Customer Care Transcript
A note about this transcript: The Moth is true stories told live. We provide transcripts to make all of our stories keyword searchable and accessible to the hearing impaired, but highly recommend listening to the audio to hear the full breadth of the story. This transcript was computer-generated and subsequently corrected through The Moth StoryScribe.
Back to this story.
Zellia Enjoli Tatiana - Customer Care
I’ve been a mail clerk for five years, and I wanted to try something new. And so, I took a test to become a mechanic, and I passed. But there were no open positions. And so, I thought I’d try my hand at being a customer care agent at the National Call Center for the United States Postal Service.
My first week of training, the hardest thing for me to master was the greeting. “Thank you for calling your United States Postal Service. My name is Z. To better assist you, may I have your name and zip code, please?” I was so used to saying, “Hello.” [audience laughter] I had to break out of that. And there were two rules. One, you had to say “Your United States Postal Service,” not The or USPS. And two, you had to repeat everything back. Say, for example, the caller says, “Hey, my name is Michael Greenlee. My zip code is 48215.” I have to say, “Thanks, Michael,” first name only and no “ma’am” or “sir,” you might get it wrong. “That was 48215, thanks. And how can I help?”
After four weeks of training, I get introduced to the workroom floor. I’m anxious. I’m nervous. I’m just a baby dragon. As we go out, I notice that there are carpeted floors. There are about 200 cubicle desks spread about with matching chairs. There are no windows. There's no paper allowed. It’s a paperless environment for security purposes. And as you look about, there are TVs mounted on the wall that show the call queue. When you get a call, there's a very high-pitched ding in your headset.
There are two main reasons why people dial the National Call Center. That’s complaints or compliments. Complaints or compliments. And guess which I got the most though? [audience laughter] You guessed it, complaints. And mostly, because America’s a little impatient, tad bit rude, [audience laughter] might be selfish, maybe entitled. [audience laughter]
One day, I took a call from a woman and her complaint, is that her carrier refuses to bring a 40-pound bag of cat litter to her sixth-floor apartment, [audience laughter] biweekly. I gladly document her concern, give her confirmation number and send her on her way. Another day, I take a call from a man. I start with my greeting, most politely. “Thank you for calling your United States Postal Service. My name--” and he cuts me off. And so, I know right off the bat that he’s upset. He’s been on hold for an hour, maybe more. Our hold music is the wackest. [audience laughter]
And so, I hear him out, I take some notes. When he's done, I explain to him, "I'll be helping you document what you've told me, so that we can forward it to your LPO, local post office. It'll be addressed and resolved." I said, "Spell your first and last name for me, please." He huffs. [huffs] "Yeah, P. You know, like pterodactyl." [audience laughter] So, I paused for a moment. "Okay, that was P as in pneumonia, correct?" [audience laughter] Okay, guy. This guy’s testing my competency. I can hear him chuckling under his breath. I'm smarter than you, guy. [audience laughter] So, imagine getting calls like that, and then getting calls where there are these long sequences of tracking numbers all day and people have no sense of cadence on top of that. [audience laughter]
One day, I took a call from a woman and her complaint is that her mail is being misdelivered. And as I'm documenting her issues, she starts to tell me some personal things from her life. She told me about how her doctor of over 30 years had ignored her complaint about a lump that formed at the top of her hairline. And she starts to get emotional as she says that that lump now weighs five pounds down her face. I'm the type of person, if I see someone cry, I cry. And so, on this call, I'm emotional too. And by the end of it, I try to regroup, and gather myself and it was just ding. No time. There was the next call.
And that wasn’t the only call I got like that. I got a lot of calls like that, from people who were ill or ailing, from people who were elderly, from people who were lonely and needed someone to talk to. And for me, that was the most difficult kind of call. I would look around at these other 199 desks and everyone else, this is a breeze. I mean, they’re just shooting through it. Everything’s fine. And not for me. It feels like I’m leaving work with the weight of the world on my shoulders. I can't just leave this here at work.
After about four days, I felt a bit bogged down. I felt a little depressed, like maybe this baby dragon needs somebody to talk to. [chuckles] And so, I sought out a therapist. She was super cool. She was down to earth. She had a brilliant sense of humor, like moi. [audience laughter] She listened to me intently for some time and then she said, "Z, you know you’re an empath." And I say, "Okay." She says, "Well, what that means is that other person’s emotions, you experience them exactly, identically." I think, back to work, they’re crying, I’m crying. I’m like, "Yeah, I do."
She says, "Yes, I know. And maybe this just isn’t the best position for you." And I think, who would’ve thought working at Customer Care could be so difficult?” And for me, it was. I’m back at work and I’m checking my emails before the shift starts. We get what’s called a flagship message. And it can contain any number of things, like system updates or software changes. It can tell you weather alerts. In this particular day, it says that there’s severe weather headed toward Texas, and there are two impending storms headed toward the lower United States, in Puerto Rico. I’ll read it. Take a moment.
It was September 20th when both those storms slammed into Puerto Rico. And immediately, the call queue burst at the seams for international and domestic calls. I wasn’t the only person that felt the gloom. When I looked around, everybody else was sad too. And the calls just kept coming. It was ding after ding. I took a call from a woman in Puerto Rico. And she said she was in the line at the grocery store. And so, I listen, I take some notes.
She says, “I finally reached the front of the line, and I’m hopeful.” And she says, “But there’s no food. There’s no water. The entire store is empty.” [sobs] I think, oh God, what can I do? I’m at my desk at the National Call Center, and my job is to document. But what do you do when someone’s concern is staying alive to the next day? It was ding after ding after ding. People were calling for batteries. People were calling for water, for food, for clothes, for medicine. It was just ding after ding. It was like people were calling 911 almost.
It was 06:30 one evening, [sobs] and I took my last call of the day. It was from a woman in Puerto Rico. She wanted to track a package. I think, easy enough. Long sequences of tracking numbers. And so, I track it for her. And in the background, very distinctly, I can hear a man’s voice. And he’s moaning. He’s groaning in pain. And the woman explains to me, that package, the package she’s calling for. “That’s his medication,” she says. “He needs it to survive.” And I’m heartbroken. I’m entirely helpless. All I can do is document what’s happening. And so, I do.
After so long, we couldn’t even do that, because the entire electrical grid in Puerto Rico failed. It failed leaving 3.4 million people without power. It was devastating. So many people died. So many people died. [sobs] I get home after a long week and I throw my keys on the counter and I think about how my therapist says, because I’m so emotional, maybe this job just isn’t the best fit, because I’m internalizing. I’m going home with these people in my thoughts and in my heart, which isn’t bad, she said. You know, just maybe a bit much for full-time work. [audience laughter]
I notice there’s a letter on the table as I throw my keys down. It has the blue eagle logo on it. So, I know it’s from work. I run over, snatch it off the table. It’s a letter about the mechanic position. And it asks me, will I accept? And I think, [screams] “God has heard my postal cries. [audience laughter] God has heard my postal cries.” Of course, I’ll accept. [sniffs] Of course. And so, I leave. I leave the National Call Center to become a maintenance mechanic, where I have tools, and I identify a problem and I fix it. I see it work immediately [chuckles], which is a total switch-up from being a customer care agent.
And just like there are people that can laugh their way through haunted houses, there are people that can work at call centers and let all the difficult interactions slide off their backs like water off a duck. I’m not one of those people. [chuckles and sobs] There’s no amount of training or scripting that can prepare you for a natural disaster or for any stranger that decides to dial 1-800-ASK-USPS. [audience laughter] I think best of all, what I’ve learned about myself, is that I’m so empathetic. It’s almost pathetic. [audience laughter]