Many of you probably know that I work for a major medical insurance company. It is no secret that the job is not the most enjoyable. Today gave me a real prime example of why I occasionally am tempted to just say “fuck it” and walk out of the place. People are crazy. Not just the ones with mental problems, but the ones who operate as functional members of society. They all seem sane as can be, but once you get them a little pissed off about their health insurance, their eyes turn to fire and they want to drink some fucking blood. I am really not exaggerating. Two things people are passionate about are money and the well being of themselves and their loved ones. Add those two together and you get some Linda Blair puke spewing bat shit crazers (yes, I did make this word up).
Now, I’ve been yelled at by people more times than I could ever imagine to count. It is nothing new to me. Usually it makes the day interesting. For the most part it doesn’t bother me because I can just hit the mute button and chuckle to myself about the nut job trying to make their case about something they didn’t take the time to research. I get that it happens with all customer service jobs. I would be on the street if all customers were happy and didn’t have issues. However, my real gripe in this all comes when people have the audacity to scream and you and then deny that they are even doing so.
They aren’t blatantly saying that they aren’t shouting. These are the people in denial as to where they are directing their rage. They tend to give you a plate of fresh bullshit and say “Now, I’m not directing this at you. You are just earning a living” or “I understand that you are doing your job, so I am really pissed off at your company”. Today a woman screamed at me at the top of her lungs about how I work for greedy pigs that sit in a board room conspiring to find ways to not pay her claims. She also added that congress needs to get off their asses and do something about it rather than be worried about a black president. Sure enough, this blossom of joy made sure to tell me, while still yelling, that it wasn’t personal, she wasn’t directing it at me, and that she was really only furious at the company.
Bull fucking shit. I don’t want to hear that line of crap. If she was in person at a department store service counter shouting and talking the way she was, she would have been arrested for disorderly conduct or some other related offense. It doesn’t matter what your intentions are, but when you start yelling directly at a person, you have made it about them in some regard. You are uncorking your capsulated bottle of pissed-off right at them. Sorry ma’am, but while you are talking to me, your words are directed at me. You are disrespecting me and there isn’t an acceptable excuse for it.
The only reason someone yells at a complete stranger is as a means to scare or intimidate them. They yell to appear as the superior beast, in order to obtain the advantage. It is why a lion roars or a snake hisses. For all these people to always say that they aren’t meaning to take it out on me or that they are not directing their hostility at me is nothing but a farce. They are hoping that I have some shit trickling down my leg and will run screaming to someone so that we can bend over and appease them. The bad news for them is that the world of customer service is not a jungle and we don’t play by the rules of the wild.
It baffles me as to why people will treat customer service representatives so poorly. I am certain that they would be calling security the second a customer walked into their place of employment and starting screaming that they were a bunch of crooks. They’d probably file a complaint with the local authorities if they got dozens of calls everything with expletive language and wishes of failure by the hands of the government. I have no idea what compels people to just unleash on people and treat them like utter shit. It rarely gets them anywhere. If it has ever been successful outside of a Wendy’s I would be shocked.
Ultimately the idiot customers of the world need to spare me their delusions. Stop insulting my intelligence. You are yelling at ME, not the people I work for. Let’s be honest about it and then shut the fuck up.
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