“Well, this is going back a few years when I was supervisor of a company that dealt with customers on a very personal basis. We hired a new woman. She had a fair degree of responsibility in dealing with customers. Her problem was she didn’t have the personality for it. She was nice on the phone, but every time she hung up, she would say something nasty about them.
For example… hangs up ‘That was Mrs. Jones – the bottle blonde. She dyes her hair but thinks nobody knows.’
She did this all the time. I finally spoke to her and said ‘These people are our customers. And human beings. Let’s be a little more respectful.’
So one day she’s on the phone with a valued customer. She hangs up and goes on a tirade about his customer.
‘That was Mrs. Abernathy – I hate dealing with that old bag.’ and she continued on, calling this woman several names, and disparaging her family.
I was a little ticked off by her attitude. However, turns out that when she put the phone down it didn’t hang up properly and Mrs. Abernathy was still on the other end. She heard everything this woman said.
The next day, She came into the office and asked to see me. She rattled off everything this woman said. I apologized to Mrs. Abernathy and told her she was a valued customer, and that personally, I thought she was a beautiful person.
I then went into the next room and promptly fired the offending woman.”
