During the summer of 2020, I worked in customer service for an online retailer. It was 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 toward 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 system we used to track peoples’ orders was down. I wouldn’t be able to cancel orders, check when shipping dates were, change shipping addresses, 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 understood that there was literally nothing I could do to modify their orders and said they would call back later.

This one lady calls me who is upset about something and wants me to cancel her order.

Me: “I apologize for the inconvenience, ma’am, but I can’t cancel orders at the moment as our system is down. Call back in an hour and we should be able to take care of it.”

She is not happy with the response, and she starts going off.

Caller: “That’s unacceptable! I don’t have time to call later! Just take down my information now and do it later once your system is back up. This is horrible customer service!”

And so on.

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

Eventually, she decides that she has had enough of me and asks to speak with my supervisor. The summer of 2020 is the peak of the global health crisis, so I am working from home. I explain the situation.

Me: “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 you back in twenty-four to forty-eight hours.”

Of course, this is not good enough for her. 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:

Caller: “Just transfer me to anyone else; I don’t care. I don’t want to speak to you anymore!”

Me: “Okay, just give me a moment.”

As I was thinking, “You did say ANYONE,” I transferred her to the Spanish customer service line.

A website client of mine and I met at a restaurant so he could give me photos to put on the site and tell me what he wanted. (I do work from home and often find it more convenient if I drive to a restaurant or coffee shop nearer to the client.)

There, we discussed the pages he wanted, the pictures and video he had for me to go on those pages, etc. The contract that he signed stated that the content was his responsibility, not mine.

Over the course of six months, I consistently had issues getting content from him. He would say, “Oh, that photo was on the thumb drive I gave you,” when it actually wasn’t. I basically built the site with some of his photos and, initially, much of my text content. The six months basically went like this:

Me: “I was wondering if you had the content I need for that page.”

Client: “I am pretty busy right now. I will get it for you tonight.”

A week later:

Me: “Hey, did you happen to get the content for that page I mentioned a week ago?”

Client: “Sorry. Got held up on a big job. I will have it for you this weekend.”

Then, another week went by, and still nothing.

So it went for months. When I was finally down to the last bit of wording I needed for the final page, I sent the following text.

Me: “Hey, if you can give me the text you want on the [page], we can be done with the site.”

Client: “No, we are not done. It is done when it is exactly how I want it. I am not paying you to not finish! To be honest, I don’t even like the site. Are you even licensed to build websites? I could have had this site done a lot sooner at a lower price, and they would have done all the content. Why did I have to do all the work to get you content? And why did we meet at a restaurant? A real business wouldn’t operate like that.”

Me: “…”

This would be a justified homicide, right?

My boss and I had a disagreement about working from home this week. The office is in San Francisco. I live in the East Bay and need to cross the Bay Bridge to get to work.

We had an important presentation scheduled today. I wanted to do it “virtual” because the APEC [Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation] meeting is in SF this week, and everything seems disrupted. President Biden and Chinese President Xi are here. It’s a two-hour commute on a typical day, and I told my boss it might not be feasible to come in this week.

He insisted I come in.

Me: “Okay, but don’t blame me if I get stuck in traffic.”

We had a pretty heated discussion about it.

Today there’s a huge backup on every freeway toward the Bay Bridge because protesters have chained themselves across all five lanes. The bridge is completely closed.

Now, the boss wants me to do the presentation “virtual”.

Me: “I can’t. I’m stuck in traffic. I can’t operate my vehicle and do the presentation. You will have to do it without me.”

(But he isn’t really qualified.)

The presentation ended up being rescheduled.

Last week, around Friday, I was so burnt out from my remote work that I went to the living room to cool off. Normally, my cat mostly sleeps at these hours (I work early night shifts); it was around two in the morning. He just woke up and leaped down from the couch. He meowed a lot, rubbed my legs, and even followed me to my room, meowing and meowing.

When I went back to the living room and sat down on the couch, he put his paws on my thigh, indicating he wanted to be on my lap. I put him on my lap and then petted him. He sat down, with his purrs comforting me. Then, he rubbed his head on my chest and stared at me with those cutesy eyes, blinking. He kept changing positions and made me pet different parts of his body.

I felt lighter somehow, and I became calm. After that, he leaped off my lap.

When I was about to go back to work, he wouldn’t stop meowing. He gestured toward his food container and then “asked” for food.

Me: “Wow, you want payment, huh?”

I fed him. When he finished eating, he groomed himself and then went back to sleep.

Please note that his feeding schedule is at 5:30 am, not 3:32 am. That blasted cat. I never asked him to comfort me in the first place. But, well, it was worth it.

He then ate another meal at his designated time that day.

I am in college studying IT, and I am a student worker at the help desk. Like most universities, we have a lot of online students. This semester, we rolled out two-factor authentication. It’s been causing some issues, but for the most part, they can be resolved in two minutes.

A lady calls and says she needs a bypass code. When they get to this bypass code screen, that means they didn’t activate their account on their phone in time and we need to activate it for them. If they didn’t enroll with their phone number, we can just add it with their username — but they need to know their username.

Lady: “I’m trying to get into my account and I’m getting a screen asking for a bypass code.”

Me: “Okay. Can I have your username, please?”

Lady: “I don’t remember it.”

Mind you, she JUST logged in if she is seeing this screen.

Me: “All right, can I get your phone number, then?”

She gives it to me, but it doesn’t pop up in the system.

Me: “Did you change your number recently?”

Lady: “No.”

Me: “Is there any way you can remember your username? That’s the only way I can activate your account without your phone number listed.”

Lady: “F*** that s***! I’ve been dealing with this s*** for two months now! I’m just going to transfer to [Other School] because you guys are f****** useless.”

She couldn’t get in for two months? Why is she just now calling? Was she missing classes for two months and didn’t think to contact anyone? Plus, the refund period has passed and midterms are next week. I don’t think she’s getting her money back.

The good news is that I probably won’t have to deal with her again.