On many lines, call takers talk down to the callers. They treat them like little children who need to be corrected, told what to do and given trite little cliches. And don’t you dare question any of it, or you’re in the wrong.
I was telling a call taker about how I was having trouble finding support. She told me in the most trite way possible that “The only person who can motivate you is YOU!”
What a piece of trite nonsense. Everyone needs support. Pretending that anyone can take on the world by themselves is a complete myth.
I told her that it was condescending to say that when I just told her that I was looking for support. She gaslighted me and told me that she wasn’t saying that it wasn’t OK to look for support.
But it’s in the context of looking for support that I said that. When I tried to explain that, she got hostile and told me that I’m misunderstanding. She said it over and over that I was misunderstanding.
I know this particular line has a pretty good feedback line where I can call a supervisor and generally get a real person to complain about someone. I’ve done it before. I was thinking about doing it again. That gave me the courage to speak up.
I told her, is it possible that maybe you’re misunderstanding me? Can it only be that I’m misunderstanding you but not that you’re misunderstanding me? She says that she’s understanding me fully but I’m not understanding her. Again, demeaning.
I said it one more time that in the context of trying to get support, it’s demeaning to say that the only person who can motivate you is YOU.
Then she got into salty tone and told me she would listen. I told her the difficulty I was having finding support.
She apologized for the “misunderstanding” earlier and told me that she hope I find the support. I thanked her for the well wishes.
I’m glad I stood up for myself. I probably would not have if I didn’t know this line didn’t have a decent feedback system.
This call line system is completely BROKEN. It needs more oversight. It needs more feedback systems. It needs more people to care about it, wheih generally means more funding
