This tale takes place about 15 years ago and requires a bit of setup to fully appreciate, so bear with me. Tagged this NSFW for all the swearing from the customer. TL;DR at the end.
I was bottom of the barrel tech/customer support for a major wireless company while I was half-assing my way through community college. The job sucked, but it fully accommodated my school schedule which enabled me to work a full 40. But after about a year I was completely burnt out and had begun to amuse myself at work by screwing with the customers, and occasionally even my co-workers. I was at a place where I didn’t care if I got caught; I needed a way to take out my frustrations and towards the end everyone was fair game. Anyway, on to the setup.
This call center had both supervisors and a Tier 2 agent support. T2 would take agent calls and give them direction on what to do in a particular situation, approve credits that were above agent limits, and even take supervisor calls when necessary. Most of the T2 reps were cool, but some of them were jerks and one was downright evil. We’ll call her Barb. Barb would look for any way to scold you for not following protocol, down to the tiniest and most inconsequential thing. This was especially true if you wanted her to take a supervisor call as she would use any tiny protocol error as an excuse to make you go back to the customer before trying to escalate again. Aside from temporarily avoiding the call, it also gave Barb the possibility of avoiding it altogether if you got a different agent when you called back. Now, having been a T2 rep myself (at a later job) I fully appreciate the need for agents to follow their protocols to avoid unnecessary escalations. I also know that Barb was evil and did this because a) she liked scolding people and exercising her power over them and b) she wanted to avoid supervisor calls. We had been told at this job that when you called T2 they could see your extension and figure out who you were (we didn’t sit at assigned seats), and that if you did something inappropriate they could track you down and notify your supervisor of what you did. When you called in they did ask for your employee ID number, and Barb couldn’t even be bothered to say hello and state her department name before demanding your ID as soon as she picked up (this will become important). After talking with a T2 rep one day he told me that they actually couldn’t see your extension and that they just told agents that to keep them from messing with them. He did say that they could tell if the rep was still on the line after they conferenced the customer in to their line, which you weren’t allowed to hang on and listen after transferring an escalated call. Enter me, the disgruntled employee looking to amuse himself at someone else’s expense. Customer is C, and Barb is Barb.
*Call comes in, I immediately place it on hold and cold transfer it to T2 just to listen in and see what happens*
Barb: ID
C: What?
Barb: *Sounding annoyed* ID.
C: I don’t understand. What are you talking about?
Barb: *Sounding angry*. Listen. If you don’t give me your ID right now I am going to call your supervisor and tell them that you are calling us and wasting our time. Now give me your ID.
C: *At the top of his lungs* Who the fuck do you think you’re talking to?! I call up trying to get some help for my phone and you keep asking me for some goddamn ID! I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about but you better get me a fucking supervisor right now!
Barb: Uh… I uh…. uhhhhhhh…. are you a customer?
C: You’re goddamn right I’m a customer! Why the fuck would I be calling you if I wasn’t a fucking customer?!
Barb is stammering at this point and can barely put together a coherent sentence because of the epic reaming this guy is giving her.
Barb: I am so sorry. I didn’t realize you were a customer. I’m in a department that doesn’t take calls from customers. Someone must have transferred you to me when they weren’t supposed to… and it appears they are still on the line.
I wish I could describe the tone of Barb’s voice as she said that last part. You could hear it all click together in her head that someone had done this on purpose, that they had just heard everything that happened, and she couldn’t do anything about it. I was nearly in tears at my desk at this point because I was laughing like a crazy person. I was also particularly amused because of all the people it could have been I got Barb when I pulled this nonsense. I had also logged in to the phone with a fake ID number that I figured out logged me in and got me in the correct queue, so they also had no way to pull the call and locate me. I completely got away with it, and man did it feel good.
TL;DR: Evil T2 rep terrorizes agents because she can. I blind transfer an angry customer to her and laugh while I stay on the line and listen to her get reamed out. She knew I was listening but had no way to figure out who I was, and I got away with it.
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