Service With A Smile

Over the years I have worked a variety of jobs in different industries, but one thing has remained remarkably consistent:  customers are fucking stupid. Nothing has played a greater role in the deterioration of my faith in human intelligence than dealing

with these idiots day in and day out.

In high school I worked in a grocery store. I used to cringe at the customers who would smell each package of fish, looking for the one that smelled the strongest because they thought the smell indicated that it was fresh.

Then there was the woman who walked in and asked me, "Do you have that stuff....in a can?" "Sure, Aisle 2." I figured that would get rid of her. Of course there is no luck like idiot luck (they would never survive to adulthood, otherwise), and she exclaimed to me as she came to the register "Oh, if it was a snake it would had have bit me!" That's not a typo by the way, "would had have bit me." Some shithead would say that every day.

I was also always fond of the savants who would try to boost steaks from the meat cooler right in front of the one-way glass lining the cooler. Everybody in the meat department could see them stuffing shit in their coats. I always got a kick out of seeing that busted look on their face when the cop approached them. They would feign innocence even as entire roasts fell out of their jackets.

Still, the greatest of all the grocery store brainiacs was the "Old Wine" Lady. This one comes in to the store one day indignant as fuck, marches up to the service desk, and gets loud right off the bat. It seems that she had purchased a bottle of wine on her last visit to the store.  When she got home, she noticed the vintage year. Like any true connoisseur, she mistook this for an expiration date. "Y'ALL SOLD ME SOME OLD WINE! THIS SHIT IS OUT OF DATE! I WANT A BOTTLE OF FRESH WINE! THAT AIN'T RIGHT Y'ALL SELLING EXPIRED WINE TO THE PUBLIC LIKE THAT!"

I worked for a while as a collections manager at a bank. Manager calls are a great source of idiocy. There were the typical bonehead complaints from customers who wanted to argue points of law (always incorrectly), bitch about the fact that a collector probed their kid for contact information, or try to argue that it was somehow unfair that they should be expected to repay the money they borrowed.

A few tips for dealing with a collector:

*   You probably do not know more about FDCPA than they do.

* You lose the moral high ground in complaining about the collector talking to your kid when you can be heard on tape in the background coaching that kid to screen your collection calls.

*   Think about your excuse before getting on the phone. If you are

going to lie, at least make it interesting and somewhat of a challenge to break down. It spices up the day for the collector.

But I digress….

So one day, one of my reps comes to me and says that a customer wants to talk to me because she needs a letter faxed to her attorney and is dissatisfied with the timeframe we can promise. I get on the line with her and she tells me she has written a check against her credit account, and wants a letter sent confirming that funds are available for the check to clear.

"Where do you need this letter faxed?"

"To my bankruptcy attorney."

"Pardon me?"

"It's for his retainer."

Needless to say, she was displeased when I told her I was closing her account and that the check would not be honored.

"You can't do that! That's MY money!"

After we got past that brilliant misconception, she said, "This is terrible customer service!"

Like that was supposed to hurt my pride.

"Ma'am, you have just informed me that you do not intend to pay back the money you borrowed. On top of that, you were hoping to take us for your retainer too. Am I supposed to be concerned about 'losing your business' at this point?"

"Well that's no way to talk to a good customer!"

"I agree completely."

Probably the best Stupid Call I ever got involved a customer who was deaf. I was a credit analyst at the time, and she called in to apply for a loan. It was a Relay all, meaning that she was typing into a TDD phone and I was talking to her through n operator who was transcribing my end of the conversation to the customer. Relay calls are a major pain in the ass, and they take forever. You have to say "Go head" whenever you are finished talking, so that you don't screw up the operator while they are trying to translate it.  I turned her down, but being the helpful boy scout-type that I am, I suggested she could reapply with a co-applicant. She said that none of her family lived near her and none of her friends would do it. I was ready to get off the phone when suddenly she said that her mother was there and would cosign.

Right.

First I asked her "mother" for a number where I could call to speak to her. She said that she was visiting her "daughter" and that she only had the TDD phone -  nevermind the fact that TDD machines use a regular handset. I went into the application information with her and she said that she did not know her social security number. Surprise! I then suggested she look on her driver's license.  Of course, she had left that in another purse at home.  When I pulled the credit report, I asked her what bank held her mortgage. At least she tried to guess at this one.

Wrong again, half-wit.

Finally I said, "At this point I am going to status this application as fraudulent. I do not believe that you are who you say you are. You can not verify basic personal or financial information, so I will be referring this application to our Fraud Department. Go ahead."

Of course I was bullshitting her a little just to scare her. Fraud only handles accounts, not applications. I was also a little intrigued to see what would happen. Usually with fraudulent applications, the person just hangs up when they realize they are busted. I waited for the response from the Relay operator.

"I have memory loss. Go ahead."

The scary part is the fact that people like these represent the majority in our society. Is it any wonder that we have a president who says "Nucular?"

by

Stretch