I was told today by a customer that called in that “I was the reason that people cancel their PC Mastercards.” I honestly was unaware that I had that kind of pull in this country, I mean I thought MAYBE if people in town knew that I worked there some might think twice before signing up, but to be the reason why everyone in the country are cutting up their mastercards? That’s an honor, so naturally I thanked her for calling President’s Choice Mastercard and to have a GREAT weekend. She called me a name and hung up. I’d tell you what it is but I honestly don’t remember, I believe it was either an idiot or a stupid moron, which might actually have a glimmer of truth involved since I can’t quite recall what she called me. On the other end of the spectrum I had a customer who made my day, well a couple because they were just so funny, the husband called but his wife was the primary user so I had to talk to her, he said she was out in the garden digging around so he yelled “Hun, he needs to talk to you ‘cuz you’re the prime..well the prim…you’re the breadwinner.” After I had verified everything I told her that I could either talk to her or speak to her husband if she wanted to make a run for it back to the garden so she told her husband just that “here, you talk to Tony now, I’m gonna make a run for it back to the garden” to which he replied “ok darling” then there was a short silence on the phone and he clarified “not you” I told him I assumed he was just trying to butter me up so he could ask me for something and he told me that he figured it might help get their interest lowered. All in all one of the better calls I’ve had since coming back to the call center, and I have to admit I was having a lot of fun egging on the first lady as well. Granted I was doing my job and wasn’t overstepping my bounds but by following the guidelines set in place by the company it just made her more and more frustrated.

We also found out today that as of July 1st, if we don’t use empathy we will get an autofail on our monitors, which simply put means that as of July 1st, I’m going to be autofailing a fair few of them. I have trouble having empathy for people when they are just dumb, like if someone loses their card, fine, I’m sorry to hear that, I know what that’s like it sucks. But if they lose their statement, all they have to do is call and get their balance or check online, I’m not sorry to hear you lost a piece of paper with information on it that you should keep a better eye on. Yes mistakes happen, and with some people they happen often but I don’t want to have to say “I’m sorry to hear that” every time I pick up the damn phone! Some of us were talking today about how by doing that they’re really just opening a can of worms because everyone is going to fight them on monitor scores because you can be empathetic without saying those 5 words but we all know that’s what they’ll look for, not the tone or anything else, just those. Now, when I looked it up, “empathy” is defined as the intellectual identification with or vicarious experiencing of the feelings, thoughts, or attitudes of another. No where in the definition does it say “must be conveyed by saying “I’m sorry to hear that”.

Roses are red, violets are blue, I miss Lost and here’s a song that encompasses why.