Well, if you have me on your MSN Messenger list, you may have seen this as my sign-in name starting yesterday afternoon. This came out of pure frustration yesterday after dealing with an individual over the telephone. Jim was attempting to help me by ordering me a new insurance card since we can’t seem to find my current one. I had my Medicare card and that was about it.
So, the conversation started when a lady picked up the phone. I was listening in because we figured they’d want me to prove that I really did exist. So this lady asked for my name and ID number. Of course I didn’t have my ID number because it was on the card that I don’t have. So instead Jim asked if we could provide my Social Security number instead. The lady said yes but then she transferred us to someone different. Keep this first lady in mind though.
So now we’re on hold for a while and another lady comes on the line. She asks for the same information, and Jim gave her the same speech about not having the card. I also mentioned that if we had the card it still wouldn’t make much of a difference since we were both blind and couldn’t read it. At this point however I was still polite. So, after stating that A, we didn’t have the card, and B, that we were blind, this lady says that she’s having trouble locating me in the system, and could we please tell her what color card I had. I stated again, very slowly and clearly that this wasn’t possible since we didn’t have the card, and couldn’t see it anyway if we did have it. She then asked me what date my coverage had started, and asked me if I was sure that I had the right company. I said that I had the letter telling me that I had coverage. So, of course, the next question she asked was what color the letter was. So, by this time I was really getting frustrated. I felt like I was trying to communicate with a brick wall. Jim took over at this point and said something to the effect of “We’re both blind. This means that our eyes are broken.” I’m thinking to myself about all the nice words I could say and about how fun it would be to say them but common sense told me that this probably wouldn’t be the best thing to do. She put us on hold and talked to a supervisor. When she came back she said that she still couldn’t find me, and she tried telling me that I must be signed up for a different program and she mentioned a couple of them that were geared specifically for seniors. Um, I’m sorry, but I’m not a senior yet. Don’t push it! SMILE! At this point I’m thinking that I’m blind not dumb, and I think I know enough to know what my stupid drug coverage is, but I’m continuing to stay silent. She told us to call Medicare to see what they said I had for drug coverage.
When the call ended I told Jim to finish it, I was done. I can’t, in this writing, express the frustration level at this point, or how this lady was. So it might be hard to understand where I was at this point, but believe me, I was really not very happy; first because it seemed to me that these people don’t listen to the customers, and second because there seemed to be no record of my coverage and I was wondering what the deal was with that.
So, Jim started making phone calls. At one point he must have called back to the original place because he told me that they needed me on the phone again. I picked up, and it was apparently the same lady we had spoken with back at the beginning. Not knowing this, Jim went through the whole song and dance. At this point, the lady got pretty upset with us. She said that she couldn’t look up anything without a policy number, and she had told us that before and transferred us to someone else. Jim, as calm as ever, said that we didn’t have the information. This lady, voice raised, said that she all ready said she couldn’t help us. It seemed like she was almost screaming at us by this time. Okay, so then I said that if she couldn’t help us could she please transfer us to someone who could. At this point I thought she put us on hold because there was music in the background. Thinking that I was in the clear, I finally let one of my choice words for this lady slip out. Unfortunately though, she still heard. She immediately came back on the line and said that I’d better watch my mouth with the next person or they wouldn’t help us either. I told her that we were being polite to her and she started yelling at us. Until that time we gave her absolutely no reason to become hostile with us. She said nothing and made the transfer. I hung up at this point and didn’t get on the phone again.
Anyway, to make a long story short, Jim called Medicare again, and we found out that I had been automatically placed in some sort of plan, even though I had signed up for this other thing. This really bothered me too, since I had specifically signed up for something else and never got the coverage I had requested and only found out five months after the coverage started. So yes, we were wrong about my coverage. Does this excuse the first lady from yelling at us or the second one from not listening to us? I don’t think so, but maybe I’m wrong. As for my slip, I don’t really feel all that bad about it. We gave her absolutely no reason to treat us the way she did, and I felt that we were treated badly. I know how this is probably going to sound, but I’m going to say it anyway. My only regret about what I said is that I actually got caught saying it.
Now, for those of you who may not know me as well I do have to make one clarification. I normally have a lot of patience. In my work I have to since I’m working with people of all ages and abilities. So, I’ve learned to be pretty laid back when things come up. This situation though just got under my skin. I guess it was one of those things. I don’t want people thinking that I go around verbally abusing people over the phone or things like that. I do enough phone work to know how frustrating it can be. But there are two things I’ve learned. First, if you’re having a bad day for whatever reason, the customer doesn’t need to know you’re having a bad day, so don’t let it show in your voice and don’t take out your frustrations on them. (I had this happen to me in a cab a couple of weeks back but that’s a story for another entry.) Second, you’re representing the company that you’re working for. You may be the only person in the company that the customer ever deals with, and if you’re rude, that’s the impression you’re going to leave with that customer of the company overall. Phone work is tough anyway because you can’t see the person face-to-face, and the voice you use can either help or hurt you. I can only hope that the people at this company will be given more training in both listening and speaking with customers so that situations like this can be avoided in the future.
And now, just an aside. My arm is feeling much better today. I can only figure out one possible way this happened in the first place. I was probably pretty tense going in, and when they gave me that hand squeezy thing I must have been squeezing it pretty hard. I’m guessing I just strained the muscle a bit because of that. I can straighten my arm today and there’s only a small, (and I mean really small), amount of discomfort when I bend or straighten it. So, nothing bad happened and it’s all good.
Well, I guess I should put this down and motivate myself. I’ve got a long day and I need to get ready. I just had to write this before getting started.
