Alcatraz

I work for the state, and part of my job is to work the public information line for half a day once a week. I get to answer people's questions, listen to their frustrations, and act as a personal punching bag. And so today I was reminded of my all-time favorite incident working in customer service.



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When I was twenty-ish, I very briefly worked for a computer store as a customer service representative. My job was to greet customers as they came into the store, answer the phone, and, had I stayed long enough, input orders into the store's archaic point-of-sale system. Now, this software was not intuitive at all. Go figure for being a computer store, right? It wasn't like 'use the clearly labeled drop down menu and then double click here to place an order.' It was more like 'if you're lucky and accidentally press F4 you might be able to access the menu to the menu wherein you'll be asked to choose between pressing alt + shift and control + enter, but if you guess incorrectly the computer will freeze, make a sound like it's going to take off in flight, and then literally drop a deuce onto your shoes.'

And if you had only worked there a week and lacked any sort of introduction to the system, any sort of training on this software that was so lovingly named after an old-timey California prison, you were fucked. And so I was; I was thrown to the wolves.

One Saturday afternoon, the store was swamped. All the sales associates were busy with in-store customers when I received a phone call from a kind gentleman. He wanted to place a very large order. I very politely put him on hold and ran around begging and pleading with the sales associates to take five and assist this man. He was a sure thing! With money to spend! But no one wanted to take the time to help this very new employee place an order in which they were guaranteed a commission. I got back on the phone and kindly asked this sweet, sweet man if I could possibly take his name and number and someone would call him back. He assured me that if I did not take his order right then and there, the company I worked for would miss out on his very large, very profitable order.

With sweaty palms, I stood in front of that black screen and tried to maneuver my way around the system. There was a lot of awkward silence on the phone while I fumbled through the various screens. There was a lot of "thank you for your patience" and "did you say 5 3200 series with 2.66GHz Intel Pentium 4 505 processor, 256MB of RAM, and a 120GB hard drive or was that 3 5200 series with 3GHz Intel Pentium 4 530, a sack of potatoes, and a lighter?" I made no significant process with this man's order whatsoever because I did not know what the fuck I was doing. He, of course, took it as a personal insult. And so he asked me, and I will never forget, he asked, "what are you, a retard or something?" I'm not sure how the call ended. I truly have no recollection of how I was able to get this complete douchebag off the phone, but I remember going into the bathroom and crying my eyes out.

And I also remember quitting shortly thereafter.