What you don't know about me...

I've been working in the customer service industry for several years now. I worked as a waitress for two years, as a rec supervisor for 2 years, a sales person and manager at a health club for two years and most recently I work in medical billing.

I've dealt with lots of people in various degrees of anger and frustration and usually am pretty capable in terms of coming to a "mutually satifactory resolution" (seriously, that is what it is called, I've gone to workshops and conferences and the like). Its what I do. Its what I am paid for. And I like it. I really do.

But I have to say something, and since my blog is entitled "Anything worth saying"... here it goes. I understand what it is like to be on the other end of the phone. I know that feeling that you are being ill-used and taken advantage of. I can sympathize with the frustration of being at a stranger's mercy. I get that. I've been there.

Something that I have come to practice in my own life is this, however. I try my hardest to remember to give the service person on the phone the benefit of the doubt.

I spoke with Sheila today. Shelia was angry. Livid, actually. And she didn't care who I was, or what part I personally played in her current distress. To her, I was public enemy number one. She screamed at me so that I had to hold the phone away, questioned my character and threatened to call the police on me (which, since I have had the pleasure of growing up the daughter of a police sergeant, I inworldy giggled at that particular threat). She made me feel less then human. Less then subhuman, even. As she verbally spat in my face, I found myself riling up in anger- my hackles raising. Hot tears formed in the corners of my eyes, and my hands shook uncontrollably. My heart pounded in my ears and I could feel my face burn. Here I am sitting at my desk- Harry Potter calendar on the wall, a cute little kitten picture with a bible verse from my fav gospel, Matt taped to my computer screen, pigtails in my hair and tennis shoes on- teetering precariously on the verge of losing it.

She doesn't know me. She might think she does... but she doesn't. She doesn't know that my husband just called to ask me to babysit for his friend's two little boys in a few weekends (and how I can not wait). She doesn't know that my best friend just emailed me a picture from vegas of the fountains at bellagio because I asked for it (due to my love of oceans 11 and brad pitt). She has no idea that my mom and I spent the afternoon yesterday getting all teared up over the lack of true love in jane austen's short life. she doesn't know that after work today I plan to take my dog on a 3 mile run, something that has recently become a favorite pasttime of mine (and his). She doesn't know that I spend every Thursday night opening my home to highschoolers and that I get as much a kick out of having them over as they do in coming over. She doesn't know that every morning before I work I check a miscarriage support posting that I participate in. She doesn't know that just this morning I received an email update for my "congrats you're now 26 weeks pregnant" calendar from ivillage that I can't figure out how to turn off since I lost my baby.

Nope. She knows none of this. She only knows that she was angry and it was my fault. She didn't want to hear reason. She didn't want to "please stop shouting at me". She just wanted my supervisor, and I gave her to them. Actually, the joke was on her, my supervisor is out of the office today, and since I fugured she wouldn't believe that line, I gave her to one of my coworkers who pretended to be a supervisor for me. A tiny consolation for me, at least.

No, Shelia knows nothing of the "Erin" she spoke to on the phone, and that's okay. In fact, in light of her crazy anger, I probably prefer it that way. However, what if she had taken just a moment to consider who she might be talking to? Asked herself what I might have been going through? Would she have treated me the same way as she did? Maybe. But I'd like to think not.

What if every phone was a video phone? Or like a mood ring phone? Like you pick it up to call someone and the phone could read their current mood... "sad" "deafeated" "hopeless" "thrilled" "ambitious" "hurt". Would that change the way we spoke to strangers.?

I think that I am going to say a quick prayer for Shelia today. And maybe a slightly longer one for whomever she was calling next... I think that they might need it.