Sad Friday.

Today was my last day as an ARKRAY employee. (Which also means I am now unemployed, but we're not thinking about that.) There were a lot of ups and downs over the years, but I am really going to miss working there. And I'm definitely going to miss my co-workers - Shout out to my Arkist peeps! I may even miss my customers...well, most of them.

I'm kicking myself for not keeping a journal or somehow documenting the variety of strange calls I've taken over my 3 and a half years there. It would make for a good read and a good laugh.

One call just came to mind - I kept going around and around with an angry gentleman (can't even remember what he was angry about). He was being less than gentlemanly and it seemed he was trying to wear me down but my answer never changed. In the interest of saving us both some time and breath I asked "Since you don't believe me, would you like to speak to my supervisor?" to which he replied "No, you dimwit, I want to talk to YOU!" To his surprise, and my own, I calmly asserted "No, not if you are going to speak to me that way." Often times I am able to de-escalate a customer by calling them on their behavior and making them check themselves, but not this time. He started swearing like a sailor so I tranferred him to my supervisor's voice mail without saying another word. In customer service our job is to please the customer, but that does not give the customers license to be verbally abusive or demeaning. These are lessons we learned in kindergarten, no name calling, no bullying, etc. It's very simple really, so why don't people get it?


Speaking of angry customers, there's the Screaming Termini Sisters. They were always trying to scam free goods and were pleasant enough until you said no, at which point they turned into a couple of screaming banshees, shrieking into the phone at such a pitch I thought my ears would bleed. Truly, it's amazing my hearing isn't worse than it is after 12 years of wearing a headset and having customers yell in my ears.

How did this become a customer service rant?? I can't think of any more funny calls right now, but there's been lots. I'll keep thinking.

Farewell ARKRAY, you were good to me and I will miss you!