I cried on the phone to a customer

[TheChild]

I have had the shittest of shit days today, need to let it out because I can't stop crying.

I work in a Call Centre, worked at the same place for nearly 6 years now. 5 minutes before the end of my shift and 5 minutes before we actually close I get a call from a customer who I could tell striaght away was not happy.

It was nothing I had personally done, he had problems with our (admittedly outdated) systems and the way we have to do things. Nothing I said or did was good enough, the options I gave going forward weren't options, I had to repeat myself multiple times when he kept asking the same question, saying that I did not have the answer because it involved a 3rd party who's systems we don't have access to. I never ever lose it on the phone, show any annoyance or emotion but this man just pushed me to the edge. I asked if he's like to speak to a manager, ignored and told again how useless I was. Asked what I could do to put the situation right, was told I could tell him the answer to the question that I already said I could not answer, offered to raise a complaint so we could fully investigate. Nope.

What made it worse was that I was working from home, no colleague next to me to listen in and take over the call and my voice broke and I started crying, whilst at the same time apologising for being unprofessional. Ended up staying on an hour and 30 minutes extra doing everything I needed to do. A colleague will need to listen to the call as I logged a complaint, so they will have to hear my pathetic snivelling.

I'm so cross with myself that I let someone get to me that badly, and that I had a panic attack afterwards whilst trying to sort it all out. I'm back in tomorrow and I just feel sick, I'm so fed up. I don't want to go to work tomorrow and deal with more people being arseholes over something that is not my fault.

I will add a disclaimer to say that the majority of the people I speak to are lovely, but it's the rare arseholes that can just ruin my day. My confidence is completely knocked

Please someone tell me SOMETHING happy?!

Oh and if you want to eye roll/laugh have a look at call centre probs on FB (it's a page, the comments are usually golden)

OP, you can bet that everyone know knows this chap hates him.

You, however, sound lovely.

@NotMyCat

Oh and if you want to eye roll/laugh have a look at call centre probs on FB (it's a page, the comments are usually golden)

Oh this is brilliant!

@A8mint

There are so many threads on MN where the poster cries and it annoys me. How are we women supposed to be taken seriously at work when some women can't manage their emotions and cry . It is so unprofessional and does nothing to help the cause of equality at work

Sorry you've had such a bad time OP. I was a receptionist for many years and often had to put up with angry people. I used to just let them vent, offer solutions or for them to talk to a manager, and on the rare occassions they continued to be nasty I would simply tell them there was nothing more I could do and I was going to end the call. Unfortunately you need to have a thick skin to deal with this sort of thing, but they are not angry with you, you just happen to be in the firing line.

I shouldn’t repeat this but it was probably 13 years ago the person isn’t that well known anymore and I no longer work for the company.

But remember that presenter who used to do have I got news for you but got sacked for some big scandal can’t remember we if it was snorting coke or prostitutes or something.

He called up the call centre I worked in. He was so fucking rude it was unbelievable. The minute I answered the phone and heard his voice I almost knew it was him before he said his name. He kept tutting and speaking slowly like I was a little bit stupid. The thing he didn’t quite seem to be grasping was he called me so needed my help. But was acting like he was doing me a favour by calling me.

So I made him spell his name out just to be clear mind you and then I asked him what his profession was at which point he got really shitty and said light entertainer/ tv presenter. I said in my sweetest voice oh how lovely would I know anything you have been in?

He sort of quietened down a bit after that but was an utter prick. When he phoned up to follow up he made another girl cry.

@A8mint

There are so many threads on MN where the poster cries and it annoys me. How are we women supposed to be taken seriously at work when some women can't manage their emotions and cry . It is so unprofessional and does nothing to help the cause of equality at work

Foxtrot Oscar 🖕

Sorry OP, he was an absolute arse hole.

I work in retail so my shitty customers are face to face with me.

Today I had a woman ask for curtain material off the roll. She showed me the measurements of her windows and I worked out for her how much fabric she needed. Then she asked me to cut the fabric into 28 pieces so each piece would fit individual windows.

I told her sorry that we don’t do that. She argued that it was my job to cut out her curtains. I explained that we have ready made curtains if she wasn’t comfortable cutting her own. Nope, she wanted me to cut up 37 metres of fabric for her. She argued the fact that she didn’t own a tape measure, or scissors and my queue grew longer. Then she threatened to report me on Face Book.

I still didn’t do it

So……
There
We
Are
Then

Some people are utter CUNTS

He is a bully and he is the one who should be ashamed, not you

I have worked in a Call centre in the past and it was vile. So you completely have my sympathy. It honestly made me lose faith in humans because so many who rang up were utter vile wankers

And in my experience it was often completely out of the call handlers hands to fully help them because the problem had generally been caused by another department - one that did not speak to customers, of which there was many. This was British Gas by the way.

The managers used to randomly listen in to calls and I ended up marched off the premises because I snapped and told a customer he was a cunt and to fuck off. Then I hung up. Funniest part was they couldn't actually sack me as I'd just handed in my notice. so they had to pay me in full for a month for sitting at home on my arse! Ha

It was an absolute cesspit of a company

@A8mint

There are so many threads on MN where the poster cries and it annoys me. How are we women supposed to be taken seriously at work when some women can't manage their emotions and cry . It is so unprofessional and does nothing to help the cause of equality at work

Oh there's always one

Bore off

I work for the nhs. A Dr I work closely with was shitty with me last week as a mistake had been made (it wasn't my mistake but I was first in line of fire and took the rap). About half an hour after the incident I went to the loo and cried for five minutes, dried my eyes, went back to work.

I'm still thinking about the incident a week later. I didn't deserve to be spoken to the way I was and it's made me question everything about my job, the people I work with, the lack of respect I get in the job I'm in etc etc.

I know I'm rambling a bit here, I just wanted you to know that you're not alone with feeling upset about being treated like shit in work. We all deserve to be treated with respect when at work, unfortunately there are some horrible people out there who aren't happy unless they are making someone else's day shit!!

Omg, if you've worked in a call centre for 6 years and this is the first time you've cried then you're basically a superhero.

@A8mint

There are so many threads on MN where the poster cries and it annoys me. How are we women supposed to be taken seriously at work when some women can't manage their emotions and cry . It is so unprofessional and does nothing to help the cause of equality at work

You've clearly never worked in a call centre before. It's utterly shit, soul destroying work. Perhaps you ought to give it a go, see how long you last.

I did 4 years, you couldn't pay me enough money to ever go back.

You sound lovely. May the fleas of a thousand camels infest his armpits.

Ah OP for you

In the good old days we’d put the caller on speaker and all sit round laughing silently and flicking the Vs. t’s pretty shit wfh on your own

You’ve reminded me to remind my team tomorrow they have my full permission to hang up on twatty callers. So some good has come out of your shit day

I hope he feels bad, in a big way. He sounds like a total arsehole.

@SexyNeckbeard 16 years for me! Not all in the same centre

I cried in the middle of a JOB INTERVIEW. I was being horribly bullied in my current job and when they asked me at the interview why I wanted a new job, I just burst into tears. It was awful. I couldn't stop crying.

I still got the job, though .

[quote NotMyCat]@SexyNeckbeard 16 years for me! Not all in the same centre [/quote]
That's bloody impressive well done you. I honestly think everyone should do national service in a supermarket and in a call centre.

Big hug for you OP! I've been in your position more than once, including quite recently. It's tough when they're not actually being rude or aggressive enough to legitimately end the call over but just plugging away and breaking you down. Even worse when you're on your own and there's nobody to pull exaggerated 'fuck my life' faces at.

Something to take your mind off it? At least you didn't forget your office keys today, find yourself the last to leave and then have to wait an hour for the cleaner to show up so you could go! (she's never bloody late when I have got them!).

am sorry you had a bad day. Am trying to come up with something to make you smile but don't have anything except that yesterday, my newly one year old shouted daaas - (dance when I was playing Mirriam Makeba's Patapata). So put some music and dance?
Your posts reminds that it's easy when something is going wrong with our products or days, to forget that call centre people are humans with feelings. I am always polite and in worse case scenario I might say am disappointed in a product/service but I know it's not your fault.
Am sorry that person made you feel do terrible. Take care of yourself

I've worked in call centres and sometimes ... You just have to terminate the call. Give them a warning but you don't need to be spoken to like that.

@SexyNeckbeard I've managed to do
Retail
Hospitality
Home carer
Call centre
Emergency services

I would like a gold star also I'm an introvert who dislikes people. And telephones

I've not worked in a call centre before so not sure if this is allowed but in future is it possible to put a shitty customer on hold (for as long as you need to get yourself together), as you 'need to speak to your manager/the correct department'? It could get shitty customer more worked up but the call can suddenly drop through no fault of your own..

I worked as a GP receptionist aged 17. Lasted all of 2 weeks. Years later I'm still not thick skinned enough to deal with daily abuse. In fact nobody should have to deal with abuse no matter what their job is.

People can be vile. You should have a supervisor to hand whilst working remotely who can take over calls like this though. It’s really not appropriate for you to end up crying. I do it daily for staff members in our contact centre.