Explosion in 3...2..1

[Slave to the Phone]

This month, I am the Mistress of the Kiosks! Which means that I sit at the Master Kiosk and sign people onto the computers to start their food stamp application. When I'm not busy with that, I check people in.

I called a customer come to me and he was very aggressive and demanding from the start. Finger pointing, loud and very rude. People are never at their best when they have to come to see us, but he was over the top and I had a really bad feeling about him.

I messaged the sup in charge and said that he should be a kiosk interview (some people still take customers to their cubes) and put notes in the intake comments to speak to sup or me.

When it was time for his interview, he was even madder about the excessive wait (less than an hour, which is really fast for government work), so I put him at a kiosk where I could see and hear him.

I knew from what he told me what the outcome of his interview was probably not going to be what he wanted, so about 20 minutes into his interview, I told the security guard that I wanted him close in 20-22 minutes, just in case.

After I did that, I messaged the sup in charge that I thought she should be close in 18-20 minutes. Both of them were all but seemed to understand when I told them that I thought there would be a problem at about that time.

Right on time, 21 minutes after I spoke to the guard, the customer in question stood up and starting shouting and swearing.

It was priceless! Sup and guard looked at him, looked at me and then looked at each other before going to the customer.

Can I call them or what?

[raw1989]

At least it was dealt with in a timely manner since they were there on time.

[Blue Ginger]

That is skill.

[RealUnimportant]

Very nicely done.

Quick, what are this week's lottery numbers?

[Slave to the Phone]

Seeing as how I gave myself a 120 second margin of error, I might not be so good at lottery numbers.

Sadly, this is a learned skill. People who are used to intimidating retail people by yelling and threatening often don't understand that it doesn't work very well with government employees who are backed up by policy, management and armed security guards.

Not to mention that unless we are swamped, we do phone interviews. He was screaming threats at someone sitting behind a locked door on the other side of the building.

I know that the stories I share here are all about the bad ones. That's what this forum is for. I honestly do enjoy my job. Most of the people I see are nice and are just confused about how the system works.

Its the most rewarding job I've ever had. I give people food and I get paid to do it. How awesome is that?

[raw1989]

I just do my job and I never have to go in and see the place that does ours sadly the phone link you to someone in somewhere they are not even in the same building lol

[workerbee222]

Its the most rewarding job I've ever had. I give people food and I get paid to do it. How awesome is that?

I had a job that was not-so-rewarding; cashiering at a much reviled retailer. One day, a food stamp recipient leaned over to me and whispered, "We don't care what other people say about this store. The prices here help us make our money go further."

Made my day.

[Sparklyturtle]

I remember the yellers and screamers in government work. One thing a lot of them didn't seem to realize was that we were government employees, and it took more than the word of one aggrieved patron to get us fired. That said, people are not at their best when being told they can't have something they feel they're entitled to. I worked in a medical records office at a military hospital, and when the HIPAA regulations were passed things changed. Spouses used to be able to pick up medical records, but now they needed a signed release from the patient. Non-custodial parents had to have a release from the custodial parent before they are allowed to look at their child's medical records. These two issues resulted in more yelling and screaming in our office than practically everything else we handled, and fortunately my boss could handle most recalcitrant customers. If she couldn't, she'd call hospital security.

One day a man came in insisting that he be given permission to look at his child's medical records. According to him, his ex-wife had brought their child to the ER in 2001 (this was 2003) because the child had been injured, and someone who had seen them made a comment to him that it looked as though someone had beaten the child with a cord as there had been welts on her legs. So, he was out to get his ex-wife on child abuse charges and insisted he was going to have her thrown in jail. My boss told him that she couldn't allow him to see the child's medical records without his ex-wife's consent, as he was the non-custodial parent. The guy started yelling louder and louder that he was going to "get" his ex-wife, so my boss called hospital security, who escorted the man out. I don't know what happened after that, but this gentleman was active duty military so I'm sure this wasn't the end of the situation.

Then there was the woman who, when told that she couldn't have a copy of her husband's 11-volume chart made in an hour started screaming that we were trying to kill her husband. My boss called the doctor and asked, "What did you tell this woman?" Turned out all the doctor had told her she needed was a copy of her husband's most recent labs and a copy of a procedure he'd recently undergone to take to a specialist the husband had been referred to.

My former boss was sent to a military hospital in Germany to straighten their records section out about the time I resigned to move out of state. From what I heard afterward, I was glad I left when I did, as the director who took my former boss' place wasn't able to handle unreasonable demands from doctors or patients.