "After 6PM, they're broke, after 9PM, they're drunk, after Midnight, they're lonely." You wouldn't think it, but it's true. One guy was so drunk he called back the next day and kept saying: "I ordered WHAT? And HOW many???" It was all I could do to finish all of his refund requests by saying: "Sir, you've gotten really lucky that you called us back in time to get your refunds. Please use that money to go to rehab."

 

Now it gets real.... That phone rings and it's onnnn. Phone calls from all over the world...from all kinds of people....

One guy wanted to ask me if, as a man, I would consider buying adult gear used on the Internet. I had already deduced there wasn't any business venture in his future, he just wanted to waste my time. At that point I was just trying to get the guy off the phone and made the mistake of countering with briefly telling him about my previous job where I was paid to stare at porn all day (boring pretty quick) and there wasn't much of anything that he could say that would phase me. For him, suddenly it became a game (trying to get a rise out of me).

 

Another guy called me a thief. This is almost an exact quote: “...the only breach in security in your system is when I'm giving you my credit card number over the phone.” I was even sort of okay with it insofar as “it comes with the job”....being treated poorly. Later I even realized that I was about to convince him that he should buy something and he just didn't want to purchase because I didn't sound like I was from his heritage or his part of the world (it happens, a lot more often than you would think). What really killed me (I almost cussed him out “right then and there” on the phone) was then he said: “[his credit card number security] It's nothing personal.” Now, if you want to call me a thief, that's fine because I know that I'm not. Don't insult my intelligence by then trying to claim that, man to man, calling me a thief isn't personal. I came home so mad at the guy I didn't sleep that night.

If the last 99 other people said it's “urgent” or “ASAP” or "do the needful", why should I move any faster for you? It's always urgent.

 

I don't produce the idiocy on the Internet, I only process the results. Like the guy who was trying to start a web site called to the effect of programming for the world (in other words, everyone should know how to program and be able to make web sites, a noble cause). What was so funny was that the guy couldn't even program his site himself. He was begging me to fix his web site for him. Along that same line, a few guys will get together and start a web hosting company, a very lucrative venture if you know what you're doing. They happen to host their web site through us and then come crying to us when they can't fix simple things on a web server. No wonder why so many businesses go belly up :/

Permalink Reply by kelly bartelle on November 13, 2011 at 10:08am

Wow youhavetoforgiveme, you really go through a lot at your work.  Isnlt it nice to be able to getthat off your chest?  One thing I liked is that when a customer paid for a round of drinks and if I had a bad experience, I always could turn my back on them when I wentto the cash register and do my cussing there.

The world is filled with people who do not know how to be a customer.  That's why I think working in Customer service for a year should be a HS requirement for graduation.  Maybe working on phines would be the best.

Some customers think you are supposed to know EVERYTHING.  That is until something goes weong and the the customer is ALWAYS right.

I have to add something that is somewhat off topic, simply because I am not one who only oopens there mouth when something goes wrong. I have heard stories how rude people can be to those who are disabled. I can honestly say that I have been disabled since 2004 and I ave run into some of the nicest people who honestly had a human heart in them.

I always send and email to a company when I have good service too and I ask the prsns name so I can tell their boss how the quality of their customer service was excellent. I believe in giving compliments. Some people are really exceptionally good.

I guess it works both ways. There are rude customers and yet there are also people who should never work in customer service; unless maybe they learned a lesson from their year I suggested. But honestly, you have to have patients and more to work with people. I don't know if this is something you are just born with or something which can be learned. But you need to have a desire to please people and you need to like people and being with them; all kinds of them.

People can be just plain ignorant though too. I think one of my favorites is, "do you put ice in ice tea?" I really wish I would have kept a diary of my 30+ years in serving the public. I'll bet it would be a best seller.

Permalink Reply by youhavetoforgiveme on November 18, 2011 at 4:04am

Some (nice getting it off my chest). I've been toying with the idea of starting a web site that would not be traceable back to my employer-- certainly not directly at least-- with all the things that I can't say at work now. For one, I'd rather spend the money on something else, two, anyone not in the IT customer support industry probably wouldn't get the "jokes" that I would crack, and I would probably come off as a ranting blowhard anyway.

 

Maybe. We'll seeeeee....

Permalink Reply by kelly bartelle on November 18, 2011 at 11:44am

I think that is a good idea and it does help to get things off one's chest. 

Work is a huge part of one's life and one should enjoy it. Not enjoying it can impact other aspects of our life because we always know we have to go back to something umpleasant to earn a living.  Health, relatioships and so on can be affected. 

Have you taken a look at the forum The Angry Pharmacist?  Do a search for it and you will laugh your butt off reading how these pharmacists let off steam about customers. It is hilarious.  Here is the link for it

http://www.theangrypharmacist.com/

I love to read from this site. Maybe I have a sick humor or something but it is so darn funny.  I learn from it too; how to be a good pharmacy customer.  There are somethings I didn't know, like charge backs to insurance companies when a customer doesn't pick up their script. I  think the pharmacy is paid a couple dollars to fill the script and then they have to give it back to the ins. company. More wokr and paperwork; all needless time consuming.