elfination

In other news….

My amazing manager, whose image should be worshipped, whose wonderful countenance should be engraved upon marble and set on pedestals in my house… has gotten my vacation approved.

Oh yeah baby I’M GOING TO MYRTLE BEACH!!! 

*oh yeah* *oh yeah* *oh yeah*….. (doing the cabbage patch)

My manager, Tony, is the absolute freakin’ BEST.  After I got talked down at by one of the other managers (Ralston), Tony took my vacation form and fixed everything. 

Ralston is a jackass.  Who called me “honey”.   (LISSIN HERE BITCH, just because you’re GAY doesn’t mean you can call me HONEY or talk to me like I’m TWO.)

Incidentally, after Ralston was such a dick to me, I went back to him with my most professional face on and said, “Ralston, I came to you with a question.  I asked the question because I did not understand something.  I AM YOUR CUSTOMER, and when you said, ‘Honey, you need to be quiet and LISTEN to what I’m saying because I already explained it three times,’ it made me feel belittled, hurt, and very angry.  You spoke to me like my MOTHER might have spoken to me.  When I got back on the phone and had to explain something to a customer a few times, I felt terrible.  Here I am, giving a customer my absolute attention and care, and I didn’t even get that from a MANAGER here.  Maybe you aren’t the person I needed to ask.  Maybe you’ve explained this to someone else.  But I DID come to you, and as your customer, I should have been treated with more patience and respect.  Sometimes things need to be explained a different way to be understood properly, and if I am belittled BY A MANAGER when I ask a question about something I do not understand, what kind of workplace is this?  I deserve to have every Team Lead, every manager, and every representative of this company treat me with AS MUCH RESPECT as I give our CUSTOMERS on the phone, and I did not receive that treatment from you.”

Granted, Ralston doesn’t fucking GET IT.  He complained again that he’d explained it to me and if I couldn’t understand it that’s not his problem.. . . something about he couldn’t be bothered with people who come to him with preconceived notions about whatever, etc… I refrained admirably from hitting him.

“I understand it now, but do not judge my intellect based on partial information that I was given by other people who directed me to you.  I was led to an incomplete understanding, and when you began to explain, I thought I understood it.  However, you said something that was DIFFERENT from what I had PREVIOUSLY been told by TEAM LEADERS.  That is where I required clarification.  Ralston, this is Technical Support, and I’d wager HALF of the calls I get are not my problem.  The other half of the calls require re-explaining things that customers don’t understand.  Things that customers were only given partial information about from other departments then transferred.  If I said to ANY customer what you said to me, I would be fired on the spot.  I ALSO deserve to not be spoken to in that manner.”

He said something like, “I’m sorry if I ….”  … (um not if but when but close enough I guess.)  Then he said something about how I SHOULD be able to come to him with this kind of thing, if he offended me, then I should be able to tell him that…. (well, don’t fucking pout and think that I went over your head.  I ain’t runnin’ to mommy, I’m telling you off first.) …… then he said something about how he was sorry he didn’t have more patience with letting me tell my “little story about what you were told”.   (Oh…. Fuck you, asswipe…. I didn’t come to you to tell you “a little story”, I came to you with a fucking legitimate question.)

“I just would like us to get past our previous superficial misunderstanding,” I explained. “This is a big company and I do have desires to move up within it.  I may work directly for you in the future, and I do not want there to be bad blood between us.”  

(And you had better take note, biznatch, that I will stand up for myself, even to you.  Especially to you.  You shall not tread one toe over this line.)

I am just proud of putting that much more titanium in my spine.  :)  Because I was shaking all over when I was done telling Ralston off.  And it turns out that there was a team leader, Matt, standing behind me who heard a good part of what I said.   HAH!!  Don’t let it be thought that I don’t have integrity and balls like steel grapefruits.

And after all that hard work and growth and assertion of boundaries, I was rewarded with my vacation being approved.  Thank GOD.  Because I was gonna call out sick anyway. 

–Em