My Colleagues are Idiots.

The other day I had something happen to me at work that caused me to lose faith in a large portion of the population. For those of you who have followed my blog through the last few months, or anyone who has navigated around it, you'll know I work as a Customer Service Rep in a call center. Not exactly a prime place to find the worlds best and brightest to begin with, but I digress.

My direct colleagues and I already have an air of superiority to begin with since we are a specialty department and always assume the other reps are airheads since they can't seem to understand what we do and do not do, but sometimes something happens that even the people outside of my department or even my company will just put their hand up to their forehead and think, "What the hell was that guy thinking?" Here are a few.

I work in the Fraud department, customer has a concern with charges on their account, transfer them to me, simple right? If only you knew.

Me: "Fraud department, this is Troy"
CSR: "Oh great, did I reach the fraud department?"
Me: "Sure did"
CSR: "Awesome, and who am I speaking with?"
Me: "Troy"
CSR then proceeds to explain the call to me, letting me know what I will be doing when the caller comes through to me.
CSR: "And now before I transfer them through, how would you like to be introduced?"
*Facepalm*

The best part about that lovely exchange is that the rep is not from India, that wonderful human is from our own USofA. Take pride Americans, take pride.

Not to be outdone, our buddies in India like to follow up with this little gem:

Me: "Fraud department, this is Troy"
India: "Excuse me, Charlie?"
Me: "Troy"
India: "Ok Charlie, this is the situation..."
*explains*
India: "Alright, and you're name was Charlie?"
Me: "No, Troy"
India: "Oh I'm sorry, let me introduce the caller"
India: "Caller, Thank you for holding, I have Charlie on the line to better assist you"
*Facepalm*

Here's a good universal one that never ceases to amaze me, fear for your accounts ladies and gents, fear for them.

Me: "Fraud department, this is Troy"
CSR: "Hi Troy, this is soandso, I have a caller on the line who has fraud on their account"
Me: "Ok, I'll be glad to assist, how did you identify the caller?"
CSR: "I didn't"
*This is the fraud department, we actually would like to STOP fraud, not encourage it, thanks*
*Facepalm*

To wrap it all up, I would like to stress the importance of situational awareness, know whats going on before you open your trap, this goes for anyone, even not in the customer service field. If I get done introducing a caller to you who was just had their identity stolen and abused by a family member, DO NOT start the call with, "Hi ma'am, my name is Steve, how are you doing today?"

The threat to America isn't terrorism, it's our own stupidity.

Must be a Mental Handicap Part 2.

This is part two of the Mental Handicap series, see part one here.

I'm usually not one to turn my blogs into a gripe station, but this one needs to be aired. I'm sure most of you have had this experience in your life in one store or another. You find yourself sitting at home and realize you really need something, be it toilet paper, cat food, whatever. This forces you to make a quick run to the store to pick it up. Even though you use the express lane, you're there for 45 minutes.

I'm assuming not all of my readers are from a busy metropolitan city and cant directly relate to this, but hear me out.

I run into Wal-Mart at around 11:30pm to pick up some lunch meat and some cat litter. It's a Sunday night and I need to get back home and get to bed as I need to work the next morning. I run in, find the items I need and now it's around 11:45, I get to the express lane to check out so I can make a quick escape, when all of a sudden this woman slides her cart in front of me and begins to check out.

The bad part about this is that although it's a 20 items or less lane, this woman has a whole cart full of food and clothes, basically, the works. As she is piling her stuff onto the little counter usually reserved for people like me who have 2 or 3 things, the cashier is just looking at her dumbfounded because she doesn't have one of the black conveyors that are usually used for this transaction, so this woman is piling items on top of items in order to empty her cart.

After about 15 minutes of this, all the items are finally scanned and the woman now has to look for her card. This is another 10 minute process because "I know it's here somewhere." Meanwhile, back at the ranch, the line has formed to now 7 people, including some annoyed, already drunk frat guys who are wanting to purchase their 2 bottles of Smirnoff and some orange juice, a crackhead homeless guy who just wants to buy a candy bar, and myself. She, seeing this, turns around to apologize to me, not because she just wasted 20 minutes piling her stuff on the counter, but with a giggle, that she can't find her card.

Finally, I get to buy my stuff and I'm out the door within 5 minutes from that time. All this for a loaf of bread, 2 deli meats, and cat litter.

I swear, I could make this blog all about the stupid people I encounter in my every day life, but there's enough of those out there.