Threats

Okay so there was the shooting in Colorado last week and then today the cops raided a guy's house in MD who threatened to shoot up his office. They found 20 guns including a few rifles and assault weapons. This really makes me rethink those phone conversations back as a customer service rep.

No one ever calls a health insurance company when they're happy. In training they'd play calls but it was always to show us how fast we needed to be in locating information on the computer. Even when they played a "problem" call it was someone who sounded slightly annoyed. "Well gosh darn it, I just think this is unacceptable." I sat in training like, "I got this in the bag."

I quit after just three hours on the phone. My first call was that "gosh darn it" call and that was the nicest person I talked to the entire time I worked there. Every call after that was, "You stupid sons of b*tches!" After about 30 of those, I grabbed my coat, took my lunch out the drawer, logged out the computer and left my badge on the desk. I went outside and got in my car and just as I was about to pull off I thought about the fact that our fridge was empty and my wife was unemployed. I hung my head, grabbed my keys out of the ignition and went back inside.

I didn't get my first death threat until maybe day 4 or 5. The guy was mad because his policy was canceled after 4 months of nonpayment. He "ordered" me to reinstate his policy and when I told I couldn't he told me he was on his way up with a gun and was gonna blow my brains out. It was my first non-hood death threat, so I was a little nervous. I asked my cubemate if I should notify someone and she shrugged it off with, "They always say that." Just in case, I developed an exit strategy of tossing the computer monitor and chair out the picture window next to me and jumping into the tree outside the window. I even started parking my car underneath so that I could land on/fall through the roof.

By the end of my three years I probably got about a hundred subsequent death threats. As much as I wanted to, I never said, "You do know that we record these calls right? You also should know that all of the information that you put on your file is on my screen right now. So, John Smith of 123 Paper Street with wife Jane Smith who works at 111 Main street and has a daughter Jill who goes to ABC University are you really threatening me when all you know is my first name?" I never said it because I like having a job. Considering what I've seen on the news lately, I think I might have taken the people a little more seriously.