Costume Craze

I started working at Costume Craze on September 11. A day that doesn't settle well with many Americans. Little did I know it would be a day I will always remember for different reasons. The first few days of work weren't bad; I talked to normal people, took orders for people and made some friends at work. Then as October started things started to get progressively worse. I had to answer more phone calls, reply to more emails, and inspect more returned costumes. Then all hell broke loose. 

People are "absolutely ridiculous" (a favorite saying from irate customers) about their costumes. I'v never had so many swear words directed at me before. When people would start yelling and swearing at me I wanted to tell ask them, "You know that getting this costume isn't a life or death situation right?" They would then reply saying how horrible the customer service is and go on and on about how I have ruined their sons Halloween, and I would say, "Then why are you acting like this!!" I personally ruined so many children's Halloweens. I know, I'm a horrible person. Of course it's not their parents fault who order the day before Halloween and their daughter doesn't have a costume because it didn't fit right. And of course it's not the dad's fault for entering the wrong billing address so his credit card was declined so the costumes never shipped out and he's just checking up on things the day before Halloween. Of course he "didn't" get the email we sent him two weeks ago to let him know the credit card was declined. Oh, my own kids have been wished a horrible Halloween by a swearing maniac because I ruined her Halloween.

There were problems that were caused by Costume Craze. For some reason 100's of orders never shipped out and the customer's weren't notified. (For the record the warehouse didn't tell Customer Service either.) Or the computer accidently intercepted a few packages for no reason. The packages got sent back to us making some people miss their parties. I would be a very upset customer if that happened to me. Even if things like this happen there's no reason to swear and use the dirtiest language you can muster. 

Then a miracle happened. Halloween was over! I didn't think I would live to see the day! Along with Halloween went all the crazy people. Well, I shouldn't say all, most of the crazy people. We still get a few nuts calling in. Today I answered the phone, "Hi this is Laura. How can I help you?" And the man answered, "I don't think there's a damn thing you can do to help me." I knew right off the bat it wasn't going to be a good phone call. 

However, after all this craziness, I came to enjoy the job. I was very ready to quit on Halloween. I was absolutely sick of hearing irresponsible people call in and try to blame everything on us. (My favorite line: "Oh so it's my fault I didn't read the terms and conditions?!" She wanted to return a wig, which we don't allow, and each customer has to comply with the term and conditions when placing an order. So of course it's our fault she didn't read them.) Halloween day was actually...fun. I started to enjoy the job again. And now it's really fun because, instead of getting 2000+ phone calls a day, we are down to 100. Now I can actually talk to my coworkers and have a break now and then. 

We had a Customer Service party last night were we got together for dinner and told funny stories about customers. I found out that one lady called back after talking to me and demanded she talk to a supervisor. She insisted that I laughed in her face and humiliated her daughter. Genevieve looked at the notes and noticed that I was the last one to talk to her and knew I wouldn't do something like that. The nerve of some people. (For the record I did have to hold in laughter from this lady because she said her daughter couldn't get the costume over her head and it left a funny picture in my mind. But I would never laugh out loud at a customer.) I was crying from laughing so hard at funny customer stories. We had a really good time being outside of Costume Craze.

After all of that, I've decided to continue working there until we move in December. My Manager asked if I wanted to stay on and I obliged. Now that the job is fun I want to stay so I don't have to search for another job. During the Halloween season we lost so many Customer Service employees. They were dropping like flies. Most of them left because they couldn't handle being yelled at and sworn at all day. I don't blame them. I don't know how I survived alive. There were 6 employees that were starting the day I started working. I was the only one that made it to Halloween. We had customers waiting on hold for 7 or 8 minutes because there were so many calls and so little employees. 

 

I'm actually proud of myself for sticking through it. There were many days I wanted to quit because I couldn't handle crazy people anymore. But I stayed. I sat through phone call after phone call of annoyed people asking me questions I couldn't answer. I took care of angry customers and talked them through situations. As Ja said, now I'll know how to tell people no, and how to reason with crazies, and to stand up for myself.  If anything this job has taught me a few things, how being a nice and understanding customer is so important, how unimportant things like costumes are to me but they are very important to other people, and that I never want to work customer service again. Sadly this job was probably one of the hardest things I've had to do in my life.