Saturday, June 11, 2011

I blame Amelia*

Amelia isn't really her name but we're going to call her Amelia. In my job I deal with my fair share of upset students. It's understandable, really. This is their future. I take my education seriously, it is only right that I should take theirs seriously as well when they call in. I've been cussed at, yelled at, hung up on and had people threaten to go to my boss. But I have never, in my almost five years of working with students, been so incredibly outraged as I was this morning.


After nearly 20 minutes of being berated and yelled at I was ready to hang up on her. I finally stopped talking and just let her go. I knew that if I opened my mouth I'd probably call her a not so nice name and slam the phone down. That type of behavior is not looked upon kindly where I work. When I got off the phone my body was actually shaking I was so furious.

Interestingly enough, she didn't swear at me once. She didn't call me any bad names other than lazy and incompetent and yet she was able to reduce me to a quivering mass of rage. I think I may have frightened my coworker, who has never seen me be anything other than professional and polite.

If anything else goes wrong today...I'm blaming Amelia.

1 comments:

Grandma Cebe said...

Wow! I am all to familiar with that type of rage. I experienced more than once when working as the receptionist for Welfare Services. It's amazing what people will say when they can't see you. You don't have to take that kind of abuse. What you should have done is say, calmly, "I'm trying to help you. If you can't calm down and stop yelling at me, I'll have to hang up.". If the caller doesn't calm down, just say. "I'm sorry. I have to hang up.". Then hang up. I've used this tactic more than once.