Just wait until I take my break, then start telling me all about it.
I’ve spent quite a lot of time in my career in customer service, which as you know is a really bad thing, because I’m horrible at it. People can sense it with me when I’m on the phone with them. They can feel the gritted teeth, the sarcastic tone, and they can see the eye rolling through the phone. You have probably noticed how horrible the customer service has been around this blog for a while too.
Just imagine that I’m like the guys and girls from The Office. I’m pretty much in auto phone answering mode like Pam, when she answers the phone. “Ben’s Bitter Blog, this is Ben.” You can hear the voice, but there is just no enthusiasm in it. You can probably imagine I’m Stanley on the other side of the internet. You are talking, but I’m just filling out my crossword puzzle.
I’m like Jim, telling you about my job. I give people quotes about paper, the size of it, the weight, telling them if it is in stock. I’m boring myself, just talking about it. But mostly I’m like Creed. I have no idea what I’m doing here. If someone actually backed me into a corner, to explain it, I wouldn’t really know what to tell them.
I used to actually be pretty good at customer service around here. I would post almost every other day. I would answer comments right away. I would follow other people’s blogs and make comments. Nowadays, the customer service is really bad. I sometimes get a post or two in a week. (Can never miss a Friday Giftures post, but other than that, pretty sporadic.) I blame others. If it wasn’t for all those people that rejected my job applications, I would be sitting in an office, slaving away for 20 or 30 minutes a day, while the rest of the time, writing posts, answering comments, visiting other people’s posts, writing comments on their blogs, and coming up with ideas for things that make me bitter while in meetings.
Don’t they know that a productive blog starts with having a job that makes you bitter? Instead, I’m sitting here watching my stats fall in real time. My blog is suffering like a sick guy having the flu in winter, watching the seconds tick by with gray clouds and cold weather outside his window. And the eyes are rolling on the other side of the screen, wondering when is the true bitterness going to come out.
Followers of this blog are asking, “When am I going to be able to rant again and get an actual answer within a week so there is some sort of bitter momentum to this conversation?” The bitter sarcasm doesn’t seem to be near as lethal. The gritted teeth you’ve come to expect just aren’t grinding to a pulp like they used to.
Don’t worry, though. Someday, that sarcasm, that eye rolling, that teeth gritting will return. You will feel it through the internet again. You will feel your keyboards heat up, you will feel that deep, painful, darkness in your soul again. Just be patient. It will bring you to new lows someday when you least expect it, and it will come more powerful than ever.
So go ahead and comment about this. I’ll get back to you in a day or three.
ARRRRRGGGGGGHHHHH
Bitter Customer Diservice Ben
Ben's Bitter Blog 
I had to take a read of this blog after seeing the tags “customer service, humor, rant”! That’s quite an interesting selection that is guaranteed to draw most people in!
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You better believe it. This whole thing started when I was sick of my old job of answering the phones all day and had so much bitterness from not only being customer service but also getting poor customer service. I think that word is so poor in describing it.
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Most companies claim to have great customer service and constantly talk about how their customers are number 1 etc. This is frequently fairly true, that is until something goes wrong. When the rubber meets the road, this is where the true customer service experts rise to the top. Take a look at this blog that I wrote about what to do when the going gets tough. Enjoy! https://expecttheexceptional.wordpress.com/2016/09/08/customer-service-in-difficult-situations/
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I was in customer service for 20 years and you think I was any good at it? I only liked when people called for quick orders or had no problems. I was the absolute worst when someone had a problem. Customer service is such a joke, because either the customer is a jerk and didn’t deserve so they are essentially a grown up whiny baby, or the customer service rep is a jerk and then the person calling doesn’t ever want to call again. It is such a fallacy.
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hey Ben, I really enjoyed this post!
I agree with you good customer service can be very elusive. Without being too specific and giving away my age…I can say that I worked in customer service for 10+ years. I wrote a post about my search for a moving company. Take a look whenever you get a chance. http://palmtreesandloyalties.wordpress.com
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I won’t give away my age either, but it is 44. I worked for customer service for like 20 some years and I was the worst at it. No one was happier that I got out of it than me…and all my customers.
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too funny!! By the way, I want to subscribe to your blog but I’m having trouble. I will keep trying though. It doesn’t seem to want to accept my email address. Please let me know. palmtreesandloyalties@gmail.com
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I really want you to subscribe. Are you trying to do it by email? You can also hit the subscribe button on the side or follow through reader. I’ll give it a try if you want to get email.
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Yay it worked! Thanks Ben. 🙂
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Good thing. Now I will have one more follower in my collection of people. My bitter army increases!
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I enjoyed this post; I’ve had major questions about customer service lately and whether it is obsolete. Here’s a post I wrote about it, enjoy! https://expecttheexceptional.wordpress.com/2017/03/30/is-customer-service-going-out-of-style/
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Customer service is terrible around my blog, because I spent a good part of my career trying to do customer service and I’m not a people person, so I was terrible at it. Even worse on my blog. I can’t wait to hear about your terrible customer service experience.
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SERIOUS QUESTION: how IS your new job?
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I wish I had a good answer, but I don’t have a job yet. It’s been a bitter time, believe me, but as soon as I get one, I’m sure I will be talking about it.
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I prefer my customer service bitter, ranty, and lacking enthusiasm. It reassures me I’m dealing with a human being…
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Oh my gosh, I guess you know this is not from a computer…malfunction…malfunction…
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I really wasn’t going to comment…but I had to…I had to start typing…
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Yeah, I can’t help but respond. It’s like my fingers won’t stop despite my utter refusal to do it….
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You’re getting there!
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I’m really working hard on not responding to people. I’m kind of failing now.
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I’m glad it’s not just me.
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Has yours been going down lately like mine? I can barely get to a comment for like three days now.
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It’s my schedule these days. I’m getting squeezed from all sides. I can barely find time to brush my hair.
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Schedules are so painful. Why do people continue to make us schedule things? I mean shouldn’t we just be blogging all the time and responding to comments?
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I guess that would mean we’d be professional writers/bloggers and get paid for it and stuff like that.
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Yeah, exactly. We need to start getting paid for this shizz.
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Hell, I’d pay us.
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I would too if I had any money.
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One of the things I’ve always appreciated about your blog is that you do respond to comments. Many don’t. Try this, shorter posts. Limit it to 50 or 100 words. That way you will be able to maybe produce many more shorter rants, than 1 long bitter one. But you probably already know that.
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I should do shorter posts. That would make way more sense. Especially when all my posts that are really long, and they start making less sense.
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Creed has always been my favourite character on The Office. He is amazing.
I like how you and I wrote somewhat similar posts. Good job, us.
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Yeah, we are pretty awesome in that way. I always liked no one really knew what Creed did at the Office.
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So that’s why! Great explanation. I hope you get a job soon so you can resume your awesome customer service here. When I was a teacher, so busy that I thought teaching took over everything, I actually was a better blogger — because I knew that my time was my own and I could always grade those essays later. Now I work a normal 8-5 job and find I am much like you, unable to attend to a blog as I’d like. The problem is, I love my job. Maybe if I were bitter about it, I would be a better blogger.
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That is the problem. You need to start not liking your job so much. Perhaps you could start looking for a worse job?
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Yeah, my stats have fallen too…guess I suppose that could be due to the fact that I haven’t blogged in months.
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I have no idea why that would make your stats go down…
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“Don’t they know that a productive blog starts with having a job that makes you bitter? Instead, I’m sitting here watching my stats fall in real time.”
It’s so true!!! No one seems to want to read about positive, happy stuff. Ever since I started dating Seth, my stats have plummeted. I have less than half the daily readers that I used to, which makes me blog less, which further drops my stats.
For a while, I tried to post about the happy stuff going on in my life, but all my readers (through their absence) were like: “Nobody wants that! Bring back the bitterness and sarcasm!”
Fortunately, I still hate my job. So now I’m mostly writing about my job instead of my relationship status… until I’m unemployed this time next month… and then I guess I can blog bitter posts about my unemployment. AAAARRRRGGGGHHH Acerbic Aurora
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Isn’t it ironic? People not wanting to hear about happiness? Yeah, your job just seems to be an endless amount of bitterness. That boss of yours makes me so mad. I mean really? A boss that thinks you are incompetent? Seriously. You are the best and she is the worst. They don’t deserve you.
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This is a happiness-free zone!!! Fortunately, you and I have enough bitterness to get us through even the dry spells of blogging material where life is actually going smoothly.
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Yeah, for those few good times that we go through, we have all the backlogging of the material built up inside.
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You could rename it Ben’s Partially Happy blog. Or Maybe Ben’s Slightly Dissatisfied But not Quite Blog.
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Nah, those seem to be so hard to write. And I’m pretty busy being bitter all the time. So I’ll just stick with it being Ben’s Bitter Blog.
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You never know when you will be in need of a new title. I have been Pastor Wrinkles for a while now. It’s almost time to upgrade to Pastor Decrepit…Pastor Dust… Pastor Really Really Close To Eternity?
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I don’t know if I will ever be able to shake the Bitter Ben title. Basically because I won’t let it die.
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I know my Pastor Wrinkles posts are not just something I write they are something I am.
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Just like the posts I write are something I am, not just something I write. Similarities!
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Indeed.
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That’s ok, Ben. Keeping your readers bitter because you don’t comment is actually genius. That way they will be expecting your return. They will be saying, “This guy annoys me but let me see what happened to him so I can be even more bitter!” Stats problem solved!
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See how good I am? Only took me three or four days to get back to you.
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I understand being bitter takes up a lot of your time!
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Exactly. I’m going to need people to be more understanding of this and not schedule me to work and do other things.
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Bitterness is your #1 priority.
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And it needs to start being everyone else’s priority too.
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It is. Americans are very bitter!
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I now need to start working on getting other countries to start being bitter.
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They are. Germany has joined the list!
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They do a good job at being bitter. I think the Russians are climbing the list too.
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I am either on the phone or away from my desk
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But I’m sure you’ll get back to me as soon as you can.
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Don’t hold your breath Ben
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I would never hold my breathe. There isn’t enough air and other people keep hogging it.
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