USA First, Foreigners Last!

[Rattslinger]

I love my job, I love going to work, I love getting up in the morning to go to work. But as soon as I hit the door, I want to go home, instantly. Doesn't matter what kind of mood I'm in, as soon as I open the front door, I'm begging for closing time on Friday. I'll give you one of the calls that I receive, that I have to put up with, and my boss won't let me say anything "corrective" or "informative" to the customer about their opinion.

Me: Of course
SC: Racist Psychopath

__________________________________________________ __
Me: Thank You for Calling *****, how might I assist you today?

SC: Hello, why did it take so long for me to get assistance?

Me: -Checks the wait time, two minutes, everybody has been waiting that long- Hmm, looks like we have a high call volume at this time, I apologize.

SC: That's okay, well I'd place an order -Customer places order-

Me: Gracias, well.....

SC: -Cuts me off- That's why it took so long! You were helping out a bunch of Mexicans, that's why you're still speaking Spanish to me!

Me: No ma'am, I actually live in Arizona, and it's fairly common for anyone, of any race or nationality to say gracias and de nada. It's kind of a regional slang, sorry if I offended you.

SC: Well you're in Arizona, so you know about all the Mexicans just flooding across the border blah,blah,blah.....

Me: -Five Minutes listening to the Intolerance- Ma'am would you like to finish your order?

SC: blah,blah,blah Zieg Hiel!, blah,blah

Me: -Mutes customer- Hey Supervisor, could you please take this call, I'm not really interested in listening to Neo-Nazi propaganda.

Btw, did I forget to mention most of my co-workers are African-American and Mexican-American females? So my boss takes the call, and eventually gets the order from the customer and gets the customer off the phone. He comes up to me later, after listening to the full call on our recording system, and told me that I should not have said Gracias, or then explained why I spoke the Spanish words. He understands that we all do it, but we can't do that on the phone, because it can "offend" customers.

[lordlundar]

Oh yes, because we don't want to offend someone by saying thank you.

Shall you start responding with F-off then?

[Slytovhand]

OMG!

Yep - quit! sounds like you aren't allowed to have a personality there....

[Shangri-laschild]

*rolls eyes* on no we might offend a narrow minded jerk. Some people will always find things to be offended about at the very least for an excuse to spout their ideas.

[smileyeagle1021]

The other variation on that are the people who will complain that the company operates call centers in the phillipines or india... umm, if the company also has customers in the phillipines or india why not... in the case of my company I point out "sir/ma'am we also have call centers in London, Amsterdam, Sydney, Charleston, Salt Lake City, Mexico City, Brazilia and Dubai, and hotels on every continent but antarctica... so why shouldn't we also have centers in india?"

and I love "foreigners" from australia and england... when I tell them that they have been routed to the US because their center has been closed for the evening or if a center is closed for a local holiday... they are HAPPY to hear that the company is taking advantage of the time zones so that employees don't have to work overnight and can spend time with their friends and family or for a local holiday are happy that people who don't celebrate the holiday are willing to work extra so they don't have to... americans on the other hand will be irate that people are stealing their jobs so we have to work on every holiday to keep the spoiled racist brats in this country happy (i've seriously had people flip out when I tell them that the hotel forwarded the call to central so more of their employees could have christmas off... on christmas eve I had every single caller from australia saying they were so happy that we would take the calls so australians could have christmas off).

[Bright_Star]

You can offend someone simply by saying "Hello".

[LifeCarnie]

I love xenophobes and jingoist's equally!

Some morning show just did a segment where they stopped people on the streets of New York and asked them what country the clothing label on their clothes stated as the country of origin.

Nothing was made in the USA.

Go USA! The land of no national gross product!!

[smileyeagle1021]

You can offend someone simply by saying "Hello".

so very true... I've had someone get offended when I say "this is smileyeagle speaking, may I ask with whom I'm speaking"
and they say that has nothing to do with the reservation... um, yeah it does... if you are booking a new reservation I need to know your name for the reservation if it is an existing reservation I need your name either to confirm I have the correct reservation if you have a confirmation number or more likely look it up if you don't have the confirmation number
... and if all you are doing is asking for a price use the web site and stop wasting my time.

[Whyme]

SC: -Cuts me off- That's why it took so long! You were helping out a bunch of Mexicans, that's why you're still speaking Spanish to me!

"What an interesting assumption. About your order..."

I'm in southern Arizona and get quite a few customers who feel free to complain to me about the Spanish speaking option on self check, all the "Mexicans" in the store (dude, they work here...legally!), etc. I've already informed management I'm not tolerating it. As long as I have a smile on my face when I break it to the customer that the people I actually have no tolerance for are racists, we're good. Of course that's a little harder for the OP since it's a phone center. I think the best you can do is try to ignore what they said and try to continue with the order...or tell them you're Hispanic and it slipped out


I still remember the lady who complained at Christmas that the store was playing "Feliz Navidad". I thought my head was going to explode. Do you have so much hatred in you and so much time on your hands that you feel the need to complain about a Christmas classic? I don't remember if it was this time or one of the many times someone was complaining about the Spanish self check language option, but I was quite pleased to tell them I would be happy to get a Customer Service Manager for them to complain to...then called our Mexican CSM over . Suddenly they didn't want to complain anymore. Chickens.

[Demonoid Phenomenon]

Yo Quero Taco Beeyotch?

Oh yes, because we don't want to offend someone by saying thank you.

Shall you start responding with F-off then?

As long as you say it in ENGLISH!

Ooooh, my kingdom for a different planet.

[Cyphr]

ughh i hate people who complain - yes we have problems with illegal immigration but im not getting into it and i dont hate the people personally

[Mark Healey]

The other variation on that are the people who will complain that the company operates call centers in the phillipines or india...

That's rarely the case. It's usually to save money, which doesn't bother me. What does bother me is that their clumsy attempts to trick me. When you hear someone with a thick accent from some Indian language ( usually Kannada) giving you a fake western name you know you have been routed overseas. Instead of trying to trick me they should just spend some time on accent reduction so I don't have to incessantly ask the guy to repeat himself.

[RetailWorkhorse]

SC: blah,blah,blah Zieg Hiel!, blah,blah

The Horse: ...spreken ze duetch?

[powerboy]

I do not complain or get upset when, someone says hello or thank you in another language. What I do get upset with, is when they keep speaking that language.

[AdminAssistant]

I know some interesting French phrases you could use for people like that....

I mean, seriously. I often say 'merci', 'gracias', 'danke', or 'sbasiba' instead of 'thank you'. Why get bent out of shape over people using phrases from different languages? Especially since English is a bastardization of basically....every other language.