My old person trait is that I think ‘ghosting’ is completely unacceptable and you owe the other person a face-to-face conversation.
My old person trait is that I think ‘ghosting’ is completely unacceptable and you owe the other person a face-to-face conversation.
I understand that people get angry when they have to wait in line for ages and usually due to something having gone wrong in the first place, but dumping that anger onto a hapless call center employee who’s in many ways — like you said – also a victim of the same company is Not Cool™.
If I find myself feeling elevated by a company screwing me, I always start my call by telling the customer service agent that any frustration on my part isn’t directed at them, but at the company and their policies, things I understand they have zero control over. If they’re obviously foreign, I try to make clear that I think it’s an injustice that they’re paid less than their US counterparts and that I think they should be paid the US equivalent, because them being from another country does not make them any less of a human being deserving of basic respect and dignity.
Usually, having gotten that spiel out of the way at the beginning of the call, they are pretty understanding and by the time I’m done explaining I’m less elevated. If you’re frustrated, it helps to keep in mind the power structures at play and direct your frustration and anger at the correct parties: the corporate suits who use customer service lines to screw with customers and avoid ever having to hear a customer complaint themselves.
What I really want is the corporate phone numbers so I can call the fucking jackass CEO at home and direct my fuming fucking self-righteous anger right under his stupid worthless ass. Because I’m well aware that they record calls and don’t give one flying fuck about our complaints. They don’t listen, they don’t care. They’ll care when I’m blowing up their personal phone at 3am demanding them to fix the fucking issue.
For that matter, I want to see the productivity data on the top executives. AIUI, companies like Amazon monitor and push employees to get maximum productivity. Okay, so if Bob the warehouse worker takes an extra five minutes on his bathroom break and misses his last delivery of the day, that’ll piss off the customer and cost Amazon, say, $100 in sales. But by the same logic, if Andy Jassy takes an extra five minutes on his bathroom break and doesn’t finish everything on his daily to-do list, that might cost the company $1M. So all the more reason to monitor his movements to make sure he’s not slacking off.
The key is that executives don’t really matter that much. The company isn’t going to lose our on money of the CEO has diarrhea. The vast majority of work is done by the employees. Unfortunately, employees of the company can’t just decide to give themselves bonuses and shit like the board can.