Such obnoxious, entitled people!

[Home'scool]

I work for the Health Department in a small town. We get all sorts of complaints about a variety of things and really do go out of our way to help people, but some people just start off pissed off and just want to yell / insult someone.

During COVID the porta-potties at the local beach were closed because they could not get anyone to clean them. A resident calls and the first sentence out of his mouth is "Which one of you morons closed the bathrooms at the beach?!" Ummmmm, that's not us. We do not regulate porta potties. But he doesn't ask first, just calls me a moron!

Another elderly woman started calling because she insisted she had septic overflow from her neighbor was making a small puddle in her driveway. We are a small department with only one Health Director and we try to go out to locations as quickly as we can, but it might not be the same day. Plus, the way she was describing the problem - she said a pipe was coming out from her neighbors house and spilling onto her driveway- we knew it wasn't sewerage. It just doesn't work that way. I tried to talk her down and let her know that we would be out there within a day or two, and that because it was just a small puddle it would be okay. She then called at least 2 to 3x for the next two days screaming at us "What is wrong with you people?!?! Why aren't you doing your job?!?!?! I have SH&T on my driveway!!!!!" 

Of course when the Health Director got there it was a small puddle of water. She never apologized, never even acknowledged how much screaming and swearing she did.

The latest is the town passed a plastic water bottle ban. It was not initiated by us nor supported by us, but it passed and we were made the enforcing agency against our will.

We just got an email from a resident who is mad about the bottle ban. But instead of checking if he is insulting the right place, he just writes an awful email about how we are making stuff up and people are laughing at us and we are in a "woke-mind virus".

I get people wanting to yell, but find the right person to yell at! And if you are out of line, apologize!!!

This is why I am an introvert.

Edited June 20 by Home'scool

[Pawz4me]

11 minutes ago, Home'scool said:

 

This is why I am not an introvert.

?????

I was sympathizing until I read ^^that.^^ I think I need clarification.

[gardenmom5]

1 minute ago, Pawz4me said:

?????

I was sympathizing until I read ^^that.^^ I think I need clarification.

extroverts are (usually) better able to deal with such people.

2dd and dsil are the same Meyer's Briggs - except - 2dd is an introvert, and dsil is an extrovert.  His bosses (in a previous job) will assign him to deal with those types (employees/vendors/customers), because he's so freaking good at it.  And he never loses his cool.

though my favorite, was some ticket agent dealing with a cancelled flight.  Lots of people waiting for their tickets to be sorted to get on their way. Some guy came barreling up to the desk - in front of everyone else waiting in line - demanding "do you know who I am!?"    that ticket agent deserves a raise.  (I wonder if she was merciful and gave him some burn ointment.)  She promptly grabbed the mic for the overhead and asked the crowd if anyone knew who he was as he seemed to have forgotten.  He slunk away.

Sometimes the customer is not right and sometimes the customer deserves to be embarrassed and shamed.

[Home'scool]

Sorry, I fixed my post. It's supposed to say "This is why I am an introvert"

[SKL]

3 minutes ago, gardenmom5 said:

Some guy came barreling up to the desk - in front of everyone else waiting in line - demanding "do you know who I am!?"    that ticket agent deserves a raise.

This happened once when my flight was delayed too.  Like, you appear to have 46 chromosomes, same as me.  It appears that nobody else in this line is finding this delay convenient, either.  😛  IIRC the way they dealt with him was to have him at the "special window" being "helped" for like 20x as long as it took everyone else at the other window.  😛  Not that it made any difference - we were pretty much all stuck there until the next day.

[Pawz4me]

6 minutes ago, gardenmom5 said:

extroverts are (usually) better able to deal with such people

My experience is totally the opposite.

 

2 minutes ago, Home'scool said:

Sorry, I fixed my post. It's supposed to say "This is why I am an introvert"

LOL! That makes so much more sense to me. You have my sympathy. Too many people nowadays lack critical thinking skills, are angry at everything, and want to vent to anybody and everybody they can.

[wisdomandtreasures]

Gee if only she had gone to public school to be properly socialized! 😉

[Clarita]

I'm sympathetic and empathetic to both sides. I have called customer service and prefaced what I was about to say with "Look I know it's not your fault but I'm not going to get to the person whose fault this is. I also need to rant for a moment. Do you mind being that person for a moment?".

I never had a job where it was my job to handle this sort of thing all the time, but for a spell I did have to handle a situation that made some customers really upset (and justifiably so). I had no control over the matter and I let them yell. After customer gets it out of their system I usually say "I understand why this is frustrating for you. There really isn't anything I can do about it." In my particular situation there was a leave your contact information option. 

I don't know that it's an introvert/extrovert issue as much as some people can have a filter for taking things personally. 

[SKL]

Phones terrify me.  I think I'd have to move my retirement date up if I had to do that job.

I appreciate all those who can handle phones without killing people.

We have this one employee who is just super at dealing with idiots.  She is worth her weight in gold.  I don't care what else about her isn't perfect.

Edited June 20 by SKL

[pinball]

49 minutes ago, Pawz4me said:

?????

I was sympathizing until I read ^^that.^^ I think I need clarification.

 

29 minutes ago, Pawz4me said:

My experience is totally the opposite.

 

LOL! That makes so much more sense to me. You have my sympathy. Too many people nowadays lack critical thinking skills, are angry at everything, and want to vent to anybody and everybody they can.

This is actually frightening…that’d you’d withhold sympathy until she checked the correct-according-to-you box.

[marbel]

I get it. My last 4 years of working were in customer service for a bank and it was hellish at times. I've been called a wh*re, a b*tch, told I was victim-blaming and should be r*ped to actually experience being a victim (this from a person who wanted to dispute a transaction 2 YEARS after it had processed, sorry buddy, the law says you have 60 days), told the bank should be blown up with me in it... I could go on and on. 

People are out of control. 

 

[Kassia]

@marbel that's awful.  What is wrong with people?  😞

[maize]

1 hour ago, pinball said:

 

This is actually frightening…that’d you’d withhold sympathy until she checked the correct-according-to-you box.

 The mistake in the original post could have been understood as implying there is something wrong with introverts, maybe that all these rude people must be introverts. Any introvert or friend of introverts could have been confused and disinclined to sympathize until the corrected version was posted, clarifying the intended meaning.

[wintermom]

Well obviously it's not just the anonymity of social media where people spout vile language. They been doing it all along. 😱

So sorry you have to deal with this as part of your job. Is there any policy at your workplace to mediate this aggressive behaviour? I see signs in my local ER that certain behaviour toward staff or other will not be tolerated. Security will be brought in and out you go. I know it's not perfect, but it does help when there is a physical presence there. Tough to translate this to a phone, but if you added to the answering system something like, "Your call may be recorded. Any aggressive and antagonistic language will not be tolerated and the staff will end the call." When death threats have been voiced, I would like to see a message like, "Our calls are all being recorded. Any threatening language will be prosecuted. Our staff has been told to terminate calls at their discretion if your language is overly aggressive or threatening. You are welcome to phone back when you can remain civil." Or maybe this message could be an answering machine option, and staff could put callers on hold to listen to this message. 

Edited June 20 by wintermom

[Pawz4me]

14 minutes ago, maize said:

 The mistake in the original post could have been understood as implying there is something wrong with introverts, maybe that all these rude people must be introverts. Any introvert or friend of introverts could have been confused and disinclined to sympathize until the corrected version was posted, clarifying the intended meaning.

Thank you for explaining things to her, but it's probably best to just ignore posts that are only trying to create a ruckus.

I was confident that everyone here knew what I meant.

Edited June 20 by Pawz4me

[pinball]

1 hour ago, maize said:

could have been

And yet….

[pinball]

1 hour ago, Pawz4me said:

her

I have a name

[marbel]

2 hours ago, wintermom said:

Is there any policy at your workplace to mediate this aggressive behaviour?

When I worked for the bank, we could hang up on people if they were abusive, after two warnings. So... "if you continue to use this language, I will disconnect the call" said 2 times, then disconnect if it didn't stop. But often people would call back, over and over again. Eventually, in really bad cases, the accounts were closed. I remember a few 'special' customers with very high balances had an alert on their account not to engage but to have them talk to a particular manager. Because, ya know, bankers don't want to give up high balance accounts...

But the OP works for a public agency and that's completely different from a private company. 

It was brutal sometimes. I was 62 when I started working there. I had worked for years in customer service in the 80s (before marriage and kids) and it was a different world, but I was working with businesses then and not the public. Anyway, I thought I had a pretty thick skin but people amazed me with their rudeness (and worse). 

Just for a little balance, there were good customers. Some would joke around a little, thank me for my  help, end the call with "God bless you" to which I always replied "thanks, I need all the blessings I can get!" There were good moments. 

[wintermom]

16 minutes ago, marbel said:

When I worked for the bank, we could hang up on people if they were abusive, after two warnings. So... "if you continue to use this language, I will disconnect the call" said 2 times, then disconnect if it didn't stop. But often people would call back, over and over again. Eventually, in really bad cases, the accounts were closed. I remember a few 'special' customers with very high balances had an alert on their account not to engage but to have them talk to a particular manager. Because, ya know, bankers don't want to give up high balance accounts...

But the OP works for a public agency and that's completely different from a private company. 

It was brutal sometimes. I was 62 when I started working there. I had worked for years in customer service in the 80s (before marriage and kids) and it was a different world, but I was working with businesses then and not the public. Anyway, I thought I had a pretty thick skin but people amazed me with their rudeness (and worse). 

Just for a little balance, there were good customers. Some would joke around a little, thank me for my  help, end the call with "God bless you" to which I always replied "thanks, I need all the blessings I can get!" There were good moments. 

Now our local banks have phone systems in place so you can never actually talk to a person. You have to leave a message. Perhaps this is another way to deal with the issue. Just never pick up the phone. 😉 

[Home'scool]

I've had people come in to the office and act rude, but mostly it is when people are hidden by the phone that they are the most rude. And yes, I have been mad at customer service people and will sometimes say "I know this isn't your fault but I just need to vent" .... that is a different story. When someone says that I will listen all day long. It is when they accuse me of being stupid, underhanded, etc. etc.