Tuesday, January 13, 2009

Badly Behaving Caller

When my clerks receive phone calls that they, for whatever reason, cannot handle, they are to find me and let me deal with it. The calls generally fall into three categories:

1) Needing more in-depth information. The clerks are only given a specific set of data and guidelines. Sometimes a caller will have questions that the clerks cannot answer, so I take the call. 99% of these present no problem and only take a few minutes to resolve. The callers are generally pleasant; they are applying for jobs, after all.

2) Complaints, legitimate or not. Dealing with these is part of my job. I don't enjoy it, but I get paid to do it and it gets done. Enough said.

3) Serial Harassment Calls From A Single Badly Behaving Caller Who Has Absolutely Nothing Better To Do Than Antagonize People For No Fucking Reason Whatsoever.

Until today, I wasn't aware of the problem we have with a caller whom I will refer to as MMN. MMN has become a habitually harassing caller and has, at times been verbally abusive to my staff. When I took MMN's call today, I wasn't aware of his history and I was unprepared for what I heard : a reedy, feminine voice in mid-rant about the Federal Government and the inherent unfairness of multiple-choice questions and the people in the Government who design such tests as part of an elaborate plot to prevent MMN from finding a job. Apparently, the Government feels threatened by MMN's IQ ( it's 180...or 210...or 160...he is inconsistent and, I suspect, also somewhat inaccurate) and is deliberately producing tests that are impossible for MMN (and only MMN) to pass- if we tested him "fairly" he would get a perfect score and become our boss and "we would all get fired then."

Needless to say, this sort of antagonistic, blunderbuss hostility is not a very good approach to job-seeking and I am 100% certain that MMN will never work for our office. I have six million qualified applicants and 5,999,999 of them can remain cordial for the few minutes that it takes to start the application process. Should those six million citizens suddenly become unavailable, I'd work overtime for free before I'd hire MMN.

After I finished my ten-minute ordeal with MMN, I started getting reports from around the office. Here are just a few of the encounters, as related to me:

-Was that MMN? I spent 45 minutes answering the same questions over and over with him. Then he called me stupid and hung up.

- I thought he was a woman (he sounds like one) and accidently called him "ma'am"... he asked me if he sounded like a "faggot". I apologized and he called me stupid and hung up.

- He called about his test scores. He has taken it five times and his best score was 13 (of 28). He already knew what his scores were, he said the test was a plot to keep him from working. Then he called me a stupid and a "bad word" and hung up. He has problems.

See a pattern here? It's interesting that MMN saves his epithets for my female clerks- when talking to the men, he is annoying, frustrating and rude, but he has never called us "stupid". I suspect MMN is a middle-aged virgin who lives in his mother's basement, surrounded by piles of sticky pornographic magazines, incoherent manifestos, junk-food wrappers and a dense cloud of exaggerated self-importance; a poor man's Ignatious J. Reilly, if you will.

I wonder what sort of Blogger MMN would be, were MMN to be a Blogger - a troll of the lowest order and highest magnitude, I would venture.
MMN
seems to consider himself more intelligent and informed than EVERYONE ELSE, yet he is incapable of passing a simple 3rd-Grade level written test or engaging in the most rudimentary of civil or social interactions.
When confronted, feeling insecure or threatened, he would blame his shortfalls on the entire world- as if anyone actually gives a fuck.
I imagine he'd have little else to do with his lonely, useless hours but troll blogs and leave ad hominem insults on posts written by women who make him feel inferior and inadequate.
Technically, this would include anyone born with a vagina.

MMN's own blog would probably be an exercise in humorless, delusional, self-aggrandizing and painfully masturbatory fantasy; the sort of blog where most of the comments are written by MMN in response to his own posts , congratulating himself on his humility and achievements while belittling the people who are "against him", which would be nobody, were he not so damned insistent on picking fights and making enemies.

The thing is, MMN isn't a blogger, he's a job-seeker and he has taken our test five times. I have his home address and phone number on file. Harassing and/or abusive phone calls to Federal Offices are illegal as well as extremely unwise, seeing as how I have a direct line to the FBI.
I have to put up with a lot of bullshit in life, but I will not tolerate attacks, verbal or otherwise, on my friends or subordinates.

That being said, it's a good thing that Blogger is different. Bloggers understand that there is nothing to be gained by wildly lashing out at anyone brave enough to have "post comment" on their blog. If they don't like a blog, they will move on to another one, but they don't waste time or karma on pointless attacks and insults.
Why bother? Life is short, troubles are plentiful and a little civility goes a long way towards peace- and a little ass-hattery goes even further, only in the wrong direction. We, as adults, know this.

Most of us, anyway.

Understand?

13 comments:

whimsical brainpan said...

Dong ma.

AC'63 said...

I hope the arrow reaches the right target .. it wasn't thinly veiled.

Craig D said...

"We, as adults, know this. Most of us, anyway."

Heh heh heh.

Excuse me, but I have to go get fitted for a new tin foil hat...

Anonymous said...

Ahem. Psychotic. That's all I have to say.

Romeo Morningwood said...

GRRRR

Is there any way that a certain Government Agency could send over a couple of wetboys to deal with the problem?

yellowdoggranny said...

blogger is fuckng with me

yellowdoggranny said...

send the guy my phone number ..tell him im in charge of complaints...hahahaha



is the commenter a guy with initials?...hes an asshole

yellowdoggranny said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Allan said...

Whim- Grok bak at ya!

AC- ? Arrow?

CD- Tinfoil hats act as antennae for mind-control waves, THEY want you to wear one.

CW- Experts agree!

DC- We use sub-contractors for that.

JS- Blogger fucks with everyone. I wish you worked with me....everybody has initials.

Citymouse said...

unless it is my sister.

Craig D said...

No, no, no! You have it all wrong! The tin foil SHIELDS me from their mind control rays. "They" do NOT want me to wear one. We must fight the system. Jennifer Love Hewitt demands as much. Pickle tambourine garage door swim fins. Potatoes potatoes potatoes.

Enemy of the Republic said...

I read this before and didn't get it. Now I do, yes, yellowdog--the asshole with initials who believes he is Jesus Christ even though he doesn't like him much.

This is good, man--totally slipped by me.

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