For some reason, today was "Let's all of us crazy and angry people go down to the food stamp office and vent some rage" day. For the same strange reason, the tracking system decided that it should also be "give all the nuts to Slave" day.
I walked into work hearing a woman yelling at one of the lobby folks, logged into my comp and claimed my first customer. Of course it was her. By that time, she had caused such a fuss that 3 security guards were standing by and all of the sups knew about her.
She was angry and sarcastic from the start and after she took her 3rd verbal shot at me, I said "I really don't understand why you are being so mean to me when I am trying to help you."
She said something about why did my feelings matter to her when she knew that her feelings didn't matter to me.
Again, very calmly, I said "I have a choice when working cases. I can work the case correctly and as my job requires. Or, I can work the case correctly while cheerfully offering up helpful suggestions and going out of my way to complete your case and get you food right away despite what that would do to my times. You are the one who determines how I work your case."
She apologized and calmed down. Due to her sudden decision to cooperate, I was able to make the determination.
However, it didn't end there.
Next caller was a person who applies every month with the same income to see if anything had changed. Polite enough, but I did have to use a translator which tends to keep people polite. Still crazy, I had talked to him 2 times in the last 6 months and had explained everything very clearly. He just seemed to think that doing the same thing over again would have a different outcome.
Also overtime on the interview.
I smoked about 97 cigarettes on my 15 minute break.
Next one was someone who was disqualified because he was a drug related felon. He comes in and gets banned about every 6 months. I had spoken to him before, he just comes in to scream. When I called him, there were also security guards as well as management in the area because he is very well known.
When he picked up the phone, he was already screaming at me, but because laws had been passed that made him potentially eligible again, I raised my voice to say "Mr Customer, if you would just settle down and listen to me...Mr Customer, I am trying to help."
CUSTOMER, IF YOU WOULD JUST SHUT UP AND LET ME TALK I MIGHT BE ABLE TO HELP!!!
Nobody was around to hear that.
He did shut up and sit down and stop arguing with me. I was able to get a homeless man food and tell him how to get it continued.
Then I went to lunch and bought a couple of cartons of cigs to get me through the day.
More crazy, but workable people until I claimed my final customer.
Another one who had guards and lobby folks talking to sups. When he picked up my call, he was in the middle of arguing with a lobby rep and was on speaker phone. From what I was hearing, he was insisting in a face to face interview or using speaker phone because of his hearing loss and PTSD. I certainly wasn't going to bring him into my cube and I didn't want to move to one of the open desks in the lobby, so I ignored that and just started asking questions.
As I started asking the interview questions about living arrangements, he started screaming at me that I was discriminating against him because his wife was a man who doesn't live with him.
That's when I lost it and quietly said "could I tell you something personal in confidence?" He picked up the phone.
Unbeknownst to me, one of the sups was coming to my cube to not do a cube interview and to be careful because he had been throwing the D word around. So, he got close enough to me to hear me say:
"I have been over 50 for so long that I forgot how young that felt, but the big thing I remember is how freeing it was. I stopped caring. Quite frankly, I could give a flying f*** who you sleep with. At my age, I'm barely able to care who my cats sleep with. All I care about is your living arrangements and how you are paying your bills. "
Sup accidently yelped laughter and ran into the conference room and slammed the door so he could go out the other door and walk back around to listen to what was going on.
Client suddenly turned from screaming refusing to cooperate to very polite. I told him that we had to work fast because I was going to be facing disciplinary action due to a sup hearing me swear at him.
His case was actually pretty easy, except for the part when he started telling all of the lobby reps that he wanted to talk to my sup. Poor sup was ready to get yelled at because of the way he had heard me talking to the client even though he had walked back up behind me to hear that the interview was going smoothly and the guards and lobby folks had told him that I had managed to get my customer to sit down and use the phone.
My client put us back on speaker phone and apologized to my sup and the lobby folks for his behavior and demanded that I not face disciplinary action.
Sup gave me a hand made medal and told me that it was OK to ask for a mental health day off tomorrow if needed.
Nah. I'm over 50. I don't care. Disciplinary action would be inconvenient, but I'd get over it by my next break. Fifty is Freeing.
I walked into work hearing a woman yelling at one of the lobby folks, logged into my comp and claimed my first customer. Of course it was her. By that time, she had caused such a fuss that 3 security guards were standing by and all of the sups knew about her.
She was angry and sarcastic from the start and after she took her 3rd verbal shot at me, I said "I really don't understand why you are being so mean to me when I am trying to help you."
She said something about why did my feelings matter to her when she knew that her feelings didn't matter to me.
Again, very calmly, I said "I have a choice when working cases. I can work the case correctly and as my job requires. Or, I can work the case correctly while cheerfully offering up helpful suggestions and going out of my way to complete your case and get you food right away despite what that would do to my times. You are the one who determines how I work your case."
She apologized and calmed down. Due to her sudden decision to cooperate, I was able to make the determination.
However, it didn't end there.
Next caller was a person who applies every month with the same income to see if anything had changed. Polite enough, but I did have to use a translator which tends to keep people polite. Still crazy, I had talked to him 2 times in the last 6 months and had explained everything very clearly. He just seemed to think that doing the same thing over again would have a different outcome.
Also overtime on the interview.
I smoked about 97 cigarettes on my 15 minute break.
Next one was someone who was disqualified because he was a drug related felon. He comes in and gets banned about every 6 months. I had spoken to him before, he just comes in to scream. When I called him, there were also security guards as well as management in the area because he is very well known.
When he picked up the phone, he was already screaming at me, but because laws had been passed that made him potentially eligible again, I raised my voice to say "Mr Customer, if you would just settle down and listen to me...Mr Customer, I am trying to help."
CUSTOMER, IF YOU WOULD JUST SHUT UP AND LET ME TALK I MIGHT BE ABLE TO HELP!!!
Nobody was around to hear that.
He did shut up and sit down and stop arguing with me. I was able to get a homeless man food and tell him how to get it continued.
Then I went to lunch and bought a couple of cartons of cigs to get me through the day.
More crazy, but workable people until I claimed my final customer.
Another one who had guards and lobby folks talking to sups. When he picked up my call, he was in the middle of arguing with a lobby rep and was on speaker phone. From what I was hearing, he was insisting in a face to face interview or using speaker phone because of his hearing loss and PTSD. I certainly wasn't going to bring him into my cube and I didn't want to move to one of the open desks in the lobby, so I ignored that and just started asking questions.
As I started asking the interview questions about living arrangements, he started screaming at me that I was discriminating against him because his wife was a man who doesn't live with him.
That's when I lost it and quietly said "could I tell you something personal in confidence?" He picked up the phone.
Unbeknownst to me, one of the sups was coming to my cube to not do a cube interview and to be careful because he had been throwing the D word around. So, he got close enough to me to hear me say:
"I have been over 50 for so long that I forgot how young that felt, but the big thing I remember is how freeing it was. I stopped caring. Quite frankly, I could give a flying f*** who you sleep with. At my age, I'm barely able to care who my cats sleep with. All I care about is your living arrangements and how you are paying your bills. "
Sup accidently yelped laughter and ran into the conference room and slammed the door so he could go out the other door and walk back around to listen to what was going on.
Client suddenly turned from screaming refusing to cooperate to very polite. I told him that we had to work fast because I was going to be facing disciplinary action due to a sup hearing me swear at him.
His case was actually pretty easy, except for the part when he started telling all of the lobby reps that he wanted to talk to my sup. Poor sup was ready to get yelled at because of the way he had heard me talking to the client even though he had walked back up behind me to hear that the interview was going smoothly and the guards and lobby folks had told him that I had managed to get my customer to sit down and use the phone.
My client put us back on speaker phone and apologized to my sup and the lobby folks for his behavior and demanded that I not face disciplinary action.
Sup gave me a hand made medal and told me that it was OK to ask for a mental health day off tomorrow if needed.
Nah. I'm over 50. I don't care. Disciplinary action would be inconvenient, but I'd get over it by my next break. Fifty is Freeing.
Comment