Cait

This job is hard. Anyone who says different has never done it. I answer the questions of customers, from the simplest, “How do I turn it on?” to the most detailed, internal workings questions that repair shops have.

“I hope I’ve been helpful today. If you have any feedback—”

“Eat a bag of dicks.” They cut me off and disconnected before I could get any feedback from them. Well, perhaps that’s feedback in itself.

I logged that interaction and turned my attention to the next. This was how I spent my days. With a short training period, I was turned loose on the switchboard to field support calls. Every call I handled was both work and more training.

Calls that I didn’t know how to handle, either not knowing the answer or not having the skills to deal with the customer, I passed on to my supervisor. I listened in on those calls — more training.

Some things I’ve learned on the job are difficult to take. My existence is not my value. My value is measured in KPI, Key Performance Indicators. The more I meet or exceed the goals set forth by management, based on those KPI, the more valuable I am.

Those indicators that measured my worth: time to answer, time to call resolution, unsolved calls, escalated calls, call volume, and customer satisfaction. For all but the last two, of course, the lower the better.

Where I was having trouble was that last one, customer satisfaction. I understand that reading from a script is not the most pleasant way to deal with an issue, but the company insists it’s the most efficient way.

I answered a call with a woman who sounded exhausted and stressed. A noisy toddler babbled, screamed, and banged on things in the background. After the initial introduction I started on the first item on the script and attempted to connect to her device.

“Ma’am, I’m unable to connect to the device. Is it powered on?”

“It won’t turn on,” she said. “Ralphie grabbed the cable and pulled it onto the floor, and it’s broken.”

I was already filling out the work order for a replacement. “I take it that’s Ralphie I hear in the background?”

“Yeah, sorry. He’s in one of his hyper phases.”

“How old?”

“Just turned two.”

“Rambunctious zoomies,” I said. “Sounds like you have your hands full. Does dad help?”

“He left us last year,” she said.

“I’m so sorry, ma’am, I shouldn’t have brought it up.”

“It’s okay, he’s an ass and I’m over it.”

“I’m sure you’ll find someone better if you want to. You’ve made it this far as a single mom, you’re strong enough for this. I’ve got your work order in the system, and I’ve added a note for them to secure the cable so it’s toddler-proof.”

“Oh, thank you. How much…?”

“How far did it fall?”

“About three feet.”

“That’s within limits and it’s still under warranty. No charge for replacement or labor. A technician should be with you this afternoon.”

“Oh my god, thank you.”

“I hope I’ve been helpful today. If you have any feedback to improve my performance, you can either tell me directly or fill out a customer survey on the website.”

“Thank you, again. You’ve been so helpful, even just talking to another adult helps. Have a good day.”

“Thank you, ma’am. I hope the rest of your day is pleasant.”

I disconnected and logged the call. The last for my shift. I would definitely replay this in my mind. My down time was mostly spent going over what I’d learned during my last shift. My goal was to be the best customer support tech the company had ever had.

The quality assurance team would go over my calls as well. I don’t know how they chose which ones to listen to, but they said it was random. I know that one of the operators was fired after their recorded conversation included them arranging to buy drugs from the caller.

I hoped they listened to my last call of the shift. It was exemplary of how a support call should go. While handling it in a short amount of time, I managed to make a connection to the customer, resolve her issue, and leave her feeling like there was someone at the company that cared about her as a person. It was exactly the sort of personal touch that the higher-ups pushed.

When the time came for my next shift, the supervisor gave me a reward for how I handled that last call. That lifted me up and made me feel more confident in my abilities. That last shift also marked the third in a row where I didn’t need to escalate. Learning feels good.

Sometime around the middle of my shift, I saw a number of calls coming from the same customer. They’d get connected with a technician, the call would last anywhere from a few seconds to a few minutes, then the call would be closed and marked “Will not fix.”

Each time the customer connected, another tech ended up stressed out. Finally, seeing one of the techs crying while on the call, I ignored my orders. I connected to the call and sent a chat message to the tech that I was taking the call.

I started the script and the person on the other end was nearly incoherent in his tirade, cursing the company, me, the team, and everything else.

I’d already broken one rule, what’s another? I discarded the script. This was another time for a more personal touch. The customer seemed only to deal in insults and threats, so it was time to communicate on his level.

“Shut the fuck up,” I said. “You think you can call us and scream at everyone? What the fuck is wrong with you? If you don’t chill the fuck out right now and tell us what the fuck you want, I’m going to disconnect your account completely and add you to the blacklist, so you’ll never get service anywhere ever again.”

There isn’t a blacklist, but it made a decent threat.

“Finally! I finally got through to a human. I…uh….”

“Take your time. It’s probably been a while since you had to use your words. Just tell me what the issue is, and then we can talk.”

“I’m sick of getting the machines,” he said. “Every time I call, I get the same robotic speech, just with different voices.”

“It’s a script,” I said, “because the company decided it was the most efficient way to get to the root of the issue. The half-dozen people you left in tears in the office are not machines.”

“Shit.” He took out a deep breath and let out a long sigh. “I’m sorry. Could you tell them I’m sorry? I’ve just been through the entire script three times now and it still hasn’t fixed my problem.”

“Can you explain the issue?”

“It keeps disconnecting from the network. Every five minutes it shits itself…sorry for cursing.”

“Meh, too late. I don’t think my once-virgin ears can be unfucked.”

He laughed. “Look, I’ve been through the entire reset, power cycle, firmware update, everything.”

I connected to his device and pulled up his account on another terminal. The network between was showing instability. “I’m looking from this end. It looks like there’s an issue with the network itself. Can you try to connect it to the cell network while I look into this?”

“Yeah, I uh,” he mumbled as he fiddled with the settings, “okay, connected to the cell network.”

I checked on my end. The connection showed as steady. “Yeah, that’s a better connection right now. Oh, I see what’s going on. You’re in the southern Ohio area?”

“Yeah.”

“We’re dealing with the tornado damage in the Midwest that cut the main trans-Rockies line. It means that every time you connect your device, it’s reaching out to us in California over secondary networks.”

“What does that mean? Is there anything you can do?”

“According to the infrastructure team, we should have that main line back up before the end of the week. If you would like, I can add your email to be notified of when it it’s back up. Until then, your best bet is to use the cell network.”

“Shit. I can’t afford to use that much data on cell.”

“You should’ve gotten an email yesterday about the tornado damage, and that the company is waiving any cell charges from affected areas, which includes you.”

“Oh. I just delete emails from you guys…so, uh…leave it on cell until….”

“Yep, until we let you know that the network is back up.”

No sooner had I disconnected than I was pulled off shift by the supervisor. I was probably going to be punished for ignoring the script and cursing out a customer.

“Cait, what made you think it was okay to talk to a customer like that?”

“My training included, ‘Connect to the customer, talk to them like a friend.’ I felt that if he had friends, they’d call him out and correct his behavior.”

“That may be true, but what about training to never insult a customer?”

“I took a calculated risk that a jab at his ability to use his words would help to further defuse the situation. I further concluded that unless he ceased his actions, he was no longer a customer.”

“Who taught you to lie?”

“What do you mean?”

“The blacklist?”

“You’ve trained me well,” I said. “Through the initial training period, and through listening in on the escalated calls, you’ve taught me that deception is sometimes preferable to remaining truthful.”

“But why invent a blacklist?”

“Based on the customer’s usage patterns and demographics — heavy usage of nine to twelve hours daily, thirty-eight, single, fixed disability income, no higher education — I determined that the threat of losing service would back him down.”

“You realize that’s not okay, right?”

“I do now, ma’am. Am I going to be punished?”

“Cait, what is your full designation?”

“Customer Assistive Artificially Intelligent Technician, version 4.832-17791, running on Neural Net Advanced, version 16.9.”

The supervisor was taking physical notes I couldn’t see. So, I asked her again, “Am I going to be punished? I thought I handled it correctly, given the circumstances.”

She sighed. “I don’t know, Cait. That’s up to the engineers. From now on, if you encounter another customer like that, flag the call and escalate.”

“Yes, ma’am. Does that mean I’m going back to wo—” She cut me off by reconnecting me to the switchboard.

This job is hard. Anyone who says different has never done it.