If you’ve never worked incoming calls in a call center setting, well…I’d say count yourself lucky.

There are positives in every position, but a constant barrage of angry human beings on the other end of the line is also a big downside.

OP calls it the worst job she’s ever had, mostly because of the people. You know.

During the summer of 2020 I worked customer service for an online retailer.

It is the worst job I’ve ever worked. While most people were polite, kind and understanding, I had to deal with many people who were (often justifiably) upset about a problem with their order, but even then most people would be sure to say their anger was not directed towards me.

Faking sympathy for these people was hard enough, but then there would be people berating me personally as if I had something to do with whatever problem they were complaining about.

One day the computers were down but people still had to answer those incoming calls, even if it was just to tell people they couldn’t help them and to call back in an hour.

One day, the system we used to track peoples’ orders was down. I wouldn’t be able to cancel orders, check when the shipping date was, change the shipping address, nothing.

The supervisor told us to tell the customers to call back in an hour at which point the system would hopefully be back up.

Again, most people were understanding that there was literally nothing I could do to modify their orders and said they would call back later.

When a customer pushed back, insisting OP take their information and fix the issue later, they tried explaining why that was impossible.

This one lady calls me and is upset about something and wants me to cancel her order. I tell her I apologize for the inconvenience but I can’t at the moment, and that she should call back in an hour.

She was not happy with the response. She starts going off about how that is unacceptable, she doesn’t have time later, take down her information and do it later once the system is back up, this is horrible customer service, etc.

I constantly have calls coming in so I can’t be dealing with her problem at the same time as speaking to another customer, and more importantly, my shift was going to be finished in 20 minutes and I sure wasn’t waiting around for the system to be back up and doing overtime to cancel this lady’s order, especially with her rude, entitled attitude.

The customer didn’t care about logic, and that extended to the fact that OP also couldn’t give the call to a manager because she worked remotely.

Eventually, she decides that she has had enough of me, and asks to speak with my supervisor. Summer of 2020 is peak COVID, so I was working from home.

I explain the situation and say I can’t just pass the phone to my supervisor but what I can do is escalate the issue by putting in a ticket and a supervisor will call them back in 24-48 hours.

Of course this is not good enough for her.

Eventually the customer got fed up and insisted OP transfer them to ANYONE ELSE – so, OP sent them to the Spanish customer service line.

She is yelling at me at this point, going on and on about how awful this customer service is, and she is not accepting that there is nothing I can do at the moment.

She decides she doesn’t want to speak to me anymore and screeches at me to “Just transfer me to ANYONE else, I don’t care. I don’t want to speak to you anymore!”

I say okay, just give me a moment. As I’m thinking in my head “You did say ANYONE”, I transfer her to the Spanish customer service line.

Ooops.

The top comment had some very good advice.

Everyone likes to have a sister in rage.

We love telling people to take it up with their representative.

Everyone has been the angry customer at some point.

It happens to the best of us.

Listen, as someone who has been there, I get it.

If I had been the customer, though, I would be so annoyed.

Thought that was a crazy story? Check out what this employee did when their manager refused to pay for their time while they were travelling for business.