i might be fired?
 

I copied all the personal data from my computer and my IE favorites. Anything else I should do before I go? Not looking for revenge or postal ideas, just practical ones. If fired it really bites b/c I was about to go to another dept. where I w/not have to deal with customers. been here 5.5 years.

here's what happened, long version (cliff notes below): Last night at work this guy calls and wants to know what year to put when he cites a statute. I tell him that I can't advise him of that b/c that's the policy - we don't advise people how to cite things we help them find things but there's a whole 500 page book on how to cite stuff and not everyone uses the same rule book. and it's not even really clear for this particular document what to put -he wants to know the year but there are two years givenand I am not really allowed to advise him which one to use.

so he asks for my supervisor. I say there's no manager here at this time (4am). he wants my name. I give him my first name. he wants my last name. I decline to give it to him. he wants my badge number (we don't wear badges) so I decline to give him that. He asks to be transferred but the other ref. atty. is on another call and I don't want to burden here with him. so I ask if there's anything else I can do. he keeps asking me for stuff that I already said I wasn't going to give him. I keep asking if there's anything else I can do. Finally, I say that if there's nothing else I can do, I'm going to terminate the call.I repeated this at least three times. then I terminated the call.

So I show up at work today and there's my mgr. she gets my version of the call and then says she's going to have to talk to HR about it.

cliff notes customer demands service we don't provide; I decline; asks for mgr. and more info. than he needs to identify me. I politely terminate the call after several requests for him to tell me what else I can do. Mgr. is going to HR

Re: i might be fired?
 

people are awake at 4 am?

Re: i might be fired?
 

You work for Lexis or Westlaw I'm guessing?

Re: i might be fired?
 

You won't be fired pal. You'll just get a warning or something.

Re: i might be fired?
 

Why didn't you give him your info? I doubt you'd be fired if you haven't been a [censored] before, but I don't really know what happens with real jobs.

Re: i might be fired?
 

dont worry about it

Re: i might be fired?
 

I can't say exactly where I work but I help other people do legal research.

yes people are awake at 4am. - we get international calls as well as type As from the east coast where it's 5am at 4am and from the west coast when it's only midnite when it's two am. plus there's hawaii. and law students up at strange hours.

hopefully it will just be a warning or whatever but they wouldn't have to talk to HR to do that.

Re: i might be fired?
 

if you get a warning, tell us what it's for (i don't see anything in particular that you did wrong given the conditions)

Re: i might be fired?
 

I don't think you did anything wrong. If you get fired for something like that the place isn't worth working at anyways.

Re: i might be fired?
 

Do you guys record calls? If so, seems like you followed policy (right) so a warning should be the worst thing you get. However, if the 'customer' is related to a member of Congress you are screwed (probably for life).

Re: i might be fired?
 

I really doubt you get fired for that.

The only thing that comes to mind that you might have done differently is to tell the guy that your manager comes on duty at 8am (or whatever) and here is there name and phone number. And then politely ask him to call back then since there was nothing else that you could do for them. Maybe that's against your company's policy, I dunno.

Getting fired or even a warning for this would be weak. Is it possible that your manager is just talking to HR to cover everyone's butt?

Re: i might be fired?
 

what is the company's Policy and Procedure on how you are supposed to handle a situation like that?

Re: i might be fired?
 

Your only mistake was giving the person no other options: no last name, no manager, no other atty, etc. Always leave yourself a door to squirrel out of. You basically said "Nope, FU!" although I hope you were nicer about it.

If you do get fired, and assuming you have health insurance, first order of business is getting COBRA squared away.

Re: i might be fired?
 

I don't know why you would get fired for this.
I don't even know why you think you would get fired over this.

Sounds like a guy lodged a complaint and she has to do something about it.
If you are a good employee with a good track-record then they aren't going to fire you over one guy complaining.

Are you not over-reacting to this just a tad?

Re: i might be fired?
 

If you're a good employee, you won't get fired. If the guy lodged a complaint, then HR probably has to follow procedure and document it. Very worst is they put in on record that some guy didn't like you.

If you're a bad employee, then the company will use this against you now or sometime in the future to let you go.

So if you're a good employee, don't worry about it. If you're a bad one, then keep backing up your personal stuff.

Re: i might be fired?
 

[ QUOTE ]
I don't think you did anything wrong. If you get fired for something like that the place isn't worth working at anyways.

[/ QUOTE ]
If I got WARNED for that, I would quit for the exact same reason. Unless they give you another reason for receicing a warning anyway. I absolutely hate being blamed for something that I didn't do wrong.

Re: i might be fired?
 

I start every call with "this is Mike Santora, can I help you?" Then I don't have to deal with the "who am I speaking to" bull [censored] later if the guy wants to get belligerent when he's not getting the answers he wants.

When you refused to give your last name, it makes you look "guilty" somehow. Next time give the prick your name for crying out loud.

Re: i might be fired?
 

This sounds exceedingly standard, and was basically the policy in both inbound call centres I worked at. I can't see anything you did wrong. The guy was a tool, but he may have been a tool with connections.

Re: i might be fired?
 

OP has worked there for 5+ yrs.
How has he not learned that this can't possibly be a big deal?

Re: i might be fired?
 

[ QUOTE ]
OP has worked there for 5+ yrs.
How has he not learned that this can't possibly be a big deal?

[/ QUOTE ]

My guess is that the OP left out some important elements of the story.

Also, a friend of mine worked in a call-centre for awhile, and I remember him mentioning to me that hanging up on a customer under any circumstance was a firing offence.

Re: i might be fired?
 

Why do you think you're going to get fired here.

If a complaint comes to me about one of my employees, I'm obligated to follow up, but in so way does this seem fireable.

Re: i might be fired?
 

+they have previously fired someone for hanging up on customers. I heard it was multiple customers.

+they previously fired someone they day before they were going to another department. I am due to go to another dept. in about a month

+they wouldn't need to talk to HR to give me a warning. they do need to talk to HR to fire me, especially b/c I'm going to another dept.

+the customer is pissed and is making a stink, calling his acct. manager, etc.

+the dept. has a history of not backing up their employees. e.g. someone was sworn at, abused, etc. they wanted her to call the customer to apologize (this was a long time ago). another e.g. they used to want us to not give out a certain type of information but if someone got mad b/c you didn't give it you would get in trouble.

this could be a case of them just trying to scare me b/c they are unable to fire me as they are already having trouble finding someone to take my shift over when I leave and that's all they can do is scare me.

the dept does bite in certain respects. 98% of the customers are fine but it's the 2% that can drive you nuts. but it's a good co. as far as benefits and I'm all set to go to this other dept. which is not customer-facing.

the rest of the time that I'm there, customers can have whatever they want, regardless of dept. policy.

Re: i might be fired?
 

Why didn't OP simply explain that there are many different rulesets regarding citations?

Re: i might be fired?
 

"the rest of the time that I'm there, customers can have whatever they want, regardless of dept. policy."

This seems like a much better way to get fired.

If one rant from one incorrect customer is going to get you nuked, [censored] getting fired, leave, it's a horrible place to work anyway.

Re: i might be fired?
 

[ QUOTE ]
If you're a good employee, you won't get fired. If the guy lodged a complaint, then HR probably has to follow procedure and document it. Very worst is they put in on record that some guy didn't like you.

If you're a bad employee, then the company will use this against you now or sometime in the future to let you go.

So if you're a good employee, don't worry about it. If you're a bad one, then keep backing up your personal stuff.

[/ QUOTE ]

Agree completely.

Re: i might be fired?
 

[ QUOTE ]
Why didn't OP simply explain that there are many different rulesets regarding citations?

[/ QUOTE ]

that was practically the first thing out of my mouth. it didn't matter - he still wanted me to give him help on how to cite it.

--

also, responding to an earlier question that I missed, when I answer the phone I do give my first name initially.

I'm a good employee, know my fecal matter, but I still wouldn't put it past them to can my arse. the only other negative thing in my file is a couple of (literally two - one verbal one written) warnings about being late (e.g. 5 minutes late is a problem b/c it's a call center).

also - regarding whether I should follow policy or not - I'm not going to get in any trouble for giving customers what they want b/c they won't complain. but then it creates problems for my co-workers who then have to deal w/ customers who were given what they weren't supposed to be given or told what they weren't supposed to be told.

they do randomly record calls but I'm guessing they missed this one.

Re: i might be fired?
 

[ QUOTE ]

The only thing that comes to mind that you might have done differently is to tell the guy that your manager comes on duty at 8am (or whatever) and here is there name and phone number. And then politely ask him to call back then since there was nothing else that you could do for them.


[/ QUOTE ]

I work in support as well and this ^^^ is a pretty standard line. If you aren't allowed to give out the Mgr's info, you could tell the customer that you will take down his information and get it to your Mgr first thing in the morning (or whenever you Mgr gets to work).

This line is much better than "sorry I can't help you". But at least you were polite...right?

Re: i might be fired?
 

polite:

"sir, Is there anything else I can do?"
"what's your badge number?"
"if there's nothing else I can do then I'm going to terminate the call."
"what's your last name?"
"Sir, is there anything else I can do? otherwise, I"m going to terminate the call"

this went on x3 or x4 and then I said goodbye and hung up.

Re: i might be fired?
 

You probably should have just kept declining to give him your personal information. Just say I can't provide you with that information. If he asks you 100 times, decline it 100 times. If he is a customer you definitely should not have hung up on him.

Re: i might be fired?
 

You should have just kept him on the line. You were getting paid and he was wasting time badgering you. To me, this moment would be one of the great joys of the job.

Re: i might be fired?
 

We can't say what will happen with this guy because we don't know the corporate culture or what's going on in that place. Some places try to terminate people who have been around for a while, to cut costs, as those people are usually more highly paid, even if only by a little. Also, there may be things going on in the company at large that would make the bosses want to fire someone just to put a scare in the rest of the employees. Third bad possibility, someone in the chain of command has a gripe against this guy somehow. Fourth bad possibility, someone in the chain of command has a friend or a relative they would like to hire for or promote to the OP's job(OR the job he's moving to.)

There are tons of reasons to get fired that have nothing to do with whether you're actually good at your job.

Re: i might be fired?
 

[ QUOTE ]
You should have just kept him on the line. You were getting paid and he was wasting time badgering you. To me, this moment would be one of the great joys of the job.

[/ QUOTE ]

At some jobs you are expected to deal with X number of customers per hour, and graded on how many you can do, so some would have to get the guy off the line with all due speed.

But if that's not the case here, wasting some more time with him would definitely probably have been easier for the OP if he remembered that by backing up company policy, he was really the guy in the driver's seat, and he could just enjoy listening to the customer making an ass of himself. However, his company not backing up their employees makes it harder to do that, too. Still, it's better to get in trouble for following company policy than for having natural human reactions. It's easier to justify being a robot than a human.

Re: i might be fired?
 

[ QUOTE ]
You should have just kept him on the line. You were getting paid and he was wasting time badgering you. To me, this moment would be one of the great joys of the job.

[/ QUOTE ]
this thought crossed my mind also, but only after the call. I don't have to take X number of calls. My average talk time is supposed to be X and mine is fine so I I could have sat on the phone with him for two hours but he was just trying to yank my chain and have a power struggle. I shouldn't have let him yank it.

Re: i might be fired?
 

So are you screwed or what?

Re: i might be fired?
 

[ QUOTE ]
So are you screwed or what?

[/ QUOTE ]

Re: i might be fired?
 

I would not be good at that particular job. In response to a question about what year to insert into a statutory citation, my response would be "Hmmm. What I'm hearing is that you're not smart enough to interpret what I've already told you. I can repeat that if you'd like, but our company policy prohibits us from telling you precisely how to cite something. Is there anything unclear about what I've said?"

Re: i might be fired?
 

This is a "legal research firm"?
When you go to speak with HR, make sure they see you carring a folder marked "Wrongful Dismissal in
<u>(your state here)</u>

Re: i might be fired?
 

I'm a little surprised that the call center didn't advise you to use a psudonym for your last name.

The (only) call center I worked for way-back-whenever-it-was told us to use a fake last name with the same initial to appease the cranky-callers. I figured this was standard protocol. We also used fake names to sign on letters and such, particularly bulk letters that were signed by some made-up VP.

The fake executive names were a form of code for the nature of the call. If a certain caller demanded to speak with "Lynette Jensen" we knew the call was regarding a specific letter where only that name was used. Senior Vice President of Corporate Associate Affairs, or some such nonsense...

Re: i might be fired?
 

I work for an internet provider that does a large amount of hotels. This is all I do, talk in a headset and help people's tech support issues. Yes it is a sad job, but it is my current employment. Now obviously you deal with people that pay a lot more money than our clients, but I can totally relate when you tell someone "I can't help you because we do not support that." when all the customer does is argue back.

They act since you are the person they got on the phone my some miracle of punching in phone numbers you will fix everything for them. All I can say is it sounded like you stuck to your instructions, so you should be fine.

Re: i might be fired?
 

But what did you do wrong..