Curb Your Unwarranted Self-Importance

So funnily enough, I’m writing about an incident at work today that beggars belief, and, looking back on it, seems like a massive comedy.

So I get a call from a customer, let’s call him Hoity Toity, who rings up enquiring for the status of free games for the month. He’s a premium member. Now normally, it’s the second week of the month when the free offerings are given.

However this month’s free offering seems to have been released, or in this case was in the process of being updated today.

Now, Hoity Toity, to be frank, was quite contentious throughout the encounter. In levels of contention, he was at passive aggressive stage when he went, in a condescending tone: “As a premium subscriber, this content should be released on the first of every month! And now you guys can’t even release on time when you say you will.”

At this point he already pegged himself as an arsehole. I could empathise having to wait on hold for an inordinate amount of time given the current boogaloo we are experiencing but it doesn’t cost a thing to be kind.

Suffice to say, it also didn’t help me that my computer set up decided to crash accessing information for the customer.

At this point, Hoity Toity pulled a Karen and demanded to speak to a supervisor. Sadly, policy on that is I have to take down all contact details including email. Hoity Toity, sadly was uncooperative, he refused to give that, repeated his demand, and would only leave name and number.

At this point, and it’s very rare, I issued a first and final warning. Calm had returned or so it seemed as I politely repeated my request. What followed next was a hung up sound.

Now I thought this would be the end of the sordid affair, but no, I found out I spoke with him again towards end of shift. Now what funny is, Hoity Toity thought it best to call an additional three times with his request for a supervisor only to get, what I had surmised, a colder reception from my work colleagues.

Turns out, I was the only one willing to acquiesce to his demand, and suffice to say, as before, Hoity Toity was as uncooperative as ever. He started to swear on his second call to me, demand to speak to a supervisor or someone else other than me, and when I politely reminded him of policy to arrange a supervisor contact, he simply would only give name and number and would refuse my request for anything else.

At this point, I was about to issue another first and final toward him again, but he had the cheek it seems to put my on hold, and hang up again when I was waiting for the 30 second cool down rule to close to happen.

What I find funny in all of this: He could have, within good reason, obliged to give me details of his discontent along with all relevant contact details to arrange a supervisor outbound call, but instead decided to suffer four calls averaging an hour to two hours hold each time, and still not get his request at the end of it.

Hourly Toity, please, do us a favour, curb your unwarranted self importance when speaking to customer service, and stay off the phone line. There are far more important calls than yours right now.