Customer service insanity

So I’m back now from my silly little conference thing in San Jose. It’s good to be back. 

I was doing a different job down there than I normally do at these things. I was checking in all the conference attendees. Every attendee has to have a badge. The badge has their name, their company, and also a barcode that all the sales reps in the exhibit can scan to retrieve their contact information and begin spamming them with marketing emails. Depending on what part of the meeting they’ve signed up for, the attendees also get various handouts: technical programs, exhibit guides, junky tchotchkes branded up and down with sponsor logos. 

The badges and handouts have to be printed and distributed on site, and I was the guy working the station where that all happens. I had help from some locally based temp workers, but I either oversaw or personally handled the preparation of a badge for each and every attendee, of which there were about 2,500. My station was also, by default, an information desk for the entire event. 

It’s the most customer service I’ve ever done or ever hope to do in my entire life. It was a veritable marathon of politeness, attentiveness, consideration, professional empathy, good-natured problem-solving, hospitality, and all the other shit that any sensible person would hate to do for hours on end.  

It’s not so much that the people were unpleasant to help. Overall, the clientele at these events is quite appreciative. What bothered me was simply that they were there. It wasn’t their manner I had a problem with, but their very existence. 

Every one of them wants to talk to you (legitimately enough), and they want you to talk in return. I need my badge. I lost my badge. Can I register here? I lost my program. Where’s the poster session? What time is it? I need a receipt. Why didn’t I get a lunch ticket? I left my underwear in China. Is it going to rain tomorrow? Where’s the nearest Starbucks? 

I don’t mind answering these questions at first, but once I’ve answered each of them a few dozen times, I’m tapped out. In a given day I can handle 115 distinct interactions, tops. That number lowers considerably when we’re talking about politely professional interactions. At some points during this event I was having upwards of 100 politely professional interactions in a single hour. I can make it happen when I need to. But it hurts.

By the end of it I was ready to completely lose it on the most respectful customers. We got our huge rush of registrants on the first two days of the conference, but late-comers continued trickling in for two days afterward. By the third day my movements and verbal responses had become so robotic that I worried a small slip in my wiring would make me go berserk on some poor little Japanese man who had flown all the way from Nikon HQ. The only thing he wanted was his registration packet, but I just wanted to strangle him for making me do and say what I had already done and said about a million and a half times.  

I began scanning the convention hall for people who had that look in their eyes—that look that said they were approaching me with a question I had already heard eight times in as many minutes. They were walking straight toward me, and they were going to make me talk, god damn their filthy hides. When the moment of truth came and I actually opened my mouth to reply, I found my voice catching here and there as I restrained myself from lashing out with irrational and nonsensical verbal abuse.

I’m back home now, though, and thanking god I don’t do that stuff for my regular job. But there are many who do. My few days of customer service torture gave me some insight into the peculiarities you observe in these people. I’ve noticed that flight attendants frequently leave inexplicable pauses in their scripted PA announcements. Example: 

“Attention passengers, portable electronic devices may once again be used at this time, although any device that sends or receives a signal must remain powered off for the duration of the flight. Cabin service will commence shortly, but for now we just ask that you sit back, relax, and . . .

. . .

. . .

. . . enjoy the flight.”

It always perplexed me. She can’t have forgotten what she was going to say—she’s said it a hundred thousand times. Now I realize that it’s precisely because she’s said it a hundred thousand times that she pauses for so long at such a strange moment. The robotic speech just becomes too much for her. She’s momentarily staring into a very deep and very dark abyss. She’s thinking about murdering all the passengers and then blowing her own brains out right after. 

I now have so much more sympathy for the poor girl.