I don’t work at/for a traditional call center. I have been working from home for years for a company that has social media outreach. 99% of the time, I am working through a chat-like interface with customers who message us through social media.

We sell products and services that occasionally require an appointment from a repair professional. We send them out when all troubleshooting efforts fail, and if it turns out the issue is not within our control, we charge a nice chunk of change for the visit.

My department has an internal rule that if a customer messages us and asks for a call, we can try to deflect the call one time, but if a request is made a second time, we have to make a call. A lot of customers have figured this out and message us as a way to avoid waiting on hold with our existing support line.

I made the call to a guy who sounded feisty. It is important to note that as a work-from-home employee, calls are made via a softphone, not an actual phone, and as such, features of the softphone are very, very limited for security purposes. Outbound calls also are not recorded, so I can be a little snippy with people who get difficult, and it isn’t on the record.

Me: “Hi, this is [My Name], with [Company], how are you?”

Caller: “I’m doing well, thank you.”

We go through the standard account security protocols.

Me: “Thanks! What can I look into with you?”

Caller: “Actually, I am not doing well! My home phone has been in and out all day this week! I need you to send someone out!”

Me: “I’m sorry to hear of the trouble. I know that can be annoying. Is it okay if we try some troubleshooting to see if we can clear some things up?”

Caller: “NO! I will NOT troubleshoot!”

Me: “Okay, well, I can have someone out if you’d rather just get to it. Let me see what we have available…”

Caller: “Someone MUST be out TODAY!”

Here I must note it was 1:00 pm EST. That’s a really bad time to request a same-day service call, as people have usually booked everything by then.

Me: “I can have a tech out tomorrow at 1:00 pm—”

Caller: “—NO! Didn’t you hear me? Let me repeat: Today, not tomorrow! I am having a family emergency and need my phone to work TODAY!”

Me: “I heard you fine, but I cannot give you an appointment for today as there is not one available. What I can do is schedule the available one and then make a request to see if we can get someone out sooner.”

At this point, we just go back and forth on this point. And he makes some stupid comments like:

Caller: “I don’t appreciate being lied to! I KNOW you can give me the appointment I want TODAY. All you have to do is schedule it! It isn’t that hard! Is your job too hard for you to do?”

As it turns out, no, I can’t just willy-nilly schedule appointments. So, he then demands that I contact the supervisor of the service team near him and make it work out. Mind you, I am several states away, and we just don’t get that contact information. There is no procedure for anyone in my department to contact the supervisors of other departments. It just isn’t how it works. I explain to him calmly.

Caller: “I will sit here ON HOLD with you until you get me an appointment TODAY!”

Me: “That’s fine, sir, but it might be a while. I can contact my supervisor by chat, but I can’t guarantee when he’ll reply.”

Caller: “I have all day!”

Me: “Okay, I’ve messaged him.”

At this point, I sit there in silence for nearly twenty minutes while I type back and forth with my supervisor, who is reviewing the messages he sent us before the call while also being in a meeting himself. The customer hears me typing in the background.

Caller: “You know, I can hear you typing to other people! I know you’re probably making fun of me! It’s a joke to you, isn’t it?”

Me: “I do have to type to communicate with my supervisor, and the microphone is quite sensitive.”

Caller: “What are you telling him?”

Me: “I’m just explaining to him what’s going on in case he wants to know why I’ve been on the phone for nearly half an hour with you.”

Caller: “Good! I’m glad I’m holding you up so you can’t help other people!”

Me: “I’m glad, sir, I’m getting paid the same either way, so this is actually less work for me to just sit here on the phone.”

Caller: “Can your supervisor contact their supervisor or not?”

Me: “In theory, I suppose he can. I don’t know everything my supervisor may or may not be able to do.”

Caller: “Well then, YOU contact YOUR supervisor and have him contact their supervisor and give me an appointment TODAY.”

Me: “Sure thing, I can do that. I will need to end this call so I can send this request over to him.”

Caller: “NO! I want your supervisor on a conference call with you and me, and we will discuss this together!”

Me: “That’s not possible, we don’t do conference calls that way. I can either stay on the phone with you and work on scheduling the available appointment, or we can end the call, and I can then let my supervisor know of your request for an earlier appointment.”

Caller: “So, let me get this straight. It is [current date]. In the United States of America. You work for [Company], a tech giant. And you don’t know how to set up a conference call? Is that right?”

Me: “No, that is not right. Regardless of today’s date, the option for me to have my supervisor get in on this call is not an option that is open to me. I can call you, and we can talk; my supervisor, however, cannot just join the conversation.”

Caller: “Well, that’s odd! I have a cell phone right here in my hand! It’s nothing special, but I can call anyone in Romania, England, Guatemala, and so on, all over the world, and we can even conference call with dozens of people! Are you telling me your phone can’t do that? I find that hard to believe!”

Me: “I’m glad you have this feature on your phone, but no, I am not using a phone, but a program on a computer that does not include conferencing.”

Caller: “So you’re telling me that’s the only phone you have? You don’t have a cell phone?”

Me: “Yes, I do have a cell phone which [Company] does not pay the bill for, and which [Company] has not authorized me to use for work-related purposes.”

Caller: “Well, use that to call your supervisor and put me in on a conference call!”

Me: “No. I’m not doing that. My personal cell phone is not provided by [Company], and I am not using it for work-related purposes.”

Caller: “Well, I’m sure your supervisor has a personal phone, does he not?”

Me: “I don’t know what my supervisor does or does not own; I do not live with him.”

Caller: “Well, I demand to speak with him! Have him call me directly!”

At this point, he had officially requested a supervisor, and official department guidelines say I have to now move the situation up the chain, which requires me to end the call and inform my supervisor that he has been requested. I gleefully gave the script:

Me: “I’ll have a supervisor reach out to you as soon as possible. Thank you for taking my call!”

He was shouting and protesting on the other end, realizing his mistake and that I would be ending the call.

I sent the request to my supervisor, who messaged him back saying he had been given the available appointment option and to take it or leave it.

My coworker’s son’s school was cancelled due to a tornado warning. I had to call him about something, and the conversation shifted to his son having a virtual learning day.

Coworker: “It’s crazy! Canceling for wind? We were never that lucky.”

The “wind” in question was reaching gusts of up to 80 mph, and it was raining enough that our road drainage system could not keep up.

Me: “They’re doing remote classes today, though, right?”

Coworker: “Yeah, but we didn’t have that option.”

Me: “We graduated in a time when dial-up was fancy. Of course it wasn’t an option.”

Coworker: “They get to stay home and still be in school; they don’t lose vacation days to make up for missed classes.”

Me: “Yeah, but we—”

Coworker: “—Kids today are so spoiled.” *To his son.* “Do you know how lucky you are?”

Coworker’s Son: *In the background.* “You sound like you walked to school in the snow. Uphill. Both ways.”

He quickly ended the call. I didn’t even get to point out that we work remotely from home almost every day.

Growing up in the early 2000s, my dad was the system operations lead for a major institution. He was on call constantly, and he had a work-from-home setup decades before this was a normal service that you could simply buy out of a box.

He worked with this organisation, with the same boss, for decades. The boss was on the other side of the country from us, but he and Dad were fast friends. It was to the point that I grew up calling him ‘Uncle Boss’. And the fact that dad had this WFH setup meant that Uncle Boss WAS a part of my life too.

Whenever he had to work on the weekend, the boss was also there beside him, halfway across the country.

Whenever I was sick and had to stay home from school, Dad would work from home, and every single time, Uncle Boss would make sure to take a minute to tell me he hoped I would feel better soon. 

Once, when I was about 6 and VERY sick, Dad put his headphones on me while he had to step outside to deal with something in the front yard, and Uncle Boss kept me distracted by reading me a story.

I was also six years old when Uncle Boss came across the country for a conference, and he insisted on taking Dad’s whole family out to dinner.

It was a later dinner for me; I was cranky. So when my dad told me to “Say ‘hi’ to Uncle Boss”, I answered with all the scathing disgust that only a child who Knows They Are Right can:

Me: “That’s not Uncle Boss. Uncle Boss is a computer.”

Having never seen him in person before, and talking to him almost exclusively over the much-less-robust internet, I had logically come to the conclusion that my ‘uncle’ was a robot.

 I was six before I found out this was not the case.

I recently had lunch with a few people from the company, including our HR guy. He mentioned:

HR Guy: “I’m going to have to have an unpleasant conversation with the new receptionist.”

Me: “Why?”

HR Guy: “We needed something from her, and we couldn’t find her at the reception desk. Or anywhere in the building. So, I called her, and she said she was working from home.”

Me: “Wait, how can a receptionist work from home?”

HR Guy: “Exactly!”

That receptionist no longer works for us.

Related:
Very Bad Reception, Part 24
Very Bad Reception, Part 23
Very Bad Reception, Part 22
Very Bad Reception, Part 21
Very Bad Reception, Part 20

As a result of my work, I get a lot of packages delivered to my home, some of which need to be signed for and some that can just be left at my doorstep. It’s frequent enough that both my indoor/outdoor cats recognize the delivery people.

One very rainy day, I went to answer the doorbell to find packages, but no one was waiting for me to sign. Eventually, I spotted the deliveryman running back to his vehicle to get out of the rain. I wasn’t sure why he would bother to ring my doorbell if he didn’t need me to sign for anything this time, but I opened up the screen door to get the packages anyway, at which point my rather wet cat ran inside from the bushes where she had been waiting.

It was a little odd, but I didn’t think much about it until my next delivery, not long after.

Delivery Driver: “Sorry for ringing your doorbell last time. I was headed out when your cat started meowing at me in protest for leaving. Figured she wanted me to let her in like I usually did. I didn’t want to bother you, but she looked so miserable and cold. No one should be stuck out in a thunderstorm if they don’t have to be.”

[Cat] knows about the delivery drivers and will often slip in and out when I open the door to sign something. She also regularly climbs up to a window and meows at me if she wants in badly, but on that day, I was working on something in the bathroom and so wouldn’t have seen or heard her at any of the windows.

Apparently, she decided to slip in when I signed for deliveries, and when the deliveryman tried to leave without getting me to open the door for her, she made her disapproval known.

Next delivery, I offered the man a cat-shaped cookie I’d kept by the door for him as thanks for making sure my girl got inside. Got to love a man who listens to your cat’s demands.