Me: “Hey, I’m glad I caught you. I’m calling about that request that I made five weeks ago. You never responded to any of my emails or voice messages. I’m just wondering what the status on that is?”

Client: “Well, the reason I didn’t respond was because your first email about it was unprofessional. We’re all professionals here, and I expect to be treated professionally. You really need to work on your communication skills, and I expect better from you if we’re going to continue working together.”

Me: “I’m looking at the whole email chain right now, and it seems fine to me. What seems wrong with it?”

Client: “Well, for starters, you could ask how my day’s been. Or you could put a joke at the bottom of the email. And you should really get rid of that line with all your company information at the bottom, it looks so unprofessional.”

I had a customer that would street preach in front of the store. When he was tired or wanted a snack, he would come in and then trap workers at the counter. Since we couldn’t leave if a customer was there, we had to listen. I finally told him one night:

Me: “You forcing me to listen is about the same as going hunting at the zoo. I’m easy prey because I can’t go anywhere or fight back.”

He actually backed off for a little while.

This is my first real call center job that I like, and I just got my first weekly customer survey responses: fifteen good, three bad.

One person was unhappy that we don’t have more discounts. One person was mad we wouldn’t call [Major Shipping Company] to tell them to be better at delivering.

My favorite, though? I had a call with this customer.

Customer: “I want to cancel my account and my husband’s account, as well.”

I’m new and a phone-shy person, and we don’t have a retention line.

Me: “Why do you want to cancel?”

She gave a plethora of reasons, so I was like, “Mkay!”

I mean, doesn’t everyone always complain when you want to cancel and they make you work for it? They guilt you and cajole you and offer you their firstborn to get you to stay, but you just don’t want to deal with them anymore and it’s a headache.

I figured I was doing this lady a favor by making it painless and just canceling the accounts for her.

But no. I got a bad review. No comments. No suggestions. Just a call recording and the “BAD — I AM UNSATISFIED WITH THIS REPRESENTATIVE” button clicked.

I’m not a mind reader, you know.

I have a manager who, to put it frankly, is eviler than a Disney villain, and with far fewer redeeming qualities. She takes advantage of employees straight out of college and will often resort to manipulation and gaslighting them. She will often act like she is the only one who can save you from being fired by the “unreasonable” owner and then expect you to return the favor by giving her ideas to make her look good. And you can never actually call her out on her crap because she is vague enough about it that if you do, she will act offended and make you feel malicious.

On Tuesday, she gives me one of these vague threats toward my job. Unfortunately for her, after four years, I recognize the tactic and am indifferent. Armed with the knowledge that if they were to fire me, they would be royally screwed, I just stare blankly at her as she backtracks and tells me how she will “protect” me. She then launches into the next topic at hand: finding tasks for her intern who starts on Monday.

I shrug my shoulders.

Me: “What were you planning on doing, anyway?”

Manager: “I don’t know.”

Me: “I suggest that you talk to [Coworker] about it as she might have tasks for the intern to work on.”

My Villain never does and spends Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday asking me to come up with ideas for her. Obviously, I continue to ask her why this intern was hired and what sort of plans she had for them because, again, you don’t get to threaten a person’s livelihood and expect them to be a wealth of ideas and resources.

By Thursday, she knows she has messed up and sends me a nice note telling me how much she appreciates me and wants me to know I am a “valuable” team member. I ignore it, so Friday, she comes into my office and out of the blue says:

Manager: “I just want you to know I mean every word.”

I feign a smile.

Me: “I appreciate that.”

I go back to work until she leaves, annoyed that I didn’t give her something more heartfelt in response to her insincerity.

Friday afternoon, my coworker I told her to talk to is complaining about how she is working on an intern task, so I tell her to email [Manager] with the idea. She is hesitant as [Manager] is also known to be volatile to new ideas, so I do it. 

The response I get back at 5:07 pm is absolute gold.

Manager: “Hello, all. I will let [Intern] and the team know that there are other tasks on the development team that need expertise. Let us know how critical or time-sensitive this becomes, as I don’t see [Intern] with downtime. But happy to contribute to the needs of the team. Thanks, [Manager].”

At this point, I was absolutely rolling at the audacity of this woman. She also copied her boss on it to show what a team player she is. I sent her back a note telling her it was all good; I’d only mentioned it since she’d asked for ideas. Again, I made sure her boss is copied.

Then, Monday rolled around. The intern came in at 9:00 am, and lo and behold, she had nothing for the intern! So, she texted me asking me to show them how to perform that task I mentioned on Friday. 

With great satisfaction, I told her I couldn’t do it today as I had nothing prepared; she had told me it was unnecessary. She wasn’t too happy about that. I cannot wait until she threatens to have me fired again!

A couple of times, we’ve had customers try to spread their religions in our store. One was very understanding about not wanting to discuss such things while working; the other got booted out the door and told not to come back — a perk of owning your own business.

The worst, though, was the customer who needed a call when orders were ready and refused to answer their phone, letting it go to voicemail… the greeting of which was a Bible verse and prayer before they ever told you to leave a message. On their BUSINESS phone. Nope, nope, nope.