I started a new job in January, working a large, locally owned furniture store.
I went through the interview process with no actual red flags, which surprised me. It is family owned and I never heard even a slight variation of “We are a family here.” Which was okay. The pay range for my position in customer service is $15 to $20 per hour, which is high for the area, but still not really enough. There was a yellow flag when they never mentioned pay in the interviews, but then again, as I am new to customer service, I was expecting the lower end of that scale. I was right.
I get in and find out that I am coming in to a restructured service center. Like, the old customer service team was only 3 people, handling hundreds of service requests and payments and other issues. 2 of the people had found better work, but had stayed on for 4 years, so I though “This was hectic, but they are doubling the team, and they stayed on for 4 years. That has to mean something.”
I get settled into a role of Service Coordinator. We have a small tech team that does work on appliances and furniture, and I am to manage their schedule, order their parts, touch base with in-process customers, and a laundry list of other duties. From early on, I saw that this role has 3 times the responsibilities of the other positions in the office. But, I have been a chef and restaurant manager before this. This should be easy, right?
The following has happened throughout my stay at this job. Customers are nasty to me. This place has (deserved) bad reviews because of the lack of customer service over the years. I expected some vitriol, as I mentioned, with such a small team, nothing is going to get taken care of quickly. But these customers would attack me personally, like aggressively so. In my first month, I was called incompetent from someone I had never spoken with. I was told I need to die, that they hope I have a stillborn, that they hope my grandparents die and no one will help them. Nasty people.
I took it on the chin. Getting worn down day by day.
Recently, as of last week, my fiance had to fly to see her family for her sister's graduation. I couldn't take the time off to go with her, but I still had to take a day to take her to the airport and try to mentally recover, as we are very close and we both have mental illness.
I get back to work and there is a massive pile of things for me to do, on my desk. No one, in the one day I was gone, could be bothered to offer any help. I call people, order parts, stay late. Do what I have to do to get caught up. But the problem is that, I can't. We have more and more tickets coming in to get processed, and I can't keep up with the incoming as well as in process. I get told that I need to focus on the customers (by customers) and even if I would mention that I was out due to family matters, I was told that they do not matter, and that I should called them back the day I was gone.
Side note. Do not buy appliances or furniture right now. The economic situation aside, the major companies like Ashley, General Electric, and Samsung are lowering quality standards right now to ship units and catch up to pre-Covid. Everything is shipping with issues, like dents, burned out motors, missing parts. It is rarer to get a unit with no issues and runs well.
This all leads to yesterday. I have such a backlog that my phone is ringing constantly. I have customers complaining, saying that we have more availability than in the next 4 weeks. Samsung calling about orders that they called about and wasted an hour of my time the day before. Massive stacks of parts I have to get checked in and organized that day (literally like 120, with a convoluted check in process). I ended stepping outside for a minute to get fresh air and beat my head against the wall for a little bit. I cried and curled up. Then I went back to work.
12:30 hits, and I was told by the senior in the office that I am my technicians' boss. I am not. I am not paid enough, and they are on commission, they can tell me no. People bring me more work and Samsung calls again.
I break down. I gather my things and storm out of the office.
My boss, who saw me leaving, demands me stay and talk with him. He is young, having just turned 24. He is really a nice guy, but he doesn't know how to lead and over-delegates work. I think this is, in part, that the owner puts too much on him.
I aired all of my grievances. I told him everything from since I hired. It took me 10 minutes to do it. I know some of it got through, because I didn't blame him. He offered to move me to a different role and I said “So what will happen? The new girl you just hired will be rotated into mine? And she will quit! This role is too much for any person to handle. If I still can't catch up when I missed a single day, last week, that is not my problem!”
I am still trying to decide if I need to go back. I can't text someone that I quit. I have always been a face-to-face kind of person. But I am so burnt out, and it has only been 4 months. Hell, here soon my fiance is starting on a new degree, and we are moving states for it. I can't survive without money. She doesn't work right now, so it has been tight, even with limited financial help from the state. Financially, I can't afford to leave. Emotionally, I can't afford to go back.
I love this capitalist doom spiral.
TLDR: I walked out of my job yesterday in a mental breakdown. I still don't know whether to go back or not.