So story time.
I was part of an smaller insurance agency that also does taxes. There's four co-workers here. Fake names here but we'll call them Tom, (my boss/insurance agent/ tax agent), Nolan (insurance agent/tax agent) and Mary (CSR). I started working here right out of highschool, so I was pretty ignorant at the beginning. I am also a CSR and I worked here for five years. At first, the experience was overall fine. Busy at times but fine.
I did have a few complaints with company that I tried to get resolved. We had no official lunch breaks. We could take a lunch break but if a customer came in or the phone rang we had to stop and go back to work. Whenever I tried to have a lunch break, I was always got called back by my boss to work.
I tried to get teach Mary how to use her computer. It was like pulling teeth. She kept making one new tab, then exits out and never has multiple tabs up. I ask why she does that and she just said that's how she does it. And despite me trying to teach her, she never does so. I don't blame her, she's eighty. I have no resentment towards Mary. But it makes things frustrating when we both have the same job title but she can only do half the things I do. She can't even email a document. Despite these complaints, I soldiered through it. Mary and Nolan were nice enough to me. So I kept telling myself 'it could be worse'.
But then, it suddenly it did get worse. We bought another insurance agency and it's located in a city that has been described as as 'one of America's worst cities'. I'll let you guess which one. So the customers that we had from that agency, were local to the area and we were located in another town. And these customers were some of the nastiest people I've ever dealt with. I dealt with more harassment and verbal abuse after we bought that agency than I ever did in my whole 4 years before. I was called slurs, spat on by one of them and one customer stopped us from leaving the parking lot to go home.
Also the previous insurance agent who owned the business didn't do that good of a job. We've had multiple complaints from customers on how things should be covered because the old agent said so. But when checking the coverages, they didn't. If this wasn't just one, two or three incidents, it's multiple. All the Homeowners she had with one insurance company had super low coverage. And one customer has tried to take legal action since their Florida condo got destroyed by Hurricane Ian and they had basically state minimum and they claimed it's supposed to be fully covered like the old agent said. The customer who tried to stop us from leaving was mad because he had no towing coverage when his car got broke down and got towed. But I guess the old owner told him it had towing coverage. These clients were abundant and most of them were nightmares to deal with. It didn't help that if the previous agent did something wrong, the anger got taken out on either me or Mary since we dealt with their complaints.
And the amount of customers we had doubled the clients we currently had. I'm dealing with double the amount of work, on top of the stress that these new clients are giving me. I asked for a pay increase since the business expanded and we were doubling the amount of work we had and sometimes stayed overtime to get it taken care of. And for once, my boss actually listened to me. And my pay increase went up a whole 25 cents. 11.25 was my new payment every hour. I almost had a breakdown when I saw what my 'pay raise' was. I'm not asking for 50 dollars an hour but an increase of one whole quarter nearly had me screaming in frustration. The one time he listened and changed something and I just felt like I had gotten slapped in the face for even trying.
At this point I was getting fed up and what didn't help was my boss not listening to me when I suggested we get other employees to help. Another CSR or an insurance agent to help lighten the load. None of my complaints went through. He complains about how busy he is and never has time but then refuses to do anything to help. And during tax time, it only made the situation worse because we were super busy and barely had time to eat or help insurance clients. We were stressed and increasingly busy during tax season. My boss ended up behind on some taxes because the new insurance clients. Since August I was looking into other jobs. But around tax time, my efforts doubled to try and find one. I couldn't imagine working here for another year and putting up with all of this. And unfortunately, like many of you I was given the silent treatment for months from multiple places.
But thankfully, I was finally given confirmation about a new job. Better pay, paid time off, great health insurance benefits, a retirement plan just in case and I actually knew some of the people for this job and knew I could get along with them. I'm so thankful one of my best friends found this job and put in a good word for me. Also I don't have to deal with customers. So I won't get spat on again. I gave Tom my two week notice and he was surprised I was leaving. Which surprised me because I'm like, I've talked to you about issues that you never resolved. Obviously if you're not gonna do anything about the problems, I'm gonna look for employment elsewhere. He wanted to know why I didn't ask him about benefits that he could offer and I'm just like…you couldn't even offer a proper lunch break. Even McDonalds employee's I know get proper lunch breaks. What benefits or offers could possibly be that good? Thankfully he was smart to not mention pay increase because I would have chewed him out after his last 'pay increase'. He eventually realized I wasn't budging and let it go.
And I guess the reasoning for his panicking was because I wasn't the only one leaving. Mary has also gotten sick of all of this as well. She's worked here for 42 years and has seen a lot but told me all of this has been the most overwhelmed she's ever been with the company. She's also had to put up with the rude customers as well. The reason she continued working was because she liked it. But now she can't stand it. So she's finally going into retirement and good for her. I wouldn't want to still be working at her age. She also tried to get things changed when the new customers came in but her own requests were pushed aside. Now my boss is realizing two of his employees are leaving. He basically lost half of his staff. Nolan just writes insurance and does endorsements, he's not engaged with the customers like me and Mary are. The two people who handle things up front for his company are leaving suddenly and he has no other help for that area because he refused help.
If there's anything to take away from this story, it's never give up. Don't let people bring you down because you can find something better. There were multiple times I wanted to give up on job hunting and just accept no one wants me. But I did eventually find help through a dear friend of mine. And if you're a boss or manager of some kind, listen to your employees. Cause they're the cogs that keep your machine running and refusing to address their concerns will come to bite you back. Mary could have possibly stayed since she had way more loyalty to the company than I ever did but even she had a breaking point when she got ignored. And instead of just losing me, he lost the person who's worked here the longest.
I'm really loving the job I have so far. The people are great and the tasks are manageable. Plus I have a team that help out way more and knows what to do. I don't know how my old work is doing and honestly I don't want to know. Never heard who they got to replace or if they got someone to replace. I know Mary's left the office since she posts on Facebook and she's now spending more time with grandkids.
TLDR: Boss purchased another agency, customers were hostile, none of our complaints were heard, the pay increase was 25 cents, me & employee of 42 years leave because we got sick of not being heard.