Uuuuugggggh

So far in my almost 2 months of working in customer service I have been yelled at, cussed out, cried to, lied to, hung up on and asked how I can sleep at night while working for such a horrible company. I don't particularly enjoy that aspect of the job...but for the most part I've been able to let it slide right off my back. You know, like a duck in the water or whatever that analogy is. Tonight though...oy...it was a rough one. Here's the Reader's Digest version of the call that started the scenario that's bugging me:

Me: "Hello, how may I help you?"
Him: "I need to cancel for a couple months 'cuz money is tight."
Me: "Do you need me to put your account on hold for a month or two while you get your finances in order?"
Him: "No, I just want to cancel for a few months. I'll call you when I can afford it again."
Me: "Well, cancellation is expensive, we charge 80% of your remaining balance..."
Him: "How much is that?"
Me: "Approximately $2000 because you're only 6 months into your 5 year contract."
Him: "That's a ridiculous amount of money! So you're telling me I'm screwed?"
Me: "Well, we can put your account on hold for a few months and that wouldn't cost you anything."
Him (sarcastically): "You guys are such a great company, I'm so glad to be working with you, you really care about your customers."
Me: "Again sir, I can freeze your account for a while but I can't cancel you w/out that cancellation fee."
Him: "Man, I'm going to write a blog about you guys or something." (He really did say that, I'm not even joking.)
Me: "I'm sorry you feel that way."
Him (once again with the sarcasm): "You know what? Thank you."
Me: "Have a good night."

And then I hung up. Was I trying to be a jerk? No, although I would have liked to tell the guy he's retarded and it's not my problem he signed a contract w/out reading it first. But I genuinely thought we were done...so that's why I hung up. But then he called back and my friend and co-worker who happens to sit right next to me got the call. Theirs went a little something like this:

Friend: "How may I help you?"
Him: "The girl I was just talking to hung up on me. She was totally rude, she wouldn't let me talk, she just kept explaining things to me and I couldn't get a word in. And she hung up. That's not how you treat people, I am very mad, grrrrrrrrrr."
Friend: "I apologize, how can I help you?"
Him: "Well, I want to freeze my account. And I want to file a complaint against that girl I talked to. I need your supervisor."
Friend: "She is my supervisor."
Him: "Then I want her supervisor."
Friend: "She's the only supervisor here, but I'll pass along the complaint to her boss and he can pull the call and coach her as necessary."
Him: "Heh heh, is that what you guys are calling it these days, 'coaching?'"
Friend: "I'll pass it along sir. And I'll freeze your account for 2 months. Sign the paper when we mail it to you."
Him: "Ok, thanks for your great customer service, I'm glad you don't suck like that stupid girl I was just talking to."
Friend: "Good night sir."

So once my friend got off the phone, he laughed and told me the guy was a moron and he's not going to pass along his complaint to my boss. I shrugged and said he could if he felt like it, I didn't do anything wrong. But then it started bugging me...so I went back and pulled the call where I talked to him and you know what? I was a little short with him. After listening to it again, I can see that he most likely wasn't done talking when I hung up. And although the mistake was a genuine one, it still bothers me because I could have handled it better. Yeah, the guy was a complete jerk and yeah I have a nasty cold and really don't feel well but that doesn't justify me handling it the way I did. Sigh.

I'm fairly certain my friend didn't forward this customer's complaint to my boss, and even if he did, I'm pretty sure that the most disciplinary action I'd get would be a small slap on the wrist and the instruction to remember to ask the customer if there's anything else they need help with before hanging up the phone and that would be it. So that's good. But I don't want to be a crappy employee, so I think I just need to remember that people are different...they come from different backgrounds, and while I was raised in a home where I was taught that being mean and nasty and yelling at people doesn't accomplish anything, maybe this guy was taught that if you're really sarcastic and rude then you can prevent some stupid alarm company from ripping you off. So yeah, all I can do is hopefully use this as a learning experience to help me be better next time (although for the record, I do think it sucks that in my job, I have to let people treat me like shit for the sake of the company). And now that I've vented about it here, hopefully I'll be able to sleep tonight. The NyQuil is kicking in too, so that should help...