A Minor Variation

Dear customer,

Please do not use the phrase "do the right thing" when what you mean is "do what I want." They are not synonymous, except in your head.

Thanks so,
joiedecombat

Two "oh my God, you must be joking" calls in a row!

First the woman who called in absolutely outraged because she is being penalized for excessive returns on her account - and by "excessive" I mean that in the past less than four years she'd actually charged less than five thousand dollars but somehow contrived to return more than eleven thousand, and had actually paid only a bit over eight hundred - and saying that she plans to sue the company because she was given a hard time over claiming a credit balance refund in the amount of $245 because she has made three returns but no purchases over the past twelve months...

...then the woman who came into a store with a statement dated 3/31/04 wanting to claim the credit balance it reflected, and who, when I advised her that it would have been refunded after three statements, persisted in asking questions about what she should do in order to be able to claim the credit. Which was $50.20. Somehow I managed not to tell her that what she should do is accept that after more than three years, that ship has pretty much sailed.

Plus a store associate giving a customer a stupidly hard time about trying to get him to look up her account number, and demanding that I give her whatever information I had because it was not part of his duties - never mind that only one of our lines is permitted to give out account numbers, and I only have the extension that the associates dial in to it, because it has to be an associate who calls in so that they can verify picture ID...

The world is full of assholes today.

A brief note from a customer service phone monkey, to anyone who may ever need to call any kind of customer service for any reason:

If you find yourself needing to do business over the phone, or needing to call for customer service, please do everyone a favor and do not sit there eating while you are talking on the phone. Trust me, we can hear you. It sounds gross. Would you sit there chomping on nachos while doing business face-to-face at the bank? Stop it.

I'm not talking about coming back from placing a customer on hold and hearing eating noises, mind you; I'm talking about listening to them chewing while they are talking to me. And it never fails to baffle me. Why do that? Do they really think that because I can't see them, I can't tell?

Eugh.

Crossposted to customers_suck

I just got called white trailer park trash by a customer.

I got called white trailer park trash something like five times.

And then she called me a bitch!

I hung up on her.

D: D: D:

Two questions for the day:

1) WTF is with today and people who are fundamentally incapable of grasping the concept of a monthly billing cycle? If you get a statement in the beginning of April that shows an amount due even though you thought you paid your account in full at the end of March, the time to ask "hey, what's with this remaining amount" is not a week after that statement's due date. And if you are dumb enough to wait until after your statement showed the amount was due to ask about it, you should not be surprised when we tell you that no, we cannot simply roll that amount due onto your next due date so that you will not be considered past due or receive any late fees or interest charges. People like this make me regret being able to waive late fees and interest charges.

Similarly, if you receive a statement in March showing that you have an amount due in April, and you do not make a payment, and then you receive another statement showing a) no payment received and b) a new payment due with a new due date, that does not mean that the previous amount is not now past due and that you should not receive a late fee so long as you make your payment by the new due date. This is not how it works.

RAARGH.

2) On a lesser note, who told the Gundam SEED fandom that "what if Murrue was pregnant before Jachin Due?" was a good and interesting plotline? Stop it.

That is all.

Playing X-Men Legends II before work, trying to retrieve Iron Man... more out of completism than out of any real desire to have Iron Man playable, because, really. All the scads and scads of X-Men characters, and they give us Iron Man? Come on, people. But in any case, Apocalypse has him stashed somewhere in an Egyptian pyramid... and inevitably, whenever I go into that area, Gambit wanders offscreen and gets himself knocked out somehow. He's triggering some kind of trap, but I can never see him do it, so I'm not sure where it is. I'm left with this mental image of Remy spotting some little golden statuette or something and, well...

Trying to crockpot-roast an alarming chunk of cow, per salazen's instructions. Cow, meet crockpot. Crockpot, meet my dinner. Take good care of it, now.

Also, that issue at work I'd been working on since Friday and had waiting for me yesterday when I went in? I kicked its ass.

That is all.

In which I make really oblique jokes using one of the icons evilbeej gave me...

The weather seems to have abruptly realized that, oh hell, it's October! Because very suddenly it's gone autumnally chilly around here, when it was summery a day or two ago. Although I'm generally a big wimp about the cold, I do enjoy fall, when it's still chilly rather than cold. So this is kind of nice. It gives me an excuse to drink apple cider and hot cocoa and make Crock-Pot chili. Not that I've done any of the above just yet. But I will! Soon! I may also get ambitious later this month and carve a jack o'lantern, although my apartment is placed in a manner which leaves me not much of anywhere to put one.

This town apparently puts on a Halloween Event not too far from me. I wonder if it'd be worth going. Could be fun.

In other happy news, my Black Phoenix lab order has shipped. Anticipate much girly babbling about perfumes in the near future.

This week at work has been all about Customer Service Appreciation or, well, whatever this week is. Which is cool for me, what with randomly getting an extra half-hour tacked onto one of my breaks and getting to wear jeans all week and having people randomly come by my desk and give me food. Customers not appreciably less stupid than usual, unfortunately. Ditto store associates. I had a call today last over half an hour. wtf.

But on the whole, could be lots worse. Even if better hours would be nice. Maybe soon!

...you know, I thought I had more to say. Guess not.

Today was amusing, as most of the workday was eaten up by motivational speakers. The one who occupied our morning was especially good, and I am not just saying this because I got five dollars during his presentation for doing pushups in front of the class. He also gave one girl three dollars for jumping jacks, and one ten dollars for doing a very impressive Tarzan yodel that brought people over from other areas of the building to see what was going on.

Plus I got the most right on the little word puzzle thing he handed out, and was one of two people to get the correct solution to the problem of how to convert the roman numerals "IX" into a six using only one continuous pencil line. (Which, duh.)

I r smrt.

Then I got on the phones. It's not a fun job, but it doesn't suck like tech support, as there's not nearly as much diagnosis involved. It's mostly a matter of checking details, explaining things to the customers, and determining what I can do and what I can't do and explaining that to the customers. And it's still a pretty cool place to work. The speechifying today reminded me of just why I was so glad to get this job.

And I get paid tomorrow, so that's good.

Still having fun with icons, simple though most of them are.

First day of work! I am v. tired, mostly 'cause I didn't get enough sleep. Can't stay up until 12:30 again. Zzz. On the bright side, my apartment is nicely convenient to the Saks building, so I don't have to leave stupid early.

So far, so good. We went over policies and benefits packages and signed a bunch of paperwork. I'll be in training, standard 8 to 5 Monday through Friday, for the next two months, before my schedule gets wacky. And after this week, I'll be paid every Friday. Pretty cool.

I also get discounts all over the freaking place.

We'll see, but... so far, so good.

Should I get a candy bar, or should I wait for real food when I get out of here at midnight?

Help me out here.