As most friends, family, acquaintances and blog followers know, I came back to the U.S. in September after spending almost two and a half years abroad. I have a college degree, experience as a Peace Corps volunteer in Mongolia, experience as a teacher in Cambodia, experience as a supervisor for UPS, and I'm a veteran of the Marine Corps Reserves and Operation Iraqi Freedom. On top of that I've worked an obnoxious amount of other random jobs since I turned 16. Needless to say, I have some experience in the working world.
Anyways, getting back on track, when I came back to Colorado I had plans to chill for a few weeks (months maybe?) and enjoy the company of friends and family before I started working again. After hearing from numerous friends and acquaintances how bad the job market was, I started applying to jobs much sooner than originally planned. Luckily, I was able to land quite a few job offers and interviews within a short period of time. Nothing spectacular but jobs nonetheless. I had to turn down a few jobs due to low pay and no benefits and I was denied jobs (cough cough Progressive) because, I shit you not I was told this, I seemed more passionate about helping children than about customer service. I had some laughs but kept looking. Eventually a pretty good company offered me a job and I took it because the pay was decent, the benefits good and it seemed like a good company to work for. Obviously for someone with my interests and experience (at the risk of sounding pretentious) it wasn't ideal but I wasn't going to complain, it was a job. I took the job and began my training. I met some cool people in my training class, got along well with most of my coworkers and had a pretty good experience.
When I got out of training and started working, things went really well. I had the fortune of being surrounded by some really cool and helpful people. I get along really well with all of the people on my team and I've made some pretty good friends at work. I wouldn't say that I'm spectacular at my job but I think I do pretty well and I'm learning more and more every day. I try to learn from my mistakes, I do my best to be a good employee and I honestly put forth the effort. This is my first experience working in a call center environment and as anyone who's ever had to deal with customers knows, it can be pretty stressful at times. I've worked customer service jobs where I had face to face interactions and while it can suck at times, dealing with customers over the phone is far worse.
*this is where the filter comes off...parental advisory: explicit lyrics and honesty ahead*
Much like the internet, but probably not as extreme, people on the phone, both men and women, grow balls like they would never have in person. As many of you have probably witnessed, the evil, ignorant shit that people will post from the anonymity behind a keyboard, is often mind blowing and very disturbing. It's slightly less terrible when they are on the phone. On a daily basis I deal with some of the most ignorant, miserable, assholish, trashy people you could imagine. As I sit here thinking about how to word this accurately, I find myself at a loss for words. There is literally no possible way I can describe some of the people I deal with that would make you understand what it's like. If you are a coworker, you know. If not, you can only imagine.
If I were to count how many times a day I deal with customers who have the highest services available from our company but are absolutely incapable of paying their bill on time each month, I'd lose track two or three hours into my shift. I'm a sympathetic guy, no doubt. I was in the fucking Peace Corps for fuck sake. I am also a guy who believes in personal responsibility and living within your means. If you are living off of an unemployment check that comes once a month and you have a cable/phone/internet bill that consists of the highest speed internet available, all of the fucking cable channels available, and unlimited phone features + premium channels like HBO,Showtime, etc. for $16 a piece a month, making your total monthly bill around 200 fucking dollars, and you are so behind that you are incurring late fees every month and having to ask for your services to be restored due to non payment, maybe....just MAYBE, you should consider downgrading your fucking services. If the only thing you do with the internet is mindlessly browse, check your email and update your fucking Farmville, you probably don't need the same internet speed that World of Warcraft/hardcore gaming nerds use. Save yourself ten-twenty bucks a month, downgrade your speed and wait a few fucking seconds for your stupid fucking Youtube clip to load.
300 channels? Who the fuck needs 300 channels? What could you possibly watch in a given day, provided you have a job and other priorities besides sitting on your lazy fucking ass, that would require you to have 300 fucking channels? I hardly watch tv and when I do, I flip between ESPN and Comedy Central. If I had 300 channels, I wouldn't even know what to do. If your A.D.D. is so fucking bad that you need 300 plus channels, you might as well just get rid of cable and spend all your fucking time on the internet.
Porn. Where to begin. It's two thousand fucking eleven. There is free porn on the internet. If you are too fucking stupid too realize that and find it, you deserve to pay hundreds of dollars each month for your services. Who the fuck orders porn movies on PPV for $13 a piece? Seriously? If you run up 60-70 dollars worth of porn on your cable bill because you are too stupid to look for the absurd amount of free shit on the internet, and then call me to bitch about it and pretend like you ordered it on accident or your 3 year old son ordered it, you deserve to be punched in the face....multiple times, and then charged for it, you stupid fuck.
On top of the people who are incapable of paying their monthly bills, I get to deal with the people who are incapable of going through the most simple of trouble shooting steps without groaning, whining, moaning and bitching about something. Look, I understand that it sucks when your internet isn't working or when your cable is out and you can't watch the big game. I lived in fucking Mongolia for almost two years. Sometimes my internet
(yes, they have internet in Mongolia and no, Mongolia is not in Africa idiot) went out. I survived. I read books, I exercised, listened to music and I wrote a bit. Mind blowing, I know. I even managed to survive without elecricity at times. Incredible. Hearing the reactions of people who find out their cable or internet won't be fixed for two days (two fucking days), I can't imagine that they'd be able to survive without electricity for two hours. Common reactions have included:
"You mean I'm not gonna have cable for two days? What am I going to dooooo?"(usually in a whiney, bitchy ass fucking voice)
I'd love to react with: "Pick up a fucking book or go exercise you stupid fucking fuck", but unfortunately I need a paycheck and dental benefits for now.
This is often followed by "Weeeeelllll, can I get a credit or something?"
I'd love to react with: "Ya know, I lived in countries where people went without electricity, heat and food for days or weeks at a time, they didn't get 'credit' for that. Suck it up and quit your bitching."
When you tell someone that you're going to have to send a technician to their house and that there are no appointments available for two days, you'd think you just told them you murdered their dog. It's fucking pathetic.
I have a lot more venting/writing to do about the miserable people I deal with at my job but I will leave that for another day. I am not going to take the time to check for spelling or grammatical errors on this blog post...at least not until I'm sober tomorrow. I also don't apologize for the ridiculous amount of f-bombs in this blog post. More to come.
