Imagine working in a technical support role where you’re understaffed. By the time customers get through, they’ve been waiting for hours.

Would you be understanding if the customers were unhappy and rude after waiting so long to talk to someone, or would you refuse to deal with their rude behavior?

In this story, one employee has a job like this, and he usually plays by the rules. On his last day of work, he did things differently.

Let’s read the whole story.

Be rude? Ok, wait in queue.

I did not love this job, but I genuinely tried my best to be helpful and do it well. This was a technical support account.

We were *severely* understaffed (this account had specific language requirements) always back to back, dealing with (righfully so) angry people.

To be fair, service and policies were kind of crappy.

It was annoying for employees and customers.

This company acquired other smaller companies in the same line of business, so the transition was not that smooth either.

On a normal day, the waiting time to speak to a rep was 2-3 hours.

Again, I understand why people were upset but it was not our fault (as agents).

Anyway, I was not passionate about this position but I couldn’t affort to quit. So I started applying to other positions, hoping I’d find a way out.

Finally, a chance to leave!

Fast forward, I land a position with similar responsibilities (actually the load was much more manageable), + much better compensation and opportunity for growth.

The email offer comes in the middle of my shift, and I accept immediately.

I need to start asap, so I quit on the spot, but commit to at least finish the day.

Here’s one of the last customers he helped.

As mentioned before, I was used to talking with angry people but didn’t take it personal so just did my best to help and deescalate the situation.

So, this call comes in and it’s a classic one “I changed my wifi password and all my devices disconnected, I want a technician to come fix it.”

Ok, before sending someone out we were required to offer to help guide the cust on how to do it. If they insisted, we could dispatch someone but needed to inform the cust it would be $$$.

So, I tell him that and he agrees to try and connect things himself with my help.

He didn’t think the customer was actually trying to be difficult.

At this point, I had already worked there for almost 2 years, so I knew my way around.

I could tell this dude was not actually trying and being difficult. Ok, maybe he had a hard day. Maybe he’s frustrated he had to wait so long and the service is crap.

Whatever, it’s my last day.

I never hung up on cust before (believe it or not lol) on purpose, solely because I believe on treating others the way you’d like to be treated.

He decided not to play by the rules.

Well, this individual starts being rude **to me**.

Normally, we’d be required to give people 3 warnings and be allowed to hang up if there’s no attitude change.

At this point, I was fed up. I looked at the queue and it said that the waiting time was 4 hours. So, surprise surprise (you can probably tell where this goes based on the title lol).

I hung up on him. I had already quit. What did I have to lose?

Here’s how he ended the call.

It was oddly satisfying to me, I literally told him “I’m sorry, I don’t get paid enough for this.”

*line drops*.

I think about that sometimes and laugh.

I bet the client was shocked when he realized the call ended that way and that he had to wait another four hours. I feel bad for whoever he talked to next.

Let’s see how Reddit reacted to this story.

Another person shares how they also once hung up on a customer.

A food service worker weighs in.

Another person shares a time they were rude.

Yes, he was definitely waiting a long, long time.

If you’re rude, you might regret it.

If you liked that story, check out this post about an oblivious CEO who tells a web developer to “act his wage”… and it results in 30% of the workforce being laid off.