I won't mention the name, but I'm pissed off at my life insurance company. I had a premium due by September 5th. That's cool. I paid it for a year and sent it to them. A month and a half later I got a letter stating that, since I never paid my life insurance, they're cancelling it.
Wait, what? I look up the check number and see it's never been cashed. Okay, things happen. Who knows? I'll just send the reinstatement application and all will be good. They need to get it by 10/21/09. That's in about ten minutes, by the way. I notice the second check I sent had never been cashed either. What the hell is going on here? I decide to call them up and see what's going on. This is where the suck starts.
I call them at 9:55, 5 minutes before they close. I've been working in call centers for the past decade, so I'm extremely pro-call center employee. Call center jobs suck. A good day is one where you think "That only sucked a little" at the end of your shift. A bad day is one where you want to quit because you think you can't take it anymore.
So, I talk to a guy named Joe. Joe sounds pretty nice. He specifically identifies himself as customer service. This is important. I explain my problem to him quickly, in about 5 sentences. I know he wants to get out of there, so I'm trying to be brief.
What does he say? "Oh, well, see, we're closed. I'll try to transfer you to customer service as they can help you, but you may not be able to get through."
Wait, what? "You identified yourself as customer service, I thought?" I say.
"Well, I don't know. But you need to talk to customer service." How can you not know if you're customer service?
"Could I have their number then, please?" I ask.
"I need to transfer you." and he does. To a message THE EXACT SAME ONE I GOT WHEN I CALLED saying I had called customer service. Then I got a new message saying they're closed and to call back tomorrow.
So, he transferred me back into the queue to get rid of me because he wanted to go home. Fuck you, Joe. I know what that's like. I worked to close at my last job and it sucks hardcore getting a call 30 seconds before the queues shut down. But guess what? YOU TAKE CARE OF THE CALL. My old job closed at 7 and I've stayed on the phone until 7:45 before helping people. you DO NOT get rid of them. Maybe he couldn't help and couldn't get me to the right person. That's fine, tell me that. Give me a better number to call, do something. Don't dump me like that. When I call back tomorrow to see what's going on, someone is going to hear about Joe as well.
I usually try to see things from the view of the employee. (A view I'm very used to at this point.) I just can't see a good reason for what he did. He didn't even give me a proper closing.
Hopefully it goes better tomorrow.