Frustration

[tenzilkem]

Gah!!!!! I am really getting frustrated with my job. 10 years of working as a phone jockey doing customer care and tech support. Last night I had one customer who was so hard of hearing they heard me hollering across the call floor. Why in the hell would you call in (they admitted to having a hearing issue) know that you couldn't hear? I really want to get out and do something else, go back to university and get something I can enjoy but I am having to table any thoughts on that until my wife gets hired full time with insurance. I used to love my job, helping people now its so hard to even generate enough to care about them. I would seriously love to bang my head on something until I pass out from the trauma.

Sorry, needed to get this off my chest. Might need to vent more later....

[wagegoth]

Completely understandable. Complain away, that's why CS is here.

[Kristev]

The helping arts have a great tendency to be unrewarding.

But then I'm biased because of my mother. She was a nurse for twenty years.

[BeenThereDoneThat]

I really hear you there, tenzilkem. Even though I'd say most of my working life has been in customer service in one form or another, the call center job is really starting to get to me, after being there less than 16 months. Truly, I feel good when I'm able to help a customer sort out a problem or confusion, or help them place an order, etc. I don't even get too flustered by MOST of the SCs that call in because they're obviously just too entitled or unrealistic to make any real sense, so I do what I can for them and send them on their disgruntled way. But between the few who yell and scream, or take up huge chunks of time telling me their life story or arguing with me about something that either has to be figured out by someone else or that they are just plain WRONG about, and the rules that keep getting changed - usually for the worse - by the company(ies) I work for, that make me want to throw things and quit on the spot. I, too, want to find another line of work that actually makes me happy, even if I have to go back to school, but that seems like it's not going to happen anytime soon. Extremely frustrating and stress-inducing.

Sorry to hear you're going through this. Those of us who truly like to help people take it the hardest when our work seems to go unappreciated.

[Sableonblonde]

I used to always start jobs with a real strong desire to help people and always ended up hating people instead.

[MoonCat]

Oh yeah. I get that. Nothing more frustrating then a customer who keeps yelling that they can't hear you. I especially love when they tell me to turn up the phone volume! Look, genius, that's only going to turn it up on MY SIDE, not yours!

[Tyg3rW01f]

Well, I work in a factory as Quality Control -- TESTING.
It's not so much the Customers, (although the B-tards DO come up with the WORST ideas at the WORST times and then EXPECT YOU to implement their I-D-10-T program...) it's my BOSSES.
I have a General Manager, an HR Director/Head Accountant(same tightwad little F-tard), and an Expiditor/Shipping Director. The "Big Three", as we Peons call them, are the most aggravating individuals this side of my Dad's side of the family tree.
But this past week, however, it has been the snot-nosed little prissy in the office who got my dander up.
Miss Priss is a local from the neighboring county, and is living with her fiancee. Not MY concern, but this little prissy is nothing but a crybaby and a whiner and a SNITCH.

THAT said, here's what happened.

I have to check the air-porosity of fabrics, as the factory where I am employed processes and dyes fabric for parachutes, tents, duffelbags, mailbags, bankbags, military tarps, military tents, bomb-chutes, construction fencing... etc. etc. etc.

SO... I got a set of fabric pieces (ties) to test, being told I needed to test them as our Customer, V., wanted to see the test results.
Not a problem, right?
WRONG!
I had my Expiditor breathing down my neck for EIGHT sets of ties that I had received JUST THAT MORNING and were the testgroup for eight orders on which a truck was waiting on the dock at that very moment.
I attempt to explain this situation, but Miss Priss says, "But you've had those ties for an hour."
THAT whined statement, PLUS the fact it was ten after 12, PLUS the fact I ALREADY had been informed I was going to be working through my lunch hour, AFTER having already been at the plant for TEN HOURS... well, I got the ties done, but it took the rest of my lunch. V. wasn't going to be back for 25 minutes, and it took Miss Priss less than five minutes to type everything up... and she had the nerve to ask me, "Why couldn't you have gotten these done sooner?"
THAT was the last straw.
I slammed my hand onto her printer and snarled, "You want them done sooner?! YOU test the DAMN ties! OTHERWISE, the NEXT time you want to remind me of how long I have had a set of ties for testing, make DAMN CERTAIN you are one of three people: R.L., P.C., or my mother. AND! Since you are none of the above, KEEP. YOUR. DAMN. MOUTH. SHUT!!"

I got to work the last three days of this week without pay for simply putting Miss Priss back in her place, where she belongs.

by Firnos, I LOVE my coworkers.

[Gizmo]

I got to work the last three days of this week without pay for simply putting Miss Priss back in her place, where she belongs.

Can they do that? They can't over here!

[wagegoth]

You can't do that legally here either.