Do you ever wonder...?

[rerant]

We've all had those moments where we thought we were the ones being the SC and come here to post about it, but what about how the employee feels about our misstep?

Do you ever wonder if the employee will either be a current poster of CS or come across this board and start a thread about you?

I know personally I've had a couple of "was I an SC?" moments, and from the general consensus on CS was it was a misunderstanding, but what if the story was coming from the other end?

Do you ever wonder if you could become the person we all make faces at when we read the story?

[MystyGlyttyr]

I'm actually surprised no one HAS written anything about me. I know I can be a bitch on wheels most of the time. Then again, if the person I'm being a bitch to is being honest with themself, they'd know they started it and I was just finishing it...heh.

[dmf]

i know i have been the SC, but that is only to call centers, i know they are not at fault most of the time but there is something about spending 15 mins talking to some guy from india with a seriously strong accent, trying to answer his question that the yellow wire is connected to the router, that just gets to me.

[powerboy]

I wonder that every time.

[customersruinmylife]

I actually JUST did something very stupid...

I've been on my feet all day and was quite worn out. I went to the store to treat myself to some nice alcohol. The registers are all completely qued out.

I spot an empty one...

The light was off...
There was a sign saying it was closed...
And the cashier was in the middle of putting a jacket on...

And I still asked:

Me: Are you open?

Right after I said it, I just sheepishly said "Sorry" and walked away.

In my defence, I am tired and I kinda missed all the signs.

[BookstoreEscapee]

I've always wondered if anyone on here has read a thread and thought, Oh god, that was me...

[unclejampuff]

I've probably done stupid stuff to employees, but never angry stuff.

[One-Fang]

I think the odds that someone here made a cashier groan to their friends about the "stupid customer I had to deal with today" are very good. We've probably all done it.

The odds they're also CS members and post it here? Very very slim.

[Samaliel]

I've done both angry and stupid. when I do something stupid, I'm always sincerely apologetic. When I'm angry, it's another story... I've mostly gotten angry to :
- my ISP tech support, because they would always ask us to do the basic troubleshooting routine (I understand they have to), then transfer us to a real technician. Most of them would ask us to go through the same routine before asking further details. Very few of them would just check we did ran through the routine rather than ask us to actually run through it all over again.
- train station employees. They have kind of an ill repute here, when most of them are really caring for the customers, but those who don't are such a pain in the ass... And of course, you occasionnally run across the sweet but stupid one.

The one time I know I crossed the line, I don't know if they were blind, stupid, or both. At the time, I lived with my parents in a far southern suburb city of Paris (about a 40 minutes train ride). My mom had to go somewhere in Paris (an appointment with a banker, or something) and since it's hell to park in Paris, she decided to ride the train. I printed a roadmap for her, from the RATP (the company that runs public transportation in Paris and most suburbs) website, so she didn't get confused with her connections. We went to the ticket booth, my mother asked for her ticket to <station inside Paris I can't remember>. The lady behind the glass pane draws a blank. "Are you sure you got the right name ?" Yep, we're sure. "I don't know that station. You sure it's in Paris ?" Yes, ma'am. "How do you spell that ?" We pulled the roadmap, and spelled the name of the station. "I don't find it." She grabbed a map of the train network and called " co-worker to help her out. They both looked up the map and still didn't find it. I held the roadmap to the glass pane, at eye-level, for these ladies to see. They spent a few minutes looking for the station. Since I vaguely knew where that station was, I tried to tell them. "It's on Such line. Inside Paris. West." By that point I could actually see the tiny spot on the big map that was about 1m away from me, behind the glass pane, and on which they both had their nose. "Come on, I see it. It's between <other station1> and <other station 2>." "Where are those ?" I rolled my eyes and huffed. "Gah, you're blind or something ? See <station in the middle of Paris> here ? Follow Such line, westward. After <other station>, follow the branch going somewhat North. It's the 3rd station from there." They looked up at me, with an expression of shock, which made me realize how rude that sounded.

The kicker ? Since that station is Paris intra-muros, it didn't even matter which one it was : it's the same price, wherever you go inside Paris. When printed, tickets state <City> - Paris, with no precision of where you're getting off, because you can get off wherever you want, provided it's inside Paris.

Fifteen friggin' minutes spent over a transaction that should have taken less than two. Fortunately, since my mother has this tendency to leave very early because she's afraid she'll get late due to her slow walking between connections, she still was 15 minutes ahead of her scheduled route, and tickets for suburban trains are not time specific.

[smileyeagle1021]

- train station employees. .

oh I feel your pain... for me it's more the trip planners at UTA... I've before told me, Oh, no problem your train will get into Salt Lake Central with 10 minutes to spare to get your bus out to the airport (i'm really glad that I was only going to work and not going to a flight)... when I got to Salt Lake Central I found out that the train really came in 10 minutes after the bus left... oh yeah, I went SC on the supervisor on the customer service line about that one.

[edicius]

I worry about that all the time. It's why I try and be as polite as possible. For instance, I had an issue a little while back at Wal-Mart's Site-To-Store pickup where they couldn't seem to find my items and had to dig through a bunch of boxes. They were so apologetic each and every time one of them came back to the counter (there were two of them looking for my stuff) to answer the phone or whatnot and each time, I was like, "Nah, no biggie, I'm in no hurry. When you find it, you find it, no problem," with a smile.

Of course, a current problem I'm having with Sony and one of their repair centers...THAT might propel me into sucky customer-dom...

[Peppergirl]

I've cursed out a few phone reps in my life (and before you jump all over me, they deserved it) and i'm convinced one of these days i'll run into one of those people on here.

Sorry, but I don't feel there's ever an excuse to curse at a phone rep or any customer service person, but maybe you could elaborate on what they did to deserve it?

[jaya9581]

It wouldn't surprise me at all to find myself on this site sometime. I did customer service for a long time and I have nothing but respect for the people that do it, with the caveat that I only respect the ones that respect me as a customer.

I've had as many bad customer experiences as I have bad employee ones. As long as you know what you're doing and do it nicely (niceness is the key even if you DON'T know what you're doing!) you'll never see me be anything but a model customer. But in addition to being a proponent of CSR rights, I'm also a proponent of consumer rights - Don't mess with my rights and I won't mess with yours.

[JLRodgers]

I've been known to start a conversation (once I realize what company has called) with, "I know this isn't your fault.... but you might want to talk to you supervisor about this because ______"

Which involves something like "this is the 4th call I've received from you this hour, the 12th for the day. You started calling at 6am. it's now 2pm. As I said the prior 12 times the person you want is not here, is not in town and will not be in town for two weeks. So will you please... STOP CALLING [not yelled, but emphasized in my voice]. And no, marking it in the account won't work -- the last 10 people have done that and your computer system is still calling us."

Then 10 minutes later when they call back [not joking either.... I wanted to demolish their computer automated caller] I try to be calm, as I know it's not the rep's fault. As soon as they start talking I interrupt them with: "This is the 13th time your company has called -- I know, not your fault -- tell your supervisor this: if I get so much as one more call from your place in the next two weeks, I'm having your number blocked from our phones so you'll never reach us. I know you didn't know. They're not here, won't be back for two weeks. Sorry. Ok? Thank you. Bye" (the rep got some words in there actually, I didn't just ramble).

Then they finally stop calling.


One day I was on with a company, the company called on call waiting, and they called again and had a message on the voicemail..... called throughout the day (every 15 fricken minutes) and they called again at 2am-ish. (I was alone that day, one relative was out of town, another was working a long 12 hour night shift after doing a 6 hour shift at the second job).

Of course I wasn't as nice with the 2am one I basically said "do you know what time it is? No? it's 2:30 in the morning!" [they said they could call whenever they wanted!, then threatened me about something because I wouldn't wake people up they wanted, when they found out they were working - night shift - they called me a liar and threatened me and my family] At that point I kind of wasn't nice at all, but in a funny way: "when someone calls this early, someone had better be dead. And when I hang up, someone will be -- what was your name again [said in a happy-evil tone]" They hung up. I went back to sleep.

I was going to be nicer before the rep threatened my family and said they didn't deserve the air they breathed and he'd see to it they wouldn't have that if I didn't put them on the phone. (I WISH I was joking about that.... but the rep actually said he'd kill them off if I didn't put them on ---- it was many years ago 10-15 though). That was the last call from that company -- and whatever they wanted, we never found out. I'd almost bet someone was recording it or just overheard it (it was in a call center for crying out loud!) heard what he said, and decided to drop whatever it was as a lawsuit would've cost them more.

[Peppergirl]

Those are some very good examples. Sheesh!