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Argghh.
For anyone who doesn't know I work for a charity giving free advice to people on, well most things. I'm not legally qualified, I am very well trained and experienced when it comes to common problems with benefits, employment, housing, debt etc.
I got stuck doing telephone advice today. And it actually went well.
Only one person who called from outside our area (we don't get paid for time spent with people who don't live in our council area), and pretty much everyone had questions that were at least potentially appropriate to ask me. No one thought I was the police and tried to report a crime. No one cried. No one asked me if they should leave their partner. No one got confused between me and the boiler repairman...
So of course it was going far to well.
I feel bad for loathing this woman as she clearly had mental health problems. But why would anyone ring up for advice and then argue.
Every time I asked a question she rambled on about something else. Every time I spoke she interrupted. Every time I said anything she disagreed. She spoke to me in the worlds most patronising and offensive tone of voice. She refused to give out certain information (which luckily I didn't care about anyway - but she made a huge deal out of how she didn't trust me enough to tell me).
She corrected me when I repeated back what she had said. Suddenly the same thing was wrong. She corrected me because I used the wrong term for something when she hadn't been able to even describe the thing. My favourite was her attacking me because I had the nerve to say "8 years is a long time..."
Apparently it isn't
It is however a bloody long time if you decide you are unhappy about something 8 years later and want to take legal action. There is a technical term for how bloody long - it's called out of time...
Apparently however I am wrong about that.
At that point I gave up and said I couldn't give advice because she had a greater understanding of the issue than I did (I suspect she's wrong but I went with the more "charitable" version
). And she got angry because I was calling her ignorant
Then she wanted to complain, but couldn't listen when I explained how to do so - so she'll send her complaint off to the wrong place
Then she still wouldn't go and kept going round in circles saying I'd insulted her, that I wasn't knowledgeable enough to advise her, and that I should give her advice and was unreasonable for not doing so.
I ended up telling her I was ending the call and putting the phone down. In 6 years of giving advice - mainly in person but certainly including over a hundred phone advice sessions - I have put the phone down once (not including calls I just couldn't hear). That was the man who called me a whore, then called back to complain that I'd been rude to him...
Anyway,
Arghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.
I feel better now.
BONUS STORY :
Not an SC story as the customer was lovely. But as I say I've been doing my job 6 years and this woman's landlord wins the most petty landlord award.
Customer had received a threatening semi-legal (you know the ones - where someone thinks they're talking like a solicitor when really they're just foaming at the mouth) insisting she pay interest on a rent payment that arrived one day late due to banking closures over Christmas. The contract doesn't allow for this, but apparently the landlord meant it to so my customer should pay.
Well obviously this is absolute nonsense - at most she might have a claim against the person who drew up the contract. My customer pays nothing.
The thing was that neither the landlord not the client appeared to have calculated the interest in question. I did. It was ....
...drum roll....
51p.
The stamp for the letter cost 30p or more (can't remember stamp prices now).
Victoria J
For anyone who doesn't know I work for a charity giving free advice to people on, well most things. I'm not legally qualified, I am very well trained and experienced when it comes to common problems with benefits, employment, housing, debt etc.
I got stuck doing telephone advice today. And it actually went well.
Only one person who called from outside our area (we don't get paid for time spent with people who don't live in our council area), and pretty much everyone had questions that were at least potentially appropriate to ask me. No one thought I was the police and tried to report a crime. No one cried. No one asked me if they should leave their partner. No one got confused between me and the boiler repairman...
So of course it was going far to well.
I feel bad for loathing this woman as she clearly had mental health problems. But why would anyone ring up for advice and then argue.
Every time I asked a question she rambled on about something else. Every time I spoke she interrupted. Every time I said anything she disagreed. She spoke to me in the worlds most patronising and offensive tone of voice. She refused to give out certain information (which luckily I didn't care about anyway - but she made a huge deal out of how she didn't trust me enough to tell me).
She corrected me when I repeated back what she had said. Suddenly the same thing was wrong. She corrected me because I used the wrong term for something when she hadn't been able to even describe the thing. My favourite was her attacking me because I had the nerve to say "8 years is a long time..."
Apparently it isn't
It is however a bloody long time if you decide you are unhappy about something 8 years later and want to take legal action. There is a technical term for how bloody long - it's called out of time...
Apparently however I am wrong about that.
At that point I gave up and said I couldn't give advice because she had a greater understanding of the issue than I did (I suspect she's wrong but I went with the more "charitable" version
). And she got angry because I was calling her ignorant Then she wanted to complain, but couldn't listen when I explained how to do so - so she'll send her complaint off to the wrong place
Then she still wouldn't go and kept going round in circles saying I'd insulted her, that I wasn't knowledgeable enough to advise her, and that I should give her advice and was unreasonable for not doing so.
I ended up telling her I was ending the call and putting the phone down. In 6 years of giving advice - mainly in person but certainly including over a hundred phone advice sessions - I have put the phone down once (not including calls I just couldn't hear). That was the man who called me a whore, then called back to complain that I'd been rude to him...
Anyway,
Arghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.
I feel better now.
BONUS STORY :
Not an SC story as the customer was lovely. But as I say I've been doing my job 6 years and this woman's landlord wins the most petty landlord award.
Customer had received a threatening semi-legal (you know the ones - where someone thinks they're talking like a solicitor when really they're just foaming at the mouth) insisting she pay interest on a rent payment that arrived one day late due to banking closures over Christmas. The contract doesn't allow for this, but apparently the landlord meant it to so my customer should pay.
Well obviously this is absolute nonsense - at most she might have a claim against the person who drew up the contract. My customer pays nothing.
The thing was that neither the landlord not the client appeared to have calculated the interest in question. I did. It was ....
...drum roll....
51p.
The stamp for the letter cost 30p or more (can't remember stamp prices now).
Victoria J
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