In movies, when there is an issue such as a tornado happening near an office, all the employees run screaming.

Well, it’s not really like that in real life.

In today’s story, an employee from a call center shares the protocol they have to follow, and that sometimes, callers accuse them of making things up just to flee the call.

Let’s read the whole story.

Caller was super angry that I had to take cover due to a tornado.

I worked in a call center for a major financial institution in the Midwest. My office was the only call center to provide service for the one specific type of account we dealt with.

Living in tornado country, we had procedures in place in the case of dangerously inclement weather.

We were to tactfully end the call, by explaining the situation and taking the caller’s information to call them back.

We then were to proceed downstairs to the storm shelter.

But it didn’t really go this way.

The only time we had to enact this procedure in my tenure there did not go as smoothly as planned.

The windows were dark in the afternoon, because there were major storm clouds brewing all morning.

My supervisor had told us to be paying attention to our in-house messaging system just in case.

I was on a call. It started very typically.

I was able to authenticate the accountholder, and she said she tried to use her card, it was declined, and what was the reason, “oh, and I need to order another card for my husband.”

The call was interrupted for a very good reason.

As I was in the process of opening the systems that display this info, we got word from our supervisor we were to evacuate the call center and proceed to the shelter.

“I’m very sorry, ma’am, but we just received a tornado warning here at our office and we have to evacuate.”

But she didn’t reply as one would expect, at all.

“Oh, hellllllll no.”

“I’m afraid so. I’ll need to give you a call back when we get the all clear. Are you currently reachable at xxx-xxxx?”

“Yeah, but hellllll no. I got a time crunch here!”

Meanwhile, everyone else is locking their screens and walking out. The windows are black.

“I understand that, I do, but we literally have a tornado near our building right now.”

“Give me your supervisor.”

“I’m sorry, I literally can’t. Neither my supervisor nor the resolution team are at their desks. They are on the way to the storm shelter.”

But that wasn’t good enough.

[yelling] “I don’t care about no dumb weak storm. Enable my transaction and order my card!”

“I have to go, ma’am. I will call you back.”

“You call me back and I’ll talk to your supervisor.”

“Okay, thank you. I’ll reach out soon.”

[click]

Things soon calmed down.

Hang up my headset, lock my screen, go to the storm shelter, tornado touches down about eight blocks from the office, get the all-clear, head back to the call center.

I went straight to my supervisor’s desk and explained the call.

She listened to the call and told me I did everything right.

He received recognition for his work.

She offered to call the customer back, which I readily accepted, and since we were backlogged due to the phones being off during the storm, there were a lot of calls to handle.

A little while later, my supervisor messaged me to come to her desk.

She praised the hell out of me for remaining calm and gave me a star certificate, which translated into a $25 gift card.

Justice.

Some people really live like they’re the main character.

Let’s see how Reddit reacted to this.

They need a reality check.

Someone shares their experience.

This policy makes more sense.

Yup.

Infuriating how common this seems to be.

It should be illegal to make employees stay on the call during a tornado.

If you liked that post, check out this post about a rude cusfacetomer who got exactly what they wanted in their pizza.