Keep Her in There - PLEASE

More recently the bitch from Sydney. And they wonder why there’s that whole Sydney-Melbourne rivalry thing. This woman was gold.
It was my first day of officially taking complaint calls as a ‘complaints manager’. That’s what we were allowed to call ourselves after reading a feelgood powerpoint presentation on how unhappy customers are just like everyone else.
I had already taken two complaint calls and they were pretty easy. Just like being on the phones downstairs. Then, it’s an hour before the end of my shift. The phone shows up with complaint call. The kid downstairs explains to me that our sales system won’t accept this customer because her security doesn’t match up with what it requires. BUT, she has really good security and we can accept her, we just have to do it manually in our system. They were explaining this to her when she went off the rails for half an hour yelling at them (the old ‘can’t hang up on a customer law’ again) and finally asked to speak to someone who ‘knew what they were talking about.’ So she gets me. Me. And I get HER for the next hour and a half.
When I explained that we were happy to accept her and that we just had to enter her details into our other system, she went nuts. We were discriminating against her and she was going to her lawyer, the ombudsman, the police, every news channel and probably her warden who locks her in at night. It was DISGUSTING! And was I listening to her? I was a pathetic idiot who couldn’t do anything. Each time I said we were happy to accept her and did she want me to set up a policy, she would say ‘of course I want you to!’ but then she’d go off again but each time prefacing her 15 minute spiel with, ‘You’re wasting my time, don’t you know who I am?’
Eventually I realised why she had such amazing and unusual security. It was to keep her forever locked INSIDE that place. No one wanted her out of it. She was clearly insane and her relatives had put her as far out of mind as they could. She was single and there was clearly a reason for this. No man or woman would have the time or patience to deal with an adult who had the mental capacity of a three-year-old. This same conversation kept repeating itself for an hour and a half. The problem was because it was my first day, I wasn’t sure of how much crap I could take. So I took it like a bitch. I’ll credit her with that early on, she did ask me where I was and which state I was in. No use abusing the crap out of someone only to have them waiting outside your building the next day.
One day, someone will let her out of that fortress and I hope and pray she gets run over by the first SUV she sees.
But wait, there’s more! Once I’m done with her, and mind you, the whole ‘my time is money thing and I’ve got to be somewhere in 20 minutes’ was repeated for our whole hour and a half on the phone, she calls back! She then proceeds to scream at another poor unfortunate for half an hour bragging about how long it she has spent on the phone that day. If she’d only just let us help we could have been done with her in 15. And the company insists we are well paid for this kind of shit.

Fond Memories

Then there was the 'Lady' who had two totally different credit cards with our company and sent in a cheque to pay both accounts but only put the details of one of her cards on the payment form so we put it all on the one because we ain’t known for being a psychic company. She rang up with all guns blazing.
I answer the phone with my usual robotic friendliness to be met with a screaming madwoman: ‘Why is there an overdue fee on my account? I sent in a payment. You stupid F@@king idiots! Can’t you do anything right?!’
For some reason I stuck with this woman and stayed calm.
Amidst a torrent of the same screaming and yelling that indicated to me that she had spent a childhood tantruming on the floor of Coles to get chocolates, and I hope her kids do the same to her regularly, I finally realise what has happened and explain it to her. I tell her that it is completely fixable and we will wipe the overdue fees. More abuse, ‘ I can’t believe this happened, trying to steal my money! You’re all stupid idiots. You better fix this now!’
I explained that the simple expedient of letting us know that she had two credit cards and actually wanted the payments split between them would have prevented this. I didn’t mention that we weren’t psychic, because I assumed she would eventually realise this herself. ‘You should have known that’s what I wanted! Stupid company!’
So I told her I would fix it and call her once it was sorted out. I was still completely calm. She hung up still mad.
Ten minutes later she calls back crying. ‘I’m so sorry I was so rude, I didn’t mean it, I know it’s not your fault. I’m REALLY SORRY.’
No, I’m sorry lady, I’m sorry that your parents gave in to your every tantrum. They should have just given you a big whack. I'm sorry for your children who will one day emulate this disgusting behaviour over annd over again.
What she’s really sorry about is that she has clued in that we are in the same city and because I can see her address details, and with amount of abuse she has unthinkingly hurled at me, she might just get a visit of call centre rage in person. But I don’t mind and tell her it’s OK. I’ve already recommended on her account that due to her payment problems, she doesn’t get any more limit increases.