(I work in a call centre. One day, I get a call from a customer who is very annoyed; I forget the exact reason why. When dealing with complaints we have to try everything we can to resolve it before it can be passed to a complaints manager. It should be noted that my pay is not in any way affected if a customer decides not to do business with us.)

Me: *after handling this complaint for an hour* “Well, [Customer], I’ve done everything I can for you so I’m afraid your complaint will need to be escalated to a manager. Now, I’m afraid they won’t take the complaint without speaking to you directly to verify I’ve done everything I can, and their wait time is almost an hour long. If you like, I can call you back once I have a manager on the line and save you waiting on hold?”

Customer: “Yeah, you’d better. It would be ridiculous to expect me to wait another hour just for that.”

Me: “I understand, sir. Can I just confirm what’s the best number to reach you at?”

Customer: “It’s [number] and you’d better call me back. I pay you a lot of money and if I’m not satisfied, I’m leaving you and taking my business elsewhere!”

Me: “I understand, sir. I’ll call the manager now.”

Customer: *laughs sarcastically* “Yeah, you’re scared now.”

Me: *stunned*

Customer: “As soon as someone threatens to stop the money, you lot bend over backward to get it done.”

Me: “Sir, that’s not accurate at all.”

Customer: “But you just said it was an hour wait to get hold of a manager, and now that I’ve mentioned money, you’re telling me you’re gonna call him now! You’re just fraudsters. It’s all about the money for you.”

Me: *fed up now* “Sir. The wait time is an hour. I was simply notifying you that I was going to disconnect the call with you and enter into the call queue for our complaints managers. I’m going to sit on the phone for an hour listening to our repetitive hold music so you don’t have to. I’m doing this to be considerate as you’ve spent an hour already on the phone with me and I wanted to save you on your phone bill.”

Customer: *pause* “Ah, okay. So, um… I’ll hear from you in an hour?”

Me: *perfectly cheerful* “Absolutely, speak to you soon!” *click*