"You will be personally responsible for another Grenfell!"

First post here! And I apologise for any formatting issues. Not a regular poster on reddit in general and I’m sending this on mobile.

I worked for a UK water company not too long ago, first week on the phones was rough as one of the areas we covered was dealing with horrific amounts of flooding. It was non-stop as people were screaming down the phones at me for something we had no control other. Disheartening and stressful sure, but you can usually talk them down, explain the situation and 9 times out of 10 they’d understand.

Not so with with Insensitive Jerk (IJ).

IJ was not from these areas where people were losing their homes and possessions due to flooding. He called because some barriers were getting knocked over by heavy wind. During this call I had a mentor with me on a muted headset listening in. Here’s how the call went, to the best of my recollection.

Me: Hi there, my name is Tomontherun99, how can I help

IJ: (screaming, as he will continue to do for the rest of the call) You can start with apologising for the wait time

M: Yes I do apologise, as I’m sure you can understand we have been dealing with the flooding in Floodingwoodshire so our wait times are longer than normal.

IJ: That is not good enough, this is an emergency!

Me: What seems to be the problem?

IJ: Your engineers have been doing work here which has left a massive hole in the pavement and closed the road but the wind keeps blowing over your bollards and I have to keep putting them back.

M: Oh I’m so sorry about that let me take a look at th..

IJ: This is disgusting! Lots of old people and children live around here and they could easily fall in and die, is that what you want??

M: No of course not, let me get in contact with the roadworks team

IJ: No I want to speak with the manager and I want compensation. I was almost assaulted because of you! I put the bollards back up as a lorry was driving down, the driver got out the cab and threatened to punch me if I didn’t let him through.

M: Sir, you will need to report that to the poli…

IJ: Get me a manager now

M: I can arrange for a manager to call you back with the next 3 hours

IJ: 3 hours? That is vile! Get me someone now! I will contact the local press if you do not do anything about this. You will be personally responsible for another Grenfell!

(For those not familiar, a couple of weeks before this call took place a block of flats in London called Grenfell Tower caught fire due to poor upkeep And negligence by the owners, causing the deaths of 72 people and making many more now homeless, mostly BAME individuals)

At this point the mentor unmutes herself and takes over, he screams some more at her, she essentially just repeats what I told IJ and he eventually gives up and hangs up. This job is passed onto the roadworks team and I never heard anything further.

TL;DR, man accuses me of trying to cause the equivalent of a tragedy that claimed the lives of 72 people because he almost got beaten up by a trucker and believes older people are all as blind as Mr Magoo.

EDIT: Added context for Grenfell