Customer service jobs are not for the faint of heart.
Dealing with people at their angriest and rudest does not breed a positive work environment.
Customer service can be a downright toxic job.
And if it's not the customers setting your spirit on fire, it's the companies themselves.
Some companies seem to revel in creating discontent.
That's why these types of jobs have such high turnover.
Redditor Psychological-Name15 wanted the customer service reps out there to give us some truths, so they asked:
"Customer service workers of Reddit, what secret can you reveal from your former company?"
I want to know about the inner workings of Comcast!!
I loathe them!
Oh Dear
Jennifer Lopez Smh GIF by American Idol
Giphy
I used to work in tech support for Citi Bank. The people working there are not intelligent. My favorite interaction went like this..."
"Banker - How do I type the upside down I?"
"Me - Ma'am, that's an exclamation point."
slappy_mcslapenstein
The Crappy People
"In every CS job I’ve ever had: we will bend over backward to help a nice person. We will expedite any complaint, give maximum compensation, and harass other areas of the business for you."
"We will do the absolute bare minimum to help a shi**y person and if you’re really bad, we will do everything in our power to make sure you get nothing but what you’re legally entitled to and it will be a process to get that."
11catsinahumansuit
"I don’t work in CS but 100% the same for us in IT a nice person will get new stuff while a shi**y person will get questionable secondhand crap that will take 12 months to fix! I will make sure that you wait as long as humanely possible to have anything fixed!"
Sharp-Demand-6614
Go to Holiday Inn
"If you ask for a supervisor calling Marriott you will just get another person who is not a supervisor, but say they are."
cryptnificent
"Yep. I've seen this done numerous times across multiple industries. Usually, it only involves an actual sup if it's a genuine problem or if they want to make a point."
"The last job I had was in towing junk cars. Two of the inside buyers, one male, and one female, would bounce that sup card around constantly. Idk how no one ever put it together. We'd get repeat callers and repeat sellers so I don't know."
ItsBobFromLumbridge
Heartless
"Worked at a contracted call center for Centrelink. The manager told us to deny as many emergency payments as possible and they would back us no matter what. They were actively working towards a culture that despised the callers and churned staff to get heartless right-wingers who hated the poor."
Rizza1122
"I feel ya. My best mate is a quadriplegic. Centrelink denied his disability pension because he wasn’t disabled enough."
Less-Storage
Go to Home Depot
You Are Dumb Patrick Star GIF by SpongeBob SquarePants
Giphy
"I worked at Lowes. I didn't know anything about anything in the electrical department yet that's where they put me without any training."
Eattherich187
Not training people is not just a Lowes thing.
There are too many unqualified people doing too many things.
Switcharoo
Drag Race What GIF by TAZO
Giphy
"Can confirm it's an unwritten policy for deli departments in Coles Supermarkets to change the written expiry dates on their tickets so they can sell out-of-code products at full price."
A Little Sunshine
"I worked at a call center for the billing department of a major internet and cable service provider. We were authorized to give up to $90 credit per customer on their bill but only as a last resort. Always remember to be nice to all customer service workers. You never know just how much they can help with a friendly attitude."
Axel_Dunce
"Former call center employee here. Highly accurate. Use your manners, and well fix your issue. Anything else, just makes us want to take longer, and you won't get a credit. Just because we are authorized, doesn't mean you'll get the credit for being an a**hat. haha. I've been verbally abused a few times for asking them not to swear at me. Lol."
Ok-Ad-7247
LELU
"I worked for a major telco company for many years in something called a ‘LELU’ which stands for Law Enforcement Liaison Unit. This 'unit' is pretty self-explanatory, but it essentially is a team who worked directly with the police/FEDS to monitor people's information for things such as obtaining communications history of call logs, SMS loss, etc."
"However, most importantly, the software we used, we as agents could directly see all your SMS texts, including MMS and their explicit imagery of whatever you were sending. This would include sexting, naked images, family photos, and everything. There were instances where people abused this position by stalking or 'monitoring' their SO’s comings and going’s."
MidniteMischief
Cookies!!
"I worked at a cafe chain called 'The Cookie Man,' 95% of their cookies arrived in cardboard boxes layered with bubble wrap. The last 5% arrived as pre-made dough that we would bake on-site to make the place smell like fresh cookies."
"I also worked at a cupcake shop. It's literally just packet mix that you add eggs and oil to before baking/piping pre-made icing onto. Don't waste your money on these places, 90% of these chain shops are the same and most are severely underpaying their workers (this is for Australia btw). Just purchase some packet mix from the supermarket and call it a day."
Frequent-Selection91
Look in the Back
"I was a Store Manager for a very large grocery chain and I can tell you that 95% of the time when customers complain to the manager, we may be professional and show empathy, and even resolve the problem."
"But then we usually just make fun of or talk crap about the person who complained to the other employees. And when a customer is really rude when we go 'look in the back' for something, we legit just stand around and talk to other employees, and make zero effort to look for the item."
A_Womans_Thoughts
From the Box
Kaitlin Olson Brunch GIF by The Mick
Giphy
"I once worked at 'the area's premiere day spa'; the mimosas were made with Sunny D and not real orange juice, and the wines came out of a box."
SailorVenus23
Sunny D and champagne?!?!
What in the name of Lucifer?
Who does that?!
Do you have anything to add? Let us know in the comments below.
"All you can eat buffet workers, what are your horror stories?"
Just... How?!?!?
"Years ago, I worked at an all-you-can-eat country buffet in South Carolina.'
"I was a busboy."
"One day, I went to a table."
'It was a mess, as per usual."
It looked to be a large family/group of families of around 12 people or so."
"The thing that stuck it in my memory is that whenever they had finished with what they were going to eat, they would scrape their plate and use it again.'
'Scrape their plates... onto the floor next to their chairs."
"So next to each chair, there was a 6inch to 18 inch pile of chicken bones, crab legs, mashed potatoes, remnants of backed potatoes, etc."- OdessaVNixon
Cover Your Mouth!!!!
"I work in a hotel's restaurant, and at breakfast, it was a serve your self carvery."
"Anyways, this happened at the beginning of March, the COVID-19 anxieties were on the rise, we had a dance party in all weekend, and they were heading home today, because it was a Sunday."
"We, all the staff, were wearing gloves as we had gotten severe, even bloody, cases of dermatitis from overwashing."
"Not ideal, but we were clearly going out of our way to protect ourselves and our guests."
"Back to the story, this ady walks up to the carvery and starts coughing."
"Spluturing everywhere all over the food."
"Not even covering her hand."
"Then she put her pudgy fingers in and picked up a sausage and ate it as she made her way down."
"Touching the counter etc."
"There was glass covering the carvery, but it only went halfway down to allow them to serve themselves."
"The head waitress of the time saw out of the corner of her eye as she was busy serving coffee or something, and the rest of us were elsewhere."
"The breakfast chef was also elsewhere bringing out food or something."
"It was another busy shift."
Sick Seth Meyers GIF by Late Night with Seth MeyersGiphy"We got the food in ASAP and it all had to get thrown away."
"It was such a waste."
"We then got so many complaints, because there was no food, as the chef was having to recook everything."
"Unsurprisingly the coughing lady was one of the many who complained, but there was very little we could say to her."
"We all got a mouthful of abuse for not having someone watching the carvery at all times, which wasn't possible due to us been deliberately understaffed."
"A**holes ."- SaveMePls22
There Is, Indeed, A Wrong Way To Eat Sushi!
"I saw a dude nearly empty a sushi buffet and took it to the hot plate and told the dude to stir fry it and add extra grease."
"The sushi dude literally threw a knife into the sink and left."-Jellcat
Classic Conditioning
"One time I went to a Golden Corral with my friend and his girlfriend."
"My friend's girlfriend had a lot of edibles before we went and long story short, she was 'too high to tell' that she was full and ate so much that she vomited alllllll over our table."
"Not a little, but a lot."
"My friend had stepped outside for a smoke a couple minutes before this happened, and I called him quickly and told him his girl just exploded all over our f*cking table and we needed assistance, and he didn't believe me."
"He thought I was messing with him so we went back and forth for a couple minutes while I convinced him I wasn't kidding, all the while we're sitting in a packed restaurant with our table covered in puke."
"A waitress came up and started to ask us how we were doing until she noticed the mess in front of us."
"It was a bad time."
"I have not been back to a Golden Corral since."- wozordmotors
There's A Reason It Tasted Like Rubber...
"There was this one time when a customer ate all our shrimp and two plastic lobsters."- balloonmax
Manners don't seem to be taught at these schools...
"Watching hundreds of twelve to thirteen-year-olds take on an all-you-can-eat buffet is a horrifying experience because usually there are other large groups from schools doing the same thing."
"The people who work there to attempt to control this madness are saints."
"The kids go crazy like they never have seen food before."
"Putting spaghetti in the chocolate fountain, eating crazy combinations of food, etc."
"The 3 hour ride back to school after dinner is always dreadful."- RoseTheChief
Ex-Employee
"Ex buffet worker, STORY 1- so its peak season, and a fairly busy day, I was working in a zone and there was a family that just by looking at them you could see any sort of problem, has usual I go to their table to ask if they want a drink to start their lunch (like a martini), and when I look to my side i see a lady bragging about the size of her plate (best way to describe it is a mountain about 20cm tall, which consisted of fish rice potatoes, meat, etc... we had basically 2 dishes of meat and 2 of fish, plus fried stuff so you can imagine how her plate was), also I should mention that it usual to have people ask for a bag with leftovers for the dogs, but this lady decided it was a good idea to bring a bag made of fabric that absorbed all the liquids from the food, at some I have a coworker entering the kitchen and ask for a plastic bag for her, since she had her bag inside her purse and everything was soggy."
"STORY 2- I always share among friends is that time I thougth I was going to be slapped because of a bottle juice, we usually had 1liter or 2liter bottles of juice for the customers and there was always someone o thought they could have the bottle and take it home, one day enters a couple with 2 daughters, a coworker was doing their zone and from he told me it was a bad service he did due to wrong information, they ended their meal and went out to relax for a bit in the sun, I was serving the bar and it was my duty to ask them if they wanted something to drink, and so I go, has soon has I get out the door I see one of the daughters hide a 2 liter bottle of ice tea almost full, I ask them if they want something, they very rudely tell me no!, and so I get back to a superior to ask if its permitted to take bottles now, they told that I needed to get that bottle since our boss gets mad over it, has soon has get to the table and say they can not take the bottle home the mother stood up and got her body against mine and started yelling and I could see her hand getting ready to hit me."
"Additional facts: theres always someone trying to force you to get free stuff. Our coffee mugs were branded so you could see when someone steals them. Theres always someone willing to start an argument because we didn't have what they wanted for that day. Sometimes we had people take and entire tray of food, usually desert to the table(literally the tray) and then we used to get additional charge because it was an entire cake so they argued about it."
"There were outstanding costumers that I loved serving them and fortunately there are more that I liked than the ones that did this sort of thing."
"STORY 3: It was a busy day and we hosted tour buses during summer, and this was a group of elder people that come every year from a big city, it's all organized by this priest, they had 12 tables in a space that had 16 so I needed to let them know that they need to stand together, my coworkers told he has the habit to get a bit close and touchy with females so they wanted a guy who can handle himself with 60 people so everything can go accordingly, so there I was, helping people find a place to sit, when everybody had a place to sit I was finding a place for the bus driver and chatted for a bit with him, this priest comes over next to me asks me if theres everything ok, he then proceeds to tap me on the back and the make is way down squeezes my butt and walks away immediately. Needless to say that I was shocked and thinking if I could count this has being "blessed"
C0ldKing·
When you have free reign over even the tiniest thing, it's hard not to feel like you have free reign over everything.
But next time you find yourself at an all-you-can-eat buffet, just remind yourself that you are out in public, and not at home.
And it's the, likely underpaid, employees who will clean up your mess after you, not the buffet elves.
Also, if you want to get your sushi stir-fried, just don't!