u/Horror-Dot-2989

It initially started off as a normal call, but all of a sudden, it pivoted to some nonsense about Covid, the FBI, and being watched. Calls like this are usually weird because they started legitimately and pivoted to nonsense, and you pretty much know this will not be a serious customer, but QA will hound you for not saying some bullshit affirming phrase and putting the customer back in focus. I understand QA members are doing their job, but a lot of the so-called resources only work in theory.

He mentioned some other weird stuff that is too disgusting to go into. The call surprisingly ended peacefully, and he thanked me for speaking with him. It's amusing how he was more polite than the regular customer.

At the point in the call when I realised what the deal was, I sort of smirked and just closed the intake form. I tried bringing him back in focus, but he kept pulling away. Best conversation I've had all day, I will never meet him but wish him all the best.

I also had this other fellow who got pissed at something I never said. I told the caller, "I can't do x because I'm not in the billing department. If you want to do x, y, or z, you can call back in a few minutes, or I can have a billing member call you back," and she says, "I never said I want to get y done," and I'm close to saying, "Ma'am, you clicked the wrong extension on purpose. I'm not saying you want to get Y done, I'm saying for future reference, Y and Z and anything money/payment related are outside of the scope of my duties, and for future reference, maybe you shouldn't be gaming the IVR in the hopes of getting literally anyone to respond to your tantrums.

I am also starting to have a sneaky suspicion callers queue up on different extensions to line-jump. Our department gets most of these "wrong" extension dialed calls since we're sort of like a jack of all trades department and we have the shortest AHTs, so callers have figured that we have way less wait times. They'll reach us and ask to be transferred to billing and we tell them to just call the billing extension directly because there's nothing we can do. I can't jump the queue for you lol. They say it so entitled lol:

Caller: Transfer me to extension 4

Me: You can do that yourself (I say this professionally of course)

Caller: You mean you can't transfer me to billing?

Me: It's alright, I'll help you out (Immediately transfers them and places them last in queue haha)

I love when the pseudo-intellectual ones do it, and I sarcastically say, "Just because we all work here doesn't mean we do the same thing. A member of a group doesn't necessarily have to share the exact same traits with all other members. I understand it's inherent in a group that they all have commonality, but we do different things." Logic 101.

Nothing pisses me off more than when I'm on a night shift and someone calls asking, "What are your business hours?". It's on freaking google.

It's looking like a long night already due to a lot of call outs, I will lose it on someone. I am a few annoying calls from shutting down my computer and just going to bed.

Speaking to providers (Nurses, Doctors, Specialists) from other facilities or agencies is absolute hell. You’d expect them to have basic professionalism and an understanding of how things work, but they are condescending, and frustrating to deal with than regular callers.

I spoke to one recently who made me get out of character.

Scripts make the job much harder than it needs to be.

They only work if a rational being is on the other side of the phone, and 9 times out of 10, the other caller isn't rational. They only work if the caller even follows the script.

99% of the time they go off script, everything gets messy, and we always have to bring them back on scripting. We complain about this stuff, and the supervisor will just give some rehearsed answer that does nothing.

The scripts are clearly Ai written, using words that real humans don't talk in, we have to reword basically everything because they are so cringe and robotic

My lead is so fake, I've never seen this level of fakeness in my life before. I'm tired of the pretend games and fake smiling. I tried to excuse and rationalise her nonsense, but it might just be who she is.

I wish people would stop telling me about their problems. Idk what gives them the impression that I'm there to listen. Once I put on those headphones, I really don't care, the pay isn't enough to make me care in the slightest.

I was almost on the verge of telling some caller, "Just land bro, I'm not your therapist." It really hurts me to think this way, but a lot of these callers are manipulators, and my defensive mechanism to survive this job is by literally not caring.

A lot of these callers think they are special for some reason, when they just get the same slop that management tells us to give everyone.

I don't have it in me to fake care, and I've already been coached on this funnily enough. But I just can't do it.

Seeing names of former team members who left makes me sad, I'm happy they escaped this hell, but seeing logs of my chats with them makes me sad. Even seeing their photos and jokes about calls we would exchange, it feels so sad. I have some of them as personal contacts, thankfully, but it is still a weird feeling. Like some sort of game show where I moved to the next level and they got canned.

Also update on my previous post, I did speak to our top performer who left, I was scared she would think the company sent me lol, but we spoke and she pretty much stated that she left for mental health reasons and like I suspected, she didn't give two weeks. Out of respect I didn't try to probe into more of what happened behind the scenes with management, but I pretty much know how it played out.

I also have this weird feeling that I may not be here for much longer, I hope I can at least survive till December.

I just checked out the team list, and it looks like our top performer is no longer with us. Sometimes I would love to know what happened. In one of our last meetings, she did make a comment that I won't go into details about, but she basically said something that all of the agents agreed with but don't have the balls to say in public, including me.

There is a chance that she left on good terms, but funny enough, months earlier, a team member raised something similar, and they were gone by the next week. Our supervisor during the meeting also preemptively said that they left on good terms, which is clearly a lie since two weeks were most likely not given, which our company hates.

We're mutuals on LinkedIn, and if she got a new job, she 100% would've posted it. I'm tempted to ask what happened but don't want to intrude.

The job sucks, but top performers do get some perks, and she was one of the happier team members (from the outside looking in). I wish her all the best, the queue will suck even more now.

Also, the vibes are getting even weirder (Didn't think this was possible)

One thing this job has taught me is that something is really wrong with the educational sector. The stuff that I have to engage with daily is insane.

A lot of these people can't comprehend, they can't read, can't use technology, or can't communicate their thoughts coherently. It's not just the boomers, it's literally every generation. Did no one go to school at all?

Having to read a disclaimer is hell, literally having to explain everything.

Scene 1:

Me: We may contact you through automated text.

Customer: I don't want that automated machine thing, I want to speak to a human.

Me: No, what I mean is that you may get text reminders for equipment delivery dates. You won't be speaking to a machine.

Customer: I don't understand.

Me: *thinking* (how did I get in this situation).

Scene 2

Me: You can always opt out of these text reminders, you also are not being billed for x, y, and z.

Customer: What does 'opt out' mean?

Scene 3:

Me: Can I get your email associated with the account?

Customer: Why do I have to answer all these questions?

Me: (finally pissed off after dealing with vermin all day) It's all right if you don't want to answer these questions right now, you can always call back tomorrow.

My company also has simplified disclaimers multiple times and a lot of callers still don't understand it.

Anytime a callers asks how is my day going, I take it as a threat. 9.9 times out of 10, it will be a difficult call.

It never fails. Also most of them will ask that question and will bombard you with complaints.

I have worked long enough at my current job to see it get worse. I'm not even up to a year here and I can already recall the glory days (when it was at least bareable)

Some of the fun activities and group meets for agents to relieve stress and speak with one another have been cancelled and now people have to get on queue.

I absolutely hate my job, I can't stand this anymore. Standards are being raised for whatever reason, calls have increased despite getting a lot of new hires recently, the whole thing just feels dystopian and a lot of veteran staff are leaving.

Lots of call ins, corporate slop, and difficult callers. I WANT OUT.

This feels like a prison i can leave but can't afford to leave yet. My mental and physical have taken a toll, this is torture.

I'm at the point where I physically can't do it anymore.

It's a weird feeling. I'm familiar with our system, but I'm just tired of dealing with so many different personalities in one week.

Were being told to "sound friendly". This feels like a trap.

I had a call the other day and this caller is just making my life hell, refuses to give or verify any information. I tolerate the nonsense until i just lose my mind and say "so, you can call back at a different time if you're not ready to talk now" and he goes on this rant about how times have changed and it never used to be like this. I just hung up. If Qa reviews it, idc tbh.

I feel like management is trying to rage bait me, they are messing with my availability. I work the shifts I am scheduled for, company needs are not my business.

I probably signed some document that gives them the right to slap random shifts on my schedule bAsEd oN nEeD, but it's getting ridiculous.

Just hire more people or up the pay. I work the weekends to avoid this bs. Now, as if they're mocking me, they are sending emails offering more hours. Usually I'd respectfully decline, but I'll flat-out ignore it.

They swore they hired more people too lol (and in their defence they did, but it hasn't made a difference). Also, the fun non-work virtual activities are being cancelled, and the agents are being told to join the queue during these events. Thankfully I signed out of those cringe fest events a long time ago.

I had a funny interaction where I tried to be as AI as possible, and it turns out I nailed it perfectly, and the caller thought I was AI.

She called in aggressively, but from the moment she thought I was AI, she suddenly turned respectful.

It was genuinely funny. I would also say a group of words and then pause for 2 seconds. She also gave and verified information obediently 😂. I also tried so hard not to laugh and would pull my mic up at times.

I won't do it as frequently because I'd get in trouble with QA, but it was genuinely funny.

It's funny how respectful they get when they think they're talking to a machine that doesn't have feelings.

I feel sorry for our new agents. I just know that these past few weeks have been a world of hurt for them.

Also, I'm not exaggerating when I say that the callers are actually getting worse. I've had more belligerent callers this month than I did in the first 6 months. We have a channel through which we report abusive customers and everything an account gets posted for an abusive caller.

I'm happy my team is finally getting people, but i can't help but feel sorry for the new agents. They came during the worst period.

Apparently we are having quality issues all of a sudden, what do they think happens when you overload the human brain with back to back complex call interactions. Especially when you have new people???

So happy I'm working a half-day, it's barely even morning yet, and the queue is looking unfriendly.

Also, there's this company that has a similar pronunciation to our company and even the same short-form name, and sometimes we get calls from their pissed-off callers, and 10 times out of 10 it's the callers losing their minds and telling us to refund them and cancel their subscriptions. It's always funny when we have to tell them, You've called the wrong company lol.

Some of them apologise for the earlier rant, others are so set on abusing you that they ignore it and still proceed to go off on you. Even had one who said "Idc if this is the wrong number, stop charging my card" 😂.

Goodluck to those of you in the trenches today, I'll pray for you.

I'm working this night shift, and some irate customer calls in crying and screaming, making threats, and I can't help but laugh for some reason. She is an existing customer and called for an actual valid emergency, and while I understand her plight, I can't move mountains.

If none of our equipment techs answer, I'm handicapped, so why threaten me? I doubt there's any real power behind the threats, but it was probably the angriest customer I have ever had. I hope I was muted when I said, "I don't get enough pay for this nonsense." Also, the caller would go on an unhinged rant with every curse word in the book, and I'd regurgitate script slop, and they would go super insane, and I'd take out the headphones and laugh 😂

I and the other night shift members were texting each other, joking about who would be getting the belt soon (basically, which agent would she call and harass next since we all had to hang up at some point).I'm starting to prefer angry customers over the fake positive normal ones.

We have an all hands on deck this early morning😭.

It's too early for this, i might just leave early.

We were supposed to have a team meeting with operations in a bit and now it's cancelled.

I'm reading reviews from our account managers who quit and it clarifies a lot.

Our company is pretty much taking more business than we can handle.

Also, an account manager who's been there for 11 years and just quit said that the company doesn't vet customers as it used to and is just accepting everyone (something they bragged about in training 😂).

So why aren't we getting a pay raise?

We're doing more work for the same pay.

Okay fine, they don't want to up the pay. Then hire more people!!!

I'll take 5-7% less if I it guarantees me not getting blasted with calls back to back. It was so terrible yesterday that I intentionally tanked my acw.

I hate greed so much.

This weather has a lot of these customers on edge. I've gone at it with a couple of them today already. I'll probably be getting a handful of coaching sessions soon. I'm so done, time to start using all my paid and unpaid time.

"Why did you answer the phone if you can't help me?" - BECAUSE YOU CALLED!!!!