I truly despise the customers who call in before they get out of bed. Like you can tell they just woke up 40 seconds ago and their voice is raspy and sounds like funky morning breath. All because they wanna ask the most simple question they could have went to google for.

Finally getting out of a client facing CC role and going into workforce planning. I’ve heard it’s for its days but I’m so happy not having to be client facing anymore.

They don’t STFU. “Yeah” “okay” “Yeah” “okay” and you’re not even DONE speaking. Like fuck. I’m having to teach grown ass ppl to STFU when someone else is speaking.

I am at my wit’s end with the callers today. I work in an industry similar to car insurance- I am often delivering unfavorable news that customers do not want to hear, and I understand that. I make sure to handle my job very carefully and be understanding.
However, the one type of caller I absolutely cannot stand is the laugher. The caller who gets bad news and immediately jumps to laughing and mocking it like it’s the funniest thing they’ve ever heard. Laughing and laughing and laughing. It is so childish, and it makes me want to hang up the phone right away. Unfortunately, I’m not able to hang up on a customer for this, so I frequently have to listen to multiple minutes of fake laughter or mocking the situation before the caller finally hangs up when they do not get any response. I literally just mute myself and let them go, or I just say “Oh wow!”

Does anyone else hate the laugher? I hate them more than the screamer, because ain’t shit funny about the bad news I just gave!

For the automod, I work in a call center and had this conversation with a customer. I am not the customer in this post, I don't know why you seem to think I am.

Customer whose name is literally Karen: Fill my medication now because I'm out and it's all your fault!

Me: I'm sorry but it says here we just filled a 3 month supply last month so you should still have some left and your insurance won't let us fill it again.

Karen: Well you must have shorted me because I don't have any.

Me: I see that it was delivered on xxx date along with [other meds]. Did you receive that shipment?

IDIOT KAREN: I did, but I never opened the box. Hold on.

...

Yeah it's here *click*

How do these people breathe?

Ive had my fair share of rude ppl from both generations ofc

Silent generation, they tend to be polite. They are already retired and have everything sorted, so understandable. Boomers are boomers. Gen x ppl ive found to be more frequently rude.

Boomers get a bad rep and they are often rude, but i fear gen x the most.

Does anyone else have a call center job so demanding there is 0-2 seconds between calls and 1 minute to wrap up but they want you to only take 15-30 seconds? I am losing my absolute mind. I’ve had this job for 2 years and it has almost drove me completely insane. I set appts for different companies and there isn’t even enough time to scratch my nose if I wanted. How to stay sane and has anyone else experienced this?

Is when they ask me for the phone number THEY JUST DIALED.

Dude, you called me. You have the number somehow somewhere. Move the phone away from your jaw and it's probably glowing brightly in front of your goofy face!

I swear some customers just want to play 20 questions and waste my time! I'm just gonna start giving phone numbers to Dominos or Papa John's, I'm so tired of this question. Or maybe I'll put them on hold for 10 minutes while I "look it up". Hot damn, this stupid ass question always gets me heated.

What stupid questions send you through the roof?

I(27M) started a call center job less then a month ago and I already wanna quit. It has been a terrible fit. It’s just nonstop verbal abuse from customers. It’s pretty much survival until the weekend then I spent the whole weekend worrying about the start of the work week. I have nothing lined up and I feel like a total failure cause I’ve had a job since I was 16. Not really sure why I’m even posting this, just a vent really. Why do people have to be so rude and entitled

Ok so we all have our own lists of who the worst types of cusotmers are, but honestly even in mine the one i missed was the worst... that is the Sealion...

Sounds badass but these assholes are the biggest pieces of shit you could ever get. For those who don't know Sealins are people who use a tactic call Sealioning: Sealioning is a bad-faith tactic where a person relentlessly demands explanations, definitions, justifications, or proof for basic or already-settled points all while pretending to be completely polite and reasonable, for customers it's usually under the pretense of "I’m just trying to understand".

Their ultimate goal is often to provoke the staff member into a moment of human frustration or snapping, which the sealion will then instantly use as leverage to demand find a loophole they can argue, get free compensation, or getting the employee in trouble knowing full well we can't do SHIT because our idiot QA teams always insist on "you don't know they were bad faith questions" even though it's obvious as hell, and we HAVE to answer their asinine questions over and over because they are "not being abusive"... even though what they are doing is actually emotional abuse and harassment.

They are WORSE than karens or standard abusive asshole because, lets be honst, in one way or another you CAN get rid of them without getting dicked up the ass by some prick QA agent who has no frame of reference... Sealions you can't get rid of them, NOTHING will stop their endless questions.....

They are the literal WORST people....

anyways rant over

Edit: i dont mean rephrasing the SAME question, i mean the asshole who asks a vagueley related and SUPER obvipus question that is still a different question with a different answer... thrn another... then another in some spul suck8ng attempt to find a loophole or ragebait.

Ask them to verify their email/Date of birth=impossible

Survey saying 0 is bad and 5 is good=easy

My job ‘evolved’ and we were told that our new position involved some CC work, like an hour a day or so. Fast forward to a year and it’s full on CC work and the metrics are added gradually. If you are like me and not built for this type of work under these conditions then you must know how I feel daily. My mental health is in the toilet and getting deeper and deeper into crises territory. Taking calls from callers who think they need to give me their entire mental health diagnoses is not helping. I am at my wits end!

I honestly don’t even know what to do anymore. I’m living with clinical depression, and my current job in a call center is completely destroying my physical and mental health.

Over the last 5 months, we’ve gone through 4 different trainings, constant schedule shifts, process changes, and management swaps (3 TLs/OMs). On top of that, there’s practically no way to get PTO because of strict team quotas, daily abusive callers, and we are constantly monitored down to the second. You can’t even take basic bathroom breaks without pressure, and everything has to be done fast. and now management is adding forced extra work and mandatory RTO days as "punishment" for my metrics tanking while I was sick.

Every single morning when my alarm goes off, I experience severe anxiety. My entire body freezes up and I physically cannot bring myself to log in or move. I’m terrified out of my mind because I can’t afford to just quit, I need the money to survive but staying is pushing me to the absolute edge. Now, I’ve been out for 2 straight weeks. I can tell my leads are completely frustrated with my reasons, but work has been triggering my episodes so badly.

My metrics just tanked again, and instead of actually helping me, I know they’re going to punish me even more and try to passively drive me to quit.

I feel completely trapped, exhausted, and helpless. Has anyone else been in this exact spot where your body just shuts down from job trauma and depression? How did you survive or get out when you couldn't afford to just walk away?

I find it hilarious when customers try to force you to do things you clearly can't or aren't authorized to do, using lines like, "Have I called the right place?" just to guilt trip you or make you feel inadequate.

Whenever they ask, "Is this the right place? Should I call somewhere else? I thought this was xyz place," I never give a straight yes or no, i refuse to give them any control, i just repeat what I've told them a million times already, sometimes I might throw in a cheeky, "You might have entered the wrong number, we don't do that here."

They know they called the right number, they just want to push their luck and see if they can get away with it.

Also, their new favorite tactic is, "I'm not sure if you can help me with this, you probably can't, but..." and then they proceed to drop the craziest request ever. If you think I probably can't help, mf, why did you dial my extension?

JUST PAY THE SERVICE FEE.

once it gets to the 20 minute mark and you still haven't figured out how to change your password and you refuse to let me do the change for the fee, i'm going to advise you get someone else to help you IRL and disconnect the call. i don't care.

you not knowing how to register for the online account and taking so long to get your one time codes that the page times out is NOT MY FAULT. you not knowing how to access your emails while you're on the call is NOT MY FAULT.

just pay the damn fee.

It used to be worse and ive gotten used to it, but i still cant relax and i am short of breath.

The call sound coming in, no warning, no countdown until the phone answers and i have to jump into corporate mode, no way to see my place in the queue. Its a minor jumpscare every single time.

Even when its extremely slow and its a great day, i am on edge because i dont know what ill hear the beep. Its different from other customer facing jobs because there were at least a few seconds while i waited for the customer coming to the counter or approaching their house or smthn. Also, i can never expect if theyre going to be angry automatically. at my old job, the customers were happy to see me. At my current one, these are people going through rough situations, so they arent exactly happy to call me. I get that but it puts me on edge not knowing if the next caller will be normal or someone yelling at me.

My supervisor also had me revise the script bcs it wasnt "natural sounding" enough which threw me off and lowered my metrics a ton so now, i am constantly worried abt remembering the new script. the new script is way more unnatural and awkward also.

It wouldnt be too bad if I had to be perfect when i get a call. With old jobs, a customer came up and expected me to be profssional but also have a pulse. This job, i have to be careful to not yawn if the phone picks up or not to shift in my chair or not to clear my throat or type too audibly anything. Even typing makes me nervous bcs the keyboard that the company gives is loud as hell and i got in trouble for that.

Even on easier days, which are getting fewer and fewer ofc, I feel physically tense bcs i know its coming any second and I have to be perfect every time

I work for a major internet company. Everyone is nice and helpful. I got hired with a handful of others and they are great as well. But the work itself is insufferable.

Getting cussed out on a daily basis, screamed at, hearing them rant about politics, trauma dumping and treating me like their therapist, being told to die and fuck off because the wifi is down and they cant watch YouTube or their PS5 is lagging. My disdain for people has grown. Everytime I leave the house I imagine the people I see as potential callers and it makes me not want to interact with anyone. I won't even get started on the 50,000 stats we have to adhere by.

I am dealing with the loss and grief of my father, a break up, and a very bad roommate situation, and this past Thursday my very first call was a typical karen going off about her wifi being down. She was in an outage and wouldn't accept that answer and started screaming at me and I just lost it. Everything I am going through built up and I jumped up from my desk and started crying. I tried to excuse myself to the bathroom, but unfortunately I was seen by several people including several from management and of course they rushed to me to see what happened. I appreciate all of the support and care and hugs I received after telling them all I have been going through, but the support doesn't make the calls more bearable. And even though they asked, I feel like I trauma dumped on them and greatly over-shared and its left me feeling humiliated and unprofessional.

I feel like a loser because this is the best paying job I have ever had. I just got out of 4 years of retail and thought this was it for me. A new chapter after my streak of bad luck. A desk job with no heavy lifting, no more sore body in the morning, etc. The benefits are amazing and the people once again are lovely, but I just cant do it. If I am not getting cussed out or passive aggressive remarks slung at me, then I am stuck on a 1 hour call with an elder who won't listen and cant work a freaking toaster if I guided them step by step. My anxiety is through the roof. Even if the call is nice I shake. Had a woman start off nice and ended up being one of the meanest calls, so I feel no call is safe now.

The day I broke down, I called my mom and told her I was going to quit and she heavily dissaproved despite everything I told her. Thats the only reason I didnt just drive off that day. But I cant do it anymore. I get one more check and I can cover November's bills, but after that I have nothing. But this job just isn't worth the mental agony on top of everything else. I am going in today to say my goodbyes to my fellow new hire class (wasnt planning on it, but they really held me down when I had my breakdown), and tomorrow I will email HR and resign and then mass apply to jobs. 3 others in my new hire group have already quit, so I am not alone, but it still feels embarrassing that I couldn't tough it out like everyone who stayed.

Does anybody ever experience this??! It drives me nuts, they will call in, i say my name and company, and then they ask for a call back. Or if it’s about something they’re looking into I have to say I’ll them over with somebody who can talk with them more about it, and then they said that can’t talk right now. Okay. So why did you call me? I get when I’m outbound dialing but WHY when YOU called ME lol

Right now just waiting for a lot of admin stuff, paper work to go through but everything looks good so far. I only was given about 10 days because I don’t have a diagnosis right now so I’m making an appointment with a therapist to see where I am. And hopefully that can extend my leave and even be in short term disability.
I’m a little nervous about it all but i just need to take it day by day.
I had such a bad headache yesterday, I had gone to work a few hours then literally left. Then I did all this researching and was able to figure it out thankfully. I think the adrenaline really stayed with me cause I had such a hard time sleeping last night I was so anxious. I took a little nap and feeling a little better. I’m just grateful that I finally listen to myself. I think I suppressed a lot things these years working this job, I just want to feel normal again.
Wish me luck everyday, still very nervous.

I work in a contact centre with a fairly toxic, high-pressure environment. I'm currently being investigated for potentially failing to follow GDPR verification procedures on certain customer calls.

I've acknowledged that I may have missed verification checks on some occasions, although I haven't been shown the specific calls. Nothing was intentional and my performance has been okay. My line-manager is satisfied with my goals. The manager investigating this is from a completely different department.

I have diagnosed ADHD + an occupational health report, which my employer is aware of. I sometimes struggle when customers become confrontational or pressure me or are abusive to bypass verification. Our procedures also change frequently, and the e-learning modules are quite basic, with little refresher training.

HR initially questioned me about GDPR procedures, possible breaches, customer pressure and my recent sickness absence. They've now sent another detailed questionnaire specifically about my ADHD, how it affects my ability to follow procedures, what reasonable adjustments I receive and whether further Occupational Health input is needed.

I've cooperated fully, acknowledged potential mistakes and requested GDPR refresher training.

Am I at risk of being dismissed? Does HR asking detailed questions about ADHD and reasonable adjustments suggest they're considering support, or could dismissal still be the outcome? I am genuinely very scared at this point.

I'd really appreciate opinions from anyone familiar with UK employment law, HR or GDPR investigations.

Basically, I read a lot of stories on here about call centers having a rule that says the staff can’t hang up, or you have to give warnings before disconnecting etc

As a manager, can you override that and let your staff hang up in the knowledge that you’ll protect them from a complaint, or does it come from above and you have to also enforce the rules?

Sorry if it’s a strange question - I’m just intrigued about how much management can change under their discretion, if they have any

Anyone here survive that one? The CR, Seattle or Jamaica location? I did about 14 years there, 12 in QA. Thank God I left 3 years ago!

I’ve been working this job 5 years almost.
I’m at the point where I don’t want to be nice anymore and it probably shows in my voice. I’m tired of the selective hearing, the talking over me, the entitlement.
The job itself is fine but the people are so horrible to have conversations with.
I don’t know if I can do this job anymore or maybe I need s break. I just don’t feel like I’m a person anymore.
I thought about going to therapy years back but my manager then said I just had to figure it out. The hours just didnt line up so I gave up on it.
I really wish I had more time to myself to just feel like me again. I don’t know if that means fmla but i dont even know where to start from.
I just feel so done most days.