I know, it's been a while.
I've had things I thought about writing, and then didn't. Had things I started writing and still am working on, but never posted. Just a lot of stuff going on and not much time to stop and think about them in this way, blah blah, excuses and what not. It's actually one of the things that I like about doing a blog like this. I don't even owe you an explanation, even though I will give portions of one as we go here, for where I've been. But that's not what I came here to talk about.
Sometimes, people convince you to hate them. Or distrust them, or question them, or to just be done with them and forget they ever existed.
There was this cigar bar that was open a few blocks from my apartment when I lived downtown. We walked by it all the time, and it seemed to have a cool vibe going on, but we'd always have somewhere else we were going anyway. But one night, we stopped in, on a relatively cold night in winter, and decided to get some drinks and maybe a cigar(which was a bit over budget considering the financial place we were all in).
The lights were dim, the crowd seemed mellow, the prices weren't so bad, so we decided to check out the drinks at the bar. While we were up there, I noticed there was a DJ in the corner, adjusting his records as he already had something playing. Whatever it was, it was kinda weird, but not bad necessarily. So me, being my curious self after 2-3 cheap beers, I stroll over and ask him what he's playing, what kind of other stuff he's got lined up, just to kinda of chat him up, and the guy seems to take offense for some reason. Like it's weird to want to know what to expect from a new place or something. And I tried to not be taken aback, I just start to say that our group has a lot of new music constantly being thrown around and I like to know what new stuff is out there, and he says something to the effect of:
If you were really a music person, you'd know to just shut the hell up and listen to whatever I put on.
And I don't remember exactly how he worded it, but that was the gist. I walked away at that, and thought about what he said as my friends continued to look at the menu. Because I considered what he said, the idea that I could just be in that space and take whatever came next as a new experience, and maybe learn something new just by listening and not thinking too much.
And then I expressed this to my group by saying, "Fuck this guy and this place, let's find another bar on this street." They agreed, not finding too much they were excited for on the menu and realizing none of us could afford cigars at the time.
On our way out, I looked back at the DJ, and I'll never forget the smug grin on his face as he stood there, arms folded, basking in his accomplishment of having chased out 5 potential bar patrons. Like he'd won something, done what he set out to do. And I just shrugged and shook my head, because all he convinced me to do was NOT hear him out. Even if he felt that way, he seemed to intentionally have shrunk his own audience. And for what? To put a stranger in their place, about something that is no by no means a universal understanding in music? To make himself feel better about some other shit he was dealing with? Did he think he was teaching me an important lesson that would improve my life, too?
Well, in a way he did. I was reminded of the benefits of not being an asshole to the point that people stop being on your side, and start lining up against you. You may not always be able to make someone your friend, but I'm willing to bet you can just about always piss someone off more than they currently are. There's a phrase, "You can't always do right, but you can always do what's left." I think it's lyrics from a song by Queens of the Stone Age as I really think about it, but that doesn't kill my point. When something isn't great, do yourself a favor and remember that it can always get worse. Some situations, I feel, are just dying, just begging to get worse than they already are.
For example:
My last few months have led to me taking a new job in the Madison area. It's a good move for me and my career, but I'm still in touch with a lot of my former coworkers and I'm glad to hear that things are basically still moving along. I said that in that way, because it was a bit dicey over the past year. I'm not going to go into too much detail and I'm certainly not going to bash the company here. The company, for all of its faults, still did a lot of good for me over the past six years, and I could never disparage them for it.
I can, however, feel a bit more liberty in bashing some of my least favorite customers now.
You must understand, we worked in the medical device field with a lot of dentists and doctors students that would soon become dentists and doctors, and you have to believe me when i say i fear for the clients of more than a few of these bastards out there. Bruhhh, there are some stupid sun' bitches cleaning and fixing teeth in America. People that are incompetent, people that are entitled, people that are just assholes and assume because I work in this type of role, I must be a slack-jawed neanderthal that couldn't possibly understand how important these people were. And this is by no means a new concept in customer service type jobs, this is very much within the territory. Still, I had people go above and beyond the standard of acting shitty to those that, again, ARE THERE TO HELP YOU.
Something else I will mention about the past year in my now former job: my boss at the time, the manager, took another job within the company. I, the supervisor at the time, inherited a number of his responsibilities but was not interviewed as replacement for his job. Was I happy about this? No, of course not. Did I understand the reasons they gave me for not considering me? Meh...somewhat. But that's not the point here.
The point is that both my (former) boss and I were both overloaded and neither was in a particularly happy mood when this story took place. He was doing his new job while still managing our department where he absolutely needed to, and I was still straddling the line of working on the phones with the rest of my group, as I used to do regularly, while handling new responsibilities as a supervisor while also getting passed things that a manager technically does. I'm not bragging, I'm simply telling you what happened.
So we get a call that's an escalation. Some old dentist in New Jersey (or not) who's unhappy with something and wants to speak to a supervisor. So someone transfers it to me, and I tell them that I won't be able to take the call at that moment, and that they can either have the guy leave a message or they can take it to my boss, if it's that urgent. I didn't like passing things off to him like that often, but I remember I did at first in this case, so I had to have been just that far behind.
Whoever took the call walks into his office (the boss's), and he tells them to send it to me, and they mention that I just said I couldn't do it at the moment. And this guy, who we'll call Allen for this story, leans out of his office, and asks me if I can give whoever a hand with this. And I start to explain why I sent it over and that I need to finish what I have going, and halfway in I pause and I look him right in his eye, and he's got this semi-wide eyed glance that says, "I wasn't actually asking." And this annoying little smile comes across his face as he says, "Can you please take care of this?"
I know that look. It's the look of someone passed his limit who hopes you understand that this will only get less pleasant from here forward. And plus, he was still technically my direct report, and I was holding out hope that if I did a good enough job with these 2 (really 3) roles, maybe I could prove my worth and be given a shot at the manager role a bit later on. So I mustered a similar smile to him, nearly gritting my teeth, and tried to say, "kiss my black ass in as professional a way as possible." But it came out as, "Send him over to me."
I take a couple of deep breaths, reminding myself that the customer did nothing to warrant any retribution. I have to be professional, I have to be patient. This is my job, to take this on and make it better for everyone involved. Woosah.
Yeah, woosah my ass. This guy was a tool from the minute I clicked over. I told him my name and he told me our entire department should be let go, probably with me first. That's how he thought our conversation should start. The problem was that we had sent this guy's product to him in the wrong color, a color he originally requested but then claims to have changed a few days later. Which could have happened, but it didn't. So he wanted to send it back and get a new one with his new color choice. And so far, I had no issues with his request.
The problem, however, was that he was already using his product and didn't want to give it up. He had another of this product and had been using it for a while, but he wouldn't give this one back within his trial period until he had the new one. Which was directly against policy, and when they said they couldn't change it, he flipped out and asked for me. If this had been some little widget for like $20, maybe even $100 or $200, I wouldn't have cared and probably would have just sent it at no cost, don't even bother sending the old one back. But these things were like $3000, and it would take a while to make it between his prescription and all these other factors, and again, he's already lambasted me a ton for no good reason. The guy who was going to fix his problem. So I decided that I couldn't break with the policy.
The one thing I offered, I said we would remake a second one and give him a discount. The standard special discount for repeat customers, but a discount nonetheless. And he asks how much off it is, and I say how much (like $200) and there's a pause on the phone. And then I hear him just start to scoff and almost hyperventilate. And before I can ask him if he's okay, he starts to say, over and over again, "How dare you?! How DARE you?!" I'm not particularly sure what to say in response. I kind of can guess why he's upset, but this is a level I legitimately didn't anticipate.
Next, he says he's going to do his best to ruin our business in the U.S. And I came so close to telling him, "Give it your best shot." I wish I could see where that conversation went, even though the lines are recorded and it ultimately would not have been too professional. And I swear, through all this, I am as polite and courteous as I can be, while still refusing to give into this retail terrorist. This is not the kind of guy that gets what he wants and goes away. I fully expected, if we yielded to him now, he'd be back and would expect we give into his demands next time, too. So, with respect, fuck that. And with less respect, fuck him.
So he starts asking for my manager's name and info, and I tell him who Allen is and that Allen essentially doesn't work in our department anymore, so that for now, I'm the one he wants to talk to. So he asks for Allen's boss, who is a new General Manager that has been with the company for about 3 months at that time and doesn't really know what anything is or how to do anything. Not to mention, when our GM, who we'll call Aaron I guess, will almost certainly come to me to put anything necessary in motion. Again, I tell him, this still has to go through me at the moment.
But screw it, I give him Aaron's name, and this douche canoe of a dentist tells me to tell him to call the next day. And before he hangs up, he says something that made me laugh later. It went like this:
Douchbag: And Trevor, tell me something before I go.
Me: I'm sorry?
Douchebag: Tell me this, Trevor.
Me: (ignoring the wrong name) Yes, sir?
Douchebag: What's your next job going to me?
Me: Umm, I don't know yet.
Douchebag: You should figure it out. You're not going to have this one much longer.
<click>
Yep. This motherfucker was that sure he was going to get me fired. He proceeded to call the Better Business Bureau and complain about our return practices, which are stated pretty clearly on the website. He then stalked me on LinkedIn for the next few weeks, periodically leaving weird direct messages every few days, which, how the hell did he even do that when he was looking for a Trevor? I told Allen what happened, and he didn't believe me until he started getting notices from our marketing department because this guy also blew up the company Facebook page.
So I took it to Aaron, and he said he wanted to help smooth over the situation however he could, but he agreed with the policy and that we had been reasonable with the doctor to that point. He then basically gave the doc exactly what he wanted. Whatever. I was all to happy to was my hands of this assmuncher and the horse he rode in on, and in many ways, New Jersey (or wherever) as a whole.
But I looked up the doctor a bit later, because I was now more curious than ever. It turns out, this is one of the highest rated dentists on the east coast. This imbecile, Dr. Byers we'll call him, is actually highly respected and has won a ton of awards and has a 30 year practice established and blah blah blah, don't use your position and reputation to try to justify being a maniac. There are ways to talk to people to get what you want. This guy talked to several people in our company like he owned them, like he was better than them. Like he was the only one in the equation who mattered.
I know for a fact he called early this year and demanded some more free shit, and Aaron gave it to him. Because it got escalated to him again, because no one else would stoop that low to please him and no one else felt like getting bile spit at them through a phone call like that. So this was the whole concern the whole time for me, that he knows he can go to this length to get acquiesced to, so that's what he did. Asshole.
He had no idea that I had no issue with bending the rules a bit if I thought the customer deserved it. Or if I felt that we screwed up on our end. I am someone who worked in 3 different roles at the same time for that company, averaging 50-60 hours a week for years. I worked projects, trained new employees, helped troubleshoot issues within the building and across departments, went to trade shows on weekends, did after hours drops to UPS to ensure delivery dates, hell, I once cleaned up shit off the god damn carpet in that office. And Dr. Byers found a way to help me not want to help him more than I was obligated to.
Go ahead, tell me that I should have just done what he wanted and been done with it. Remind me the adage that the customer is always right (they really aren't. Customers are wrong about tons of shit on a constant basis, and not being aware of this is just a further detriment).
I maintain: you can't always get someone to smile at you. But if you are bad enough, you can always, always, always get them to flick you off, though.
And no, I can't tell you about the time I cleaned up shit. And NO, it was not my own. It wasn't Victor Green.
Bye now.
