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I'm a pretty laid back guy, but there's one area where SCs and any other tomfoolery *really* gets to me: Charity / Donation / For a good cause type lines.
My company handles the donation drives for a certain few major charities ( One that rhymes with "Bed Toss" and another that prevents things to animals. ). Whenever a major disaester strikes we set up and handle all the donations for them. Basically whenever something in the world goes horrifically wrong ( Tsunami, Katrina ) we're the ones fielding the donation drive. Which is all fine and dandy because unlike my other lines these ones are for a good cause. Its nice to be able to actually help people who need it.
We had a heck of a time during Katrina. Not only were we swamped even beyond our means ( Which is a good thing, so we weren't really complaining ) but we had to deal with SCs and CNN. SCs are annoying to begin with, but they are seriously aggravating when they're on a donation / not for profit type line. Then there's CNN who throughout the whole incident kept incorrectly referring our numbers for things we don't deal with ( More on that in a sec... )
First up were the SCs. They would range from impatient ( "Well why did I have to wait on hold, I'm the one trying to give you money!" ) to racist ( "Oh well I see all the poor black people on TV and I felt like sending a few dollars." and "Well I'll send you some money because they're black, not mexican. Mexicans are too lazy to be worth it. You're not mexican are you?" ) to total crackpots ( "Hey you know what you need to do? You need to sail a couple cruise ship sinto New Orleans and give everyone free rooms on it." )
There was an endless stream of people jamming our lines just to give us "advice" on the subject or make well intentioned but completely unfeasible offers of assistance ( "Hey, do you guys need to borrow my fishing boat?" "Want me to mail you some life jackets?" "I've got some fishing rods, you can get them to fish for food now that there's so much water" )
But the worst was the combination of a certain society for the prevention of unpleasent things to animals + friggan CNN. How I loath CNN. The Society had set up a donation line to take care of any animals that were picked up after being abandoned or what have you in New Orleans. CNN kept giving out the number for it as the number to call if you had lost your pet or left him/her behind in New Oreans. They did this for friggan DAYS. So rather then being able to gather donations we had people constantly jamming our lines to ask if we had seen or found their pets.
Obviously a lot of them were upset so its not like we could quickly get rid of them either. We had to patiently and sympathetically explain. Most were accepting of this......but of course there's always the batsheet ones and the people that just need to be SMACKED.
People would call and tell us that it was too much of a hassle to bring Fluffy with them, so they TIED FLUFFY TO THE PORCH, in rising flood waters. Then they'd ask us if we could go get Fluffy for them and give us their address. Of course we'd decline, there's nothing we can do. Then they'd get huffy and accuse us of being lazy or what have you.
Of course there was the purse dog crowd (sigh). You know, the ones with little rat sized froof dogs they bought as a fashion accessory then left at home with the rest of their purses. They were usually the most indignant/outraged that we couldn't go pick up Muffy for them now that they remembered he exsists three days later.
Then there were the true crackpots. The Animal Liberation types. They would call and donate money, occasionally an outrageous amount, all the while they'd bitch about how people weren't worth saving so they only donate money to save animals. I love animals too, but if its a toss up being a dog a drowning child, I'm afraid you're going to have to save Muffy yourself. Oddly they rarely suggested actually helping aside from donating.
Not that people didn't offer. People were constantly calling to volunteer ( CNN gave out our number for that too, CURSE YOU CNN ). We had to constantly explain that since a state of emergency was declared and the national guard was out, civilians were not allowed to enter the area. They were having enough trouble getting them out. Nevermind letting people in to try and find Muffy.
Still, Katrina was perhaps the most soulcrushing episode I've ever experienced at work. Not that we didn't get a WONDERFUL outpouring of support, but the fact we got so many SCs was VERY frustrating and dissappointing. Plus, since its a donation line, we're absolutely NOT allowed to go off on them, brush them off or otherwise deal with them as freely as we could on other lines. We could only politely endure while they jammed our lines and took time away from people who were actually trying to help.
It was both the most rewarding and most AGGRAVATING episode I've ever had as a CSR.
Anyone else ever run into SCs while doing something for charity?
My company handles the donation drives for a certain few major charities ( One that rhymes with "Bed Toss" and another that prevents things to animals. ). Whenever a major disaester strikes we set up and handle all the donations for them. Basically whenever something in the world goes horrifically wrong ( Tsunami, Katrina ) we're the ones fielding the donation drive. Which is all fine and dandy because unlike my other lines these ones are for a good cause. Its nice to be able to actually help people who need it.
We had a heck of a time during Katrina. Not only were we swamped even beyond our means ( Which is a good thing, so we weren't really complaining ) but we had to deal with SCs and CNN. SCs are annoying to begin with, but they are seriously aggravating when they're on a donation / not for profit type line. Then there's CNN who throughout the whole incident kept incorrectly referring our numbers for things we don't deal with ( More on that in a sec... )
First up were the SCs. They would range from impatient ( "Well why did I have to wait on hold, I'm the one trying to give you money!" ) to racist ( "Oh well I see all the poor black people on TV and I felt like sending a few dollars." and "Well I'll send you some money because they're black, not mexican. Mexicans are too lazy to be worth it. You're not mexican are you?" ) to total crackpots ( "Hey you know what you need to do? You need to sail a couple cruise ship sinto New Orleans and give everyone free rooms on it." )
There was an endless stream of people jamming our lines just to give us "advice" on the subject or make well intentioned but completely unfeasible offers of assistance ( "Hey, do you guys need to borrow my fishing boat?" "Want me to mail you some life jackets?" "I've got some fishing rods, you can get them to fish for food now that there's so much water" )
But the worst was the combination of a certain society for the prevention of unpleasent things to animals + friggan CNN. How I loath CNN. The Society had set up a donation line to take care of any animals that were picked up after being abandoned or what have you in New Orleans. CNN kept giving out the number for it as the number to call if you had lost your pet or left him/her behind in New Oreans. They did this for friggan DAYS. So rather then being able to gather donations we had people constantly jamming our lines to ask if we had seen or found their pets.
Obviously a lot of them were upset so its not like we could quickly get rid of them either. We had to patiently and sympathetically explain. Most were accepting of this......but of course there's always the batsheet ones and the people that just need to be SMACKED.
People would call and tell us that it was too much of a hassle to bring Fluffy with them, so they TIED FLUFFY TO THE PORCH, in rising flood waters. Then they'd ask us if we could go get Fluffy for them and give us their address. Of course we'd decline, there's nothing we can do. Then they'd get huffy and accuse us of being lazy or what have you.
Of course there was the purse dog crowd (sigh). You know, the ones with little rat sized froof dogs they bought as a fashion accessory then left at home with the rest of their purses. They were usually the most indignant/outraged that we couldn't go pick up Muffy for them now that they remembered he exsists three days later.
Then there were the true crackpots. The Animal Liberation types. They would call and donate money, occasionally an outrageous amount, all the while they'd bitch about how people weren't worth saving so they only donate money to save animals. I love animals too, but if its a toss up being a dog a drowning child, I'm afraid you're going to have to save Muffy yourself. Oddly they rarely suggested actually helping aside from donating.
Not that people didn't offer. People were constantly calling to volunteer ( CNN gave out our number for that too, CURSE YOU CNN ). We had to constantly explain that since a state of emergency was declared and the national guard was out, civilians were not allowed to enter the area. They were having enough trouble getting them out. Nevermind letting people in to try and find Muffy.
Still, Katrina was perhaps the most soulcrushing episode I've ever experienced at work. Not that we didn't get a WONDERFUL outpouring of support, but the fact we got so many SCs was VERY frustrating and dissappointing. Plus, since its a donation line, we're absolutely NOT allowed to go off on them, brush them off or otherwise deal with them as freely as we could on other lines. We could only politely endure while they jammed our lines and took time away from people who were actually trying to help.
It was both the most rewarding and most AGGRAVATING episode I've ever had as a CSR.
Anyone else ever run into SCs while doing something for charity?
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