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"If you’re not a ma’am what are you?"

Ok I’ll have to summarize this because this was a LONG call. I work for a cell phone carrier, and not a cheap one. Basically, I’m a support coach, which means I’m mostly answering questions for newbies and giving them advice, but sometimes I have to take sup calls and pretend to be a sup because we don’t have enough sups right now (or ever).

A woman called in and immediately asked for a sup. The agent did what she was supposed to, which is try to figure out what was going on and deescalate if she could before getting me involved, but it just made her madder.

So she just kept ranting and being angry about not getting a sup until I took the headset from the agent because I don’t have my own phone.

Me: Hello, my name is Joshua, I’m a supervisor on the floor for (company). I understand you were asking to speak to a supervisor?

Caller: Yes, I have been ASKING and ASKING but this agent REFUSED to transfer me, she kept asking me what was going on, though I’ve already talked to seven agents and I don’t want to speak to anymore agents because none of them can help. I’ve never had such bad customer service.

Me: I’m very sorry this has gone on so long, I can assure you the previous agent was just following our procedures when someone asks for a supervisor. How may I help you today?

Caller: Well I have these charges on my May bill and I don’t know what they’re for and I didn’t make them and I won’t pay them.

Me: Oh, no, I’m sorry about that, I’ll be happy to see what’s going on and get it resolved for you.

I pull up the bill. She maxed out the month on carrier charges, purchases from the Google Play store that were charged to her cell account. You can make up to $100 a month. After we go through it together she admitted some of the charges were legit but about $92 of it were to the app “Choices”, a game, that she claims she’s never even heard of. After a while I put her on hold and get a sup to credit the $92 to her, mainly because she’s called 8 times, and that app is kind of sketchy.

She thanks me, and calls me ma’am, but I let it slide. My voice is on the high end, and I know a lot of male collegues who get called ma’am a lot. It happens.

Then we spend about 15 minutes taking about the remaining balance on her account. After the credit, she still owes us $380. I patiently explain that she hasn’t paid the remainder of the May bill, the June bill, or the July bill, though that’s not due yet.

She is upset because she knows she made a payment in May, but that went towards the April bill. She gets angry thinking I’m saying she paid that bill late. I try to explain patiently that the April bill wasn’t due until May 23rd, it’s just the April bill because it generated in April. She IS NOT getting it, and repeatedly insists that she paid the May bill. She also tries to say I accused her of not paying the April bill, which I very definitely didn’t do.

Anyway, I’m trying to stay patient but eventually even I get flustered, so after the 7th time she called me ma’am I reply “I’m not a ma’am.”

“If you’re not a ma’am, what are you?”

I am not even sure how to take this, I’m mildly shocked she said it. I don’t exactly take it as her being aware of non-binary identities though, to say the least.

Anyway, I try to stear the conversation back to going through the bill, when she eventually gives up and asks for MY manager. At all the call centers I’ve worked we’re not supposed to get someone else, though, we’re the supervisor, even if we’re not really, we’re supposed to handle it. So I tell her there’s no one else available. Which is pretty much true anyway.

She asks for my last name and operator number. I don’t HAVE an operator number (I work for an outsourced company, not directly for the cell provider, and we don’t have them.) And there’s no way in hell I’m giving her my last name. Plus, my last name is sort of weird and people think it’s fake when I make dinner reservations and stuff so she is NOT getting it.

She gets really suspicious that I won’t give her this info, because she’s “worked for a call center before” and “knows how these things work”. She wants my direct extension, I don’t have one. But other people from my company have them. But they are not outsourced, but I’m not going to tell her that. She wants my location, I’m definitely not supposed to tell her that.

She then has decided I’m not really a supervisor (which hey I’m not) and starts screaming at me to send an email to my actual supervisor to call her back. I’m not about to tell her I don’t have email. I’m really loving my job right now, I’ll tell you that.

She starts being really abusive, saying she’s going to go on social media and tell everyone about this so they’ll know I’m pretending to be a sup and the higher ups will listen to the call. I tell her good, they’ll know I tried to help her and she wouldn’t listen and that I did nothing wrong.

She keeps screaming how awful I was, and that she KNOWS I’m a chick pretending to be a dude, and I’m trying to figure out how to rescind that $92 credit I gave her (I couldn’t), and eventually I transferred her to an actual sup, mainly so she couldn’t leave a survey for the call, which wouldn’t have gone to be anyway, but to the original agent, who’s been listening in the whole time.

The sup who took the call from me talks to her for 10 minutes, repeats everything I said, and then afterwards assures me I did nothing wrong.

I love getting to pretend to be a sup but still making the same amount of money as an agent….

submitted by /u/gwynforred
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