I work for a major bank, I do member resolution and helpline stuff, which basically means that I deal with everyone from the worst Karen you can imagine to the sweetest old lady who just wasn't helped properly… or the brand new agent who just doesn't understand a regulation and needs some guidance.
It's not my 'true passion' (I write novels, that's what I love to do and will do till I die), but it does offer consistent pay, plus, honestly, I don't 'hate' the work. I do see real value in what I do because I can genuinely help people.
Everything from refunding fees to educating people on avoiding scams, I take my job seriously because people depend on the bank to do the right thing, and while this one is pretty good about it, sometimes its various departments drop the ball.
I had somebody on the line last week who was struggling to help a customer, they'd been locked out of their account for three straight weeks and couldn't access their paycheck because it was direct deposited into their account. The reason their account was locked was due to a fraud investigation.
However the fraud investigation was cleared two and a half weeks ago… and it had just never been updated to restore access.
After looking through all the documentation I found that every time the person called, the representative before me had just submitted a request to the fraud department to restore the account to normal status so the person could you know…buy food and…. pay rent…. etc. Each time this request was submitted, the fraud department said 'oh well yes this should have access restored' but then they didn't ever actually DO IT.
So I submitted the request just like the others… only I was scathing. And then for good measure I sent an email to the manager who handled that team giving them the full story, referencing the member and letting him know that this was entirely contradictory to basically 100% of our collective jobs. I wasn't 'scathing' with that one since they didn't have direct eyes on it, but I made sure he knew he needed to make sure this one was done right finally.
I got a call the next day from my supervisor telling me that the fraud department complained about my 'unprofessional message' and I was to get reprimanded because it 'violated their expected standard'.
Hmmm… exclamation points and capitalization violate professional standards… but letting work sit unfinished for three weeks and leaving someone unable to buy food or pay rent or buy gas or anything else life requires… that doesn't?
I told my supervisor that I'll happily take the reprimand because somebody has got to get angry enough to advocate for people when our own company fails them, and that the simplest way to avoid that situation is for people to do what they're doing… correctly… so they don't screw other people over.
Rant over. As much as I've seen the value in my work in the past, I'm hoping I can quit it this year as my book sales go up.