Sometimes this job is just hard

On mobile, FTP, sorry for formatting.

I work in a call center for a major US insurance company. I’ve been doing this for a few years now, so I’m used to the usual crazies, mean people and outright weirdos.

But two days ago, I had what was easily the hardest call I have ever taken.

I work on the homeowners side of claims. We got a lot of calls about massive water damage, fires, natural disasters and severe damage to homes. I am pretty skilled at working the customers through their grief to handle the situation at hand.

This particular call was a total fire in a mobile home. The customer called me while she was en route to the scene. She received the call from the fire department but hadn’t yet seen the home and didn’t know the full extent. I offered for her to call us back later once she knew what was happening , but she insisted on me getting the hotel set up and going through the general claims process.

After a couple minutes, she stops me and says, “I’m here, can you hold a second?” Of course I said yes and patiently placed my headset on mute and waited.

I hear the customer run to the fire department, already crying hysterically as the home was completely engulfed and couldn’t be saved. Then she asked if her two dogs made it out of the fire. I couldn’t hear the response from the fire department, but next thing I hear is this poor woman screaming. Both her dogs died from smoke inhalation in the fire.

I’m a HUGE dog lover. My dog is my baby. So here I am, listening to this poor customer screaming, silently crying along with her. I didn’t want to hang up as I wanted to make sure she had a hotel to go to and somewhere safe to be. But man, hearing her agony just hurt me so much. She eventually came back on, I apologized profusely for the loss of her pets and gave her the info for her hotel. I had to take a couple minutes after the call to just calm down. I obsessively checked my pet camera throughout the day to make sure my own pup was safe and sound.

I helped this woman, but I still feel so incredibly bad for her. Sometimes this job sucks.

TL;DR: customer received the news her dogs died in a home fire while on the call with me, call hit me a bit hard and I was silently crying along with her.