entitlement

Today, at lunch, we were talking about Sprint's decision to get rid of its 1000 most nuisance customers. Some of my co-workers were appalled at the decision, but I, for one, applaud it. I believe in consumer rights, but I know what customers got dropped. They were the pain-in-the-ass, ask-for-the-moon, never-satisfied, whiny-petulant-bratty customers that I have worked with at every job. They are the people that are so wrapped up in themselves, they never consider their impact on other people. And not just the service people but the other customers, too.

These people have cut in front of me in line (ooh that lady at beauty brands still aggravates me), they haggle about prices when they are obviously lying, show up to restaurants 2 minutes before closing, and demand that the library refund every single overdue fine they accrue.

These people are responsible for bad customer service. These are the people that make the people answering the phones jaded, cynical, overwrought, mistrusting, and angry. They ruin it for the rest of us. The fact of the matter is that if you yell loud enough and long enough, you will usually get your way. People just want you to shut up at a certain point. It is a cheap victory, but these are cheap people we are talking about.

I relayed two anecdotes about this whole issue. One was about a woman who turned in 30 books more than 90 days overdue and then claimed that she should be given leniency because she had been at a funeral. Really? For 90 days. What, did you have to build the pyre yourself? Was there some sort of fast or ritual involved? I'm sure she gets away with things because she invokes the names of things that are considered taboo to challenge. If you say you are at a funeral, even for an incomprehensible 90 days, the person on the other end is supposed to take the high road, apologize for your loss, and then do whatever you want. Ridiculous.

The other anecdote came when I was working on a chat support line for an ISP. A man chatted in about his broken phone service, which I could not help him with. I told him, based on the time of night, that he needed to call from another phone to receive assistance. He bitched and moaned and carried on, but the fact remained that I couldn't help him. He finally asked what would happen if he need emergency services. I told him that in the case of emergency, I would send emergency services to his house. He, of course, wanted to know why I couldn't fix his phone if I could send emergency services to his house. The argument went on for a while, and I was about to end the chat, when he posted in the chat that he was having a heart attack.

I had his address, and I knew that if he did have a heart attack and had posted that in chat, that me and my company would be negligent and responsible, so I told my supervisor that he had claimed to have a heart attack. While my supervisor was contacting the authorities, I tried to confirm with the customer (who didn't realize I had verified his home address from the account he had signed in with) if he was okay. He didn't type anything in for a while.

Pretty soon, my supervisor, who was on the phone with his county's dispatch, confirmed that an ambulance was on the way. I relayed this into my chat and the dude flipped out. He wanted to know why I had sent an ambulance. Why couldn't I detect his sarcasm? When I told him that sarcasm is dependent on tone and we were chatting, he got even angrier. While fighting with this jerkoff, I told my supervisor that he was kidding. When my supervisor relayed that to the dispatcher, she simply said, "we'll just change that ambulance to a police car." My guy left the chat soon after. I would have given anything to have been there when the police showed up at his house.

At the very least, I hope this exercise in tough love helped him understand that sometimes, no one can move the mountain for you. I applaud Sprint for taking a small step in the battle against consumer entitlement.