Some Advice...

On Friday I experienced my very first 8hr shift on the phones at work. I both loved and hated it, and unfortunately it has been haunting me ever since. Literally. All night long I had dreams about answering people's billing, equipment, and price plan questions, it was like I never left work! Due to this I did not sleep well at all and therefore Neal and I postponed our trip to New York City due to my fatigue as well as a raging headache and a sudden urge to throw up (which I didn't succumb to). From now on I will be either reading a book or doing some serious prayer before I sleep because I refuse to take my work home with me anymore.

One particular call haunts me, even now. The conversation repeats itself in my head over and over... that woman's voice has been forever engraved on my mind. I spent an hour on the phone with this woman, explaining to her that I will be fired if I give her the phone number of another Verizon customer due to FCC regulations and confidentiality law and that I have no control over what the last representative she talked to did or did not do. She screamed profanity at me, demanded a supervisor, and even cried on the phone as I explained that I can change her plan to the lowest possible plan but that it wouldn't go into effect until the next bill cycle. By the time the call was over she loved me, telling me that I had an A+ in her book and asked for my name and saying that she would refer everyone to me and that even if I hadn't helped with her bill she felt better having spoken with me. It made me feel good at the time, but as the night progressed I began to wonder if she would call in again and tell a different representative a different story and try to get me fired like she's hoping to do to the other guy she spoke to the previous week. Even though I know that she can't touch me due to the fact that my remarks are in the account and every phone call is recorded and I will not be forgetting the date and time of this call anytime soon, it still worries me. I know that by the end of next week I won't be worried anymore, but until then I will pray, hard, for God to watch over that woman and help her in her financial situation and with her temper, that she might treat other people the way she would like to be treated, and if you're the praying type I request that you do the same.

In the meantime, I have advice for all of you who will call customer service of any kind in the future: be nice. The problems with your bill or the equipment or with your plan are not the fault of the representative that happens to take your call and therefore should not be taken out on him/her. If they tell you something that disagrees with what you think is true, don't argue because they know far more about the company than you do and it is their job to do so. We deal with more crap in a given day than just about any other job on the planet, in my opinion, so be nice.

On a lighter note, I'm adding a couple of pictures.



First we have some of the training assistants. TAs only help with transition in two week increments, so this particular set is leaving us and we will be introduced to a new set on Monday. Due to it being their last night with us, we had food and by 10:30 these costumes appeared. Let's just say we have lots of fun at Verizon Wireless.



Finally we have the very first photo taken of Neal and me. We play Scrabble quite a bit, and at the moment I have won three games, Neal only two. I might have rubbed it in his face just a little...

And scene.