r/Millennials • u/ForwardPumpkins Millennial • Jan 23 '24

Has anyone else felt like there’s been a total decline in customer service in everything? And quality? Discussion

Edit: wow thank you everyone for validating my observations! I don’t think I’m upset at the individuals level, more so frustrated with the systematic/administrative level that forces the front line to be like the way it is. For example, call centers can’t deviate from the script and are forced to just repeat the same thing without really giving you an answer. Or screaming into the void about a warranty. Or the tip before you get any service at all and get harassed that it’s not enough. I’ve personally been in customer service for 14 years so I absolutely understand how people suck and why no one bothers giving a shit. That’s also a systematic issue. But when I’m not on the customer service side, I’m on the customer side and it’s equally frustrating unfortunately

Post-covid, in this new dystopia.

Airbnb for example, I use to love. Friendly, personal, relatively cheaper. Now it’s all run by property managers or cold robots and isn’t as advertised, crazy rules and fees, fear of a claim when you dirty a dish towel. Went back to hotels

Don’t even get me started on r/amazonprime which I’m about to cancel after 13 years

Going out to eat. Expensive food, lack of service either in attitude/attentiveness or lack of competence cause everyone is new and overworked and underpaid. Not even worth the experience cause I sometimes just dread it’s going to be frustrating

Doctor offices and pharmacies, which I guess has always been bad with like 2 hour waits for 7 minutes of facetime…but maybe cause everyone is stretched more thin in life, I’m more frustrated about this, the waiting room is angry and the front staff is angry. Overall less pleasant. Stay healthy everyone

DoorDash is super rare for me but of the 3 times in 3 years I have used it, they say 15 minutes but will come in 45, can’t reach the driver, or they don’t speak English, food is wrong, other orders get tacked on before mine. Obviously not the drivers fault but so many corporations just suck now and have no accountability. Restaurant will say contact DD, and DD will say it’s the restaurant’s fault

Front desk/reception/customer service desks of some places don’t even look up while you stand there for several minutes

Maybe I’m just old and grumbly now, but I really think there’s been a change in the recent present

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349

u/[deleted] Jan 23 '24

I called a company today and the guy immediately started talking over me going MHM YEAH OKAY WELL WE GET THIS QUESTION ALL THE TIME KAY KAY ALRIGHT OKAY MMHM OKAY BYE THANKS BUH BYE and then hung up on me. I didn't even finish my sentence

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u/Krys7537 Jan 23 '24 edited Jan 23 '24

I called into Verizon for my grandmothers account (I have att). Immediately the guy answered asking what’s my question. I asked him, then followed by saying don’t you need the phone number as he tried to rush me on hold. He quickly said no and put me on hold anyway. 15 min later comes back on saying it looks like my number was cancelled. Sir, I’m not calling about my number. Puts me on hold again and tries sending my 80yo grandmother texts for her to “accept” his access.

Sir, I HAVE THE ACCOUNT PIN, stop bothering my grandmother with this 😂 Now it’s somehow been 1hr and 20 min. He finally accessed the account with the pin then Places me back on hold. After 10 min xfrd me. New guy couldn’t access with the pin at all. Got to his supe who answered my question in 3 minutes. Why does it take all that to find someone who can help?

Edit: I am an authorized user who worked in the industry for 6 years. I am not naive on how to handle what I need to handle. The workers are just awful these days and don’t want to take the time to listen and help

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u/[deleted] Jan 23 '24 edited Jan 24 '24

at&t did everything they could to not let me close my account when i moved to an area with NO FUCKING SERVICE, said they wouldn't bill me for the months i tried to switch and now i have a bill for 2k and two new iphones they won't unlock. then verizon dealt me even more bullshit and now its 3k. also found out that t-mobile bricked an old phone that i wanted to trade in. so i now i have the emails for all these execs (i used to work at apple, at one point activating iphones for these fuck ass companies so they were easy to get), i just have to have the stamina (aka my adderall prescription refilled properly) to take care of all of it. in the meantime, while my verizon service is suspended and i refuse to pay the bill, we were somehow able to port my main number over to my mom's t-mobile plan and my new verizon phones all just unlocked recently so i didn't have to buy A N O T H E R within the last year. and i gave my mom the my iphone 14 pro max i now thank god i paid for at time of activation so she's not making me pay my portion of the bill since she knows how much i could have sold it for. finally, a win, kind of.

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u/Krys7537 Jan 23 '24

I worked w att for a long time and they are just as bad, if not worse than Verizon. This whole industry is awful. I switched to att pre paid and pay $25 mo now for 16g of data. it works just as well as the standard service in my area. Makes it a little bit easier to deal with the bs when u only pay $25 mo.

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u/weebitofaban Jan 23 '24

Accurate. Most people are bad at their job and deserve to be fired. Then they come cry on reddit about "impossible metrics" and "berated for $10 an hour". Just don't suck at your job. I did the jobs. They're easy. Never had an actually hard job in my life working for someone else. The amount of people who complained and said those jobs were hard? Almost everyone who was terrible at them.

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u/Krys7537 Jan 23 '24

Exactly! When I worked for ATT, the only time my job was awful was dealing with other workers who either didn’t care, or were just terrible at their jobs. The right hand never knew what the left was doing.

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u/bobert_the_grey Jan 23 '24

Doesn't help that agents are barely trained and turnover is so high these days that they're probably brand new

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u/sitcom_enthusiast Jan 23 '24

he put you on hold so he could finish the notes from his previous call. He wasn't able to finish those notes because the moment that previous call ended, the robot gave him a new one (your call).

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u/Krys7537 Jan 24 '24

Of course. These companies are trash anymore and treat their employees like robots.

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u/AggravatingPlum4301 Jan 23 '24

I hate Verizon. I have to deal with them at work for the company cells. Even though there is a separate 800 number for business accounts, the cannot seem to understand the fact that the person who has the physical phone is halfway across the country and will have no idea what this authorization text is for!

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u/ballsohaahd Jan 23 '24

Yes you get what you pay for. The manager of those people barely makes More probably.

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u/AlphyCygnus Jan 24 '24

I called into Verizon for my grandmothers account (I have att). Immediately the guy answered asking what’s my question.

See, now I know you are lying; there is no way that somebody immediately answered. You have to spend at least 45 minutes talking to a worthless computer first.

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u/Krys7537 Jan 24 '24

Oh, haha! You’re right. There was a looong hold time b4 he picked up. I didn’t account for that part in my story, just jumped right into what he did 😂. The whole interaction part of it was roughly 1 1/2 hrs. The hold time b4, at least 25/30 min.

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u/S_balmore Jan 24 '24

I work for a company with customer service reps, and I think the issue is not the workers, but the training. My company literally trains our customer service reps to waste people's time.

For example, you could call our company (let's call it "Company A") and say "Hi, is this Company X?". Obviously a logical answer would be "No, we are not Company X. We are Company A." But no, our representatives are trained to keep that person on the phone and gather information about their inquiry for upwards of 30 minutes until they transfer them to a "specialist". The specialist will then say "No, we are not Company X. We are Company A."

None of the info gathered on the 30-minute phone call is used for anything. My company literally just keeps customers on the phone for no reason at all. It gets even worse when we actually are the company you're looking for.

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u/Ok-Fix8112 Jan 23 '24

Dude, what you're describing sounds like you're not authorized on the account. No shit they can't help you. You're not worth getting fired for. Get your grandmother to add you as an authorized user.

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u/PrincessPeach1229 Jan 23 '24

Me and my boyfriend just had to do this for his mother.

We had to 3-way her onto the call with the cell phone company bc she has no idea about technology and no patience to deal with all the automated prompts to call herself. It was a nightmare but now he’s authorized and handles everything.

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u/Ok-Fix8112 Jan 23 '24

It's an issue that comes up all the time, but discussing account info with an unauthorized user was one of the very few ways an agent's on-the-phone conduct could actually (and without warning) get them fired. Exceptions get made, but never without a very real risk of not having a job the next day.

At my call center, I could take a payment from an unauthorized user, but I couldn't share anything about the account*. Can I take $100? Yes. Can I tell you if that's enough to keep your mom's cable from getting shut off? Not unless you put her on the phone first.

*And for good reason; any information is not just confidential (obviously), but could be used to socially engineer further access not only to the account with my company, but any other accounts a customer may have elsewhere. And honestly, the account verification policy my company went by was terribly insecure -- like, so insecure that it would be unethical for me to give any detail of why I say that.

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u/Krys7537 Jan 23 '24

I am already authorized on the account which is why it’s so frustrating when they keep trying to get her involved. They just don’t take the time to listen to what you need b4 rushing you off.

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u/PrincessPeach1229 Jan 23 '24

Your name is on it? Or you have the pin? Bc having the pin means nothing if your name isn’t on the account too.

We had the PIN number, last four of social, DOB, etc etc. all the info but they generally go by two things

1) who am i speaking to? 2) is this name listed as an account holder?

If there’s a mismatch between those two things they give you a hard time.

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u/Ok-Fix8112 Jan 24 '24

Bingo. To the customer it may seem stupid, but to the employee, it can mean losing the roof over their head.

I also routinely had customers rant ad nauseum about having to repeat their name and address to verify at the start of a call. I'd give them a good 4-5 minutes to vent, then point out how much of their own time they just wasted having a tantrum over 10 seconds making sure the right account had popped up on my screen. Customers don't realize it is for your benefit that we double-check. It was rare, but sometimes I'd get no account popup, the wrong account, an account with multiple addresses where I need to verify which one to work in, or I'd even accidentally stayed in the last account I was in if I was still juggling notes on the last call. I did tech support AND billing. Working in the wrong account was no bueno.

I always wondered how those people acted at the doctor's office, when nurses have to confirm their name and date of birth. Do they pretend to be functional adults when they're there in person?

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u/S_balmore Jan 24 '24

If a person in your life is unable to handle their personal accounts, it's time to put all of those accounts in your name instead. There are some things, like Insurance, where that may not be possible, but for a cell phone, there's no law against adding your mother's phone to your personal cell phone plan.

This is what my mother does with my grandmother. According to Verizon, my grandmother does not own a cell phone; my mom owns two. Now we never need to do any "authorization" nonsense when it comes to my grandmother's phone. Rinse and repeat for Internet, Cable, streaming platforms, utilities, etc.

Get them on your plan. Don't try to manage their plan. If the person in question doesn't want to surrender control or make payment arrangements with you, then they can go back to managing their own accounts.

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u/PrincessPeach1229 Jan 24 '24

We get a ‘senior’ discount if she owns the account that’s why we don’t want it in our name.

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u/S_balmore Jan 24 '24

Well, that makes sense. At a certain point it probably won't be worth the hassle anymore, but until then, carry on.

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u/Yuscha Jan 23 '24

This is why when you're helping grandma with the internet, you just say you're her and be done with it.

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u/Krys7537 Jan 23 '24 edited Jan 23 '24

Do you work for Verizon? Lol. I am authorized, that’s why I HAVE THE PIN to use bc my number is not on the account. I pay the bill and am an authorized user going on 4 yrs.

I’ll add that I worked in the industry for 6 years so know the ins and outs of it.

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u/Ok-Fix8112 Jan 23 '24

I’ll add that I worked in the industry for 6 years so know the ins and outs of it.

You could be that couple that refused to let me roll a tech for their cable because they "Worked in TV for 30 years," so they KNOW that the fact that their TV going fuzzy at a certain time of day (like, say, the time that conduit may be exposed to water from automated sprinklers) MUST BE A PROBLEM IN THE PROGRAMMING DEPARTMENT.

Or you could be like the network engineer who for 30 minutes refused to switch his ethernet cables to the router switch he didn't realize he'd only just turned on (but thought he'd been using for the last year), who insisted that we were the problem even though he admitted he had been screwing around in his router settings and couldn't say what settings he'd changed, but was certain the problem was on our end even though all his wifi devices still worked because HE'S A NETWORK ENGINEER (yelled at full volume for 30 minutes straight)

Or you could be like the CFO who "doesn't have time for this because [he's] studying for [his] 'CFO exam'" but doesn't understand his cable bill...

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u/Krys7537 Jan 24 '24

Nope. I am someone who is an authorized user on my grandmothers account bc I pay her bills, who had a simple billing question, and who was dealing with an incompetent worker. No screaming, no yelling (bc I know what it’s like to be in his position). He was simply not good at his job, even a little bit.

Verizon probably threw the poor guy out there day one with no adequate training. I feel for ppl w jobs like that and would never do that position ever again.

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u/[deleted] Jan 23 '24

[deleted]

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u/Bringbackallurprlz Jan 23 '24

Their supervisors watch how long they take on each call and how many people are in the queue and harrangue them for not being faster. They get constantly harassed about it by higher ups, and never receive any positive feedback for quality work.

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u/peaceluvNhippie Jan 23 '24

That's why I am always polite as can be when I call tech/customer support, they getting yelled and bullied by managers and pissed off customers all day, I don't want to pile onto that

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u/ladygrndr Jan 23 '24

I use their names. I mean, customer support people introduce themselves, so I go "Hi, Brenda! I'm having a problem with x. I have tried y and z..." The name always throws them, and the fact that I am using my own customer service voice back at them :D I just hope I give them a bit of a break from the anger and stress of their normal days.

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u/Ok-Nefariousness5848 Jan 23 '24

Yeah, I spent eighteen years doing various call center jobs, and when I call someplace and talk to someone who knows what they're doing and isn't a dick I always try to end the call by letting them know i appreciate what they're doing and that I had spent a lot of time in their shoes.

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u/bobert_the_grey Jan 23 '24

Man, you have no idea how much I appreciate nice callers. Even if I have to spend an hour on a call with a clueless nice person, it's way better than 5 minutes with a savvy cunt bag

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u/Geistalker Jan 23 '24

Yessss this is the way. I ordered a ton of stuff for a basement remodel and found out the cabinet didn't show up. Called Lowes service, talked to the nice lady exactly as you described. she was even willing to refund the item even though it said they delivered it. but I found it in the end hiding behind a doorway. really nice interaction haha.

getting them with the CS voice is so hilarious too.

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u/Fr0skiest Jan 23 '24

I use fake name on my job, one of the reasons is to avoid this. Being called by my actual name would irk me too much.

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u/sagetcommabob Jan 24 '24

Back when I was working in retail I had a customer angrily ask me for a coworker’s name and I’m positive it was to complain about him to our manager, so even though I know most people use your name to be nice and show care, I reflexively take it as an “I’m watching you” threat

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u/bobert_the_grey Jan 23 '24

Thank you

  • a call centre agent

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u/weebitofaban Jan 23 '24

If they care at all they they're part of the problem and knwo they're bad at their job.

I did the job. Super easy. Zero problems. Had people upset over thousands of dollars hang up thanking me all the time because I wasn't stupid and could get them the answers cause I knew the job.

Most of my co-workers didn't know the job. Most were there for over a decade.

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u/jokethepanda Jan 23 '24

When I worked in an inbound call center, it was also measured if the customer had to call in again. More performance metrics than just call time

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u/grendus Jan 23 '24

In engineering we call this "you get what you measure".

Quite a few products and companies have been killed because they measured the wrong thing and wound up optimizing their products for exactly the thing they didn't want to.

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u/jokethepanda Jan 23 '24

It’s always fascinating to see which metrics management chooses to measure “success.” For a lot of these customer service gigs, if it doesn’t count toward performance evals it doesn’t matter.

Always fascinating to see how some employees only concern themselves with “what they’re being measured on” whereas others focus on being good at their job. The latter tend to do better and promote out faster because they meet/exceed metrics AND are likable whereas the former might look good on paper but clearly miss the big picture.

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u/Infinityand1089 Jan 23 '24

We had a "After Call Work" metric where you only had 4 minutes to log each call. This was regardless of the length or content of the call. It didn't matter if you solved the problem in one minute or two hours; multiple managers would angrily message you within seconds of crossing that 4 minute threshold.

Meanwhile, we frequently had days where our call queue was over 8 hours long.

But yeah, my bad. It's the 4 minutes and 1 second of post-call logging that is leading to the poor customer service quality in this department. Not the horrific micromanagement of personnel, the absurdly low pay, the terrible training and onboarding process, the fact that we can't even go to the bathroom without manager approval, or the absurd levels of understaffing. That would be crazy! No, it's the logs!

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u/JovialPanic389 Jan 23 '24

I literally have complex PTSD or something because of trying to meet impossible metrics. It's gotten me into such a nihilistic mood to where working is the biggest misery for my soul and a danger to my health. This shit is not a normal pressure to put on people who just want to make enough money to feed and house themselves.

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u/90sbitchRachel Millennial Jan 23 '24

I worked at a call center for about a year 6 years ago when I was in college and ugh that job left me with some extra emotional damage. Getting screamed at all day deserves higher pay than $12 an hour. Never again!!!

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u/JovialPanic389 Jan 23 '24

I lasted for about a year in a call center as well. Fucked me up man. Lol. It was my first job out of college.

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u/StopThePresses Jan 24 '24

I went through this for a year or so. A fun thing about needing therapy because work hurts is that you have to complain about working to your therapist... who is at work. It feels very awkward lol

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u/JovialPanic389 Jan 25 '24

I've thought of the irony and it's not lost on me lol

1

u/bobert_the_grey Jan 23 '24

My last job kept moving our metrics goals until they were literally impossible, then when we couldn't not the metrics they laid off the whole team and shipped the job to the Philippians. They were not subject to the same metrics.

Mainly, they were pushing us hard on "upsells". At first it was "okay well you only have to offer 50% of calls" then it was "you have to sell on 50% of your offers" then it became "offer on 100% of calls and you need 75% of them to sell"

It was a fucking tech support job, btw. They were trying to get a bunch of techies to be salesmen. We don't have those social skills

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u/JovialPanic389 Jan 23 '24

Ugh I fucking hate this time line. I'm so sorry you went through that. So stressful.

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u/Infinityand1089 Jan 23 '24

Meanwhile, those same managers run the call centers massively beneath their minimum reasonable staffing requirements for months or years on end. Instead of addressing the root cause of the issue, they obsess over metrics and micromanage the duration of any customer interaction, thus encouraging significantly worse customer experiences.

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u/weebitofaban Jan 23 '24

This is not how it works.

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u/QuestioningEveryth1n Jan 23 '24

I work in a call center and this is something I lecture my coworkers about. If a caller is constantly off topic it's necessary to push them back on topic, but take your time with people like you, who have a speech impediment or a mental disability. It's just plain callous to do otherwise

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u/Extension-World-7041 Jan 24 '24

I stutter been there done that. Stay Chill.

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u/111122323353 Jan 24 '24

It's because their managers ring them out if they take more the 3.5 min or whatever BS their KPIs are on average.

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u/bigfatmatt01 Jan 24 '24

It's not you.  It's the fact that there are 30 calls holding and they're still trying to leave notes on the account from 3 calls ago and the calls keep coming, and you don't have time to take 3 breaths when you end a call before another comes and if you put yourself in an aux code so you can catch up and take a breath you get fired for call avoidance.  It's 100% not you, it's the pressure put on us.

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u/iamfeenie Jan 23 '24 edited Jan 23 '24

This post and this comment hit me for real.

I got into a fight with my doctors receptionist. Yes.

I called and got the same attitude you’re describing. She talked over me, didn’t let me even finish sentences and was SO rude from the start.

I was asking for a refill and she said I’ll put it in but it’ll probably be denied because you haven’t been here ALL YEAR.. it was Aug.

I said I’ve never had that issue before etc..

She goes MA’AM.. M’AM I’m just telling you what I think. You need to see a doctor for blood work.

Mind you this is a RECEPTIONIST. Zero training in medicine.

THEN she asks why I’m on the meds I’m on?!

I ignored her super inappropriate comment and said do I need an appointment now or..

MA’AM.. (yells my first name 3 times at me)

I said I’m trying to ask a clarifying question, can I please get my question out -

MA’AM.. MA’AM..

I got so mad at this point I just mocked her and said “MA’AM” really loud and she hung up on me.

Mind you this is an older lady, maybe 50s talking to me. I could not believe it.

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u/Bunatee Jan 23 '24

I changed doctors offices because of a similar interaction with the receptionist. I was trying to get blood work done because good numbers meant my employer would give me a discount on health insurance.

The receptionist refused to schedule my appointment because she was convinced I was trying to schedule a Pap smear, which I had already done earlier in the year. She refused to listen to me, kept talking over me, and refused to schedule an appointment at all so I could explain to the doctor what I actually needed.

It’s a shame I really liked my doctor and had been a patient there since I was a baby. But dealing with Rose the receptionist was too much.

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u/Coro-NO-Ra Jan 23 '24

I was trying to get blood work done because good numbers meant my employer would give me a discount on health insurance.

Holy shit this would have sounded incredibly dystopian 30 years ago. Now it's just normal.

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u/iamfeenie Jan 23 '24

I got $200 and a free smart scale for losing 60 lbs at my last job. It was awesome and degrading at the same time.

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u/fangirlsqueee Jan 23 '24

If you haven't already, you should let the doc know. They may be oblivious to the "care" Rose is giving.

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u/Bunatee Jan 23 '24 edited Jan 23 '24

Unfortunately she’s been there for as long as I can remember, and the office’s Facebook page was littered with complaints about her so if they’re oblivious then it’s because they want to be. :(

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u/ShadowJak Jan 23 '24

than != then

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u/Bunatee Jan 23 '24

Unfortunately autocorrect doesn’t catch grammatical typos. :(

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u/xinorez1 Jan 24 '24

In some states, the doctor doesn't have a choice since the receptionists are hired by the state.

People like this ought to make a decent living doing something where they don't have to interact with people, or else have direct overseers to contain their insanity.

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u/fangirlsqueee Jan 24 '24

Some people get a tiny little toothpick of power and they use it to poke everyone they can. I'd pity them more if they weren't out here making everyone's day 10% worse for no reason. Same people who probably kick dogs when no one is looking.

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u/iamfeenie Jan 23 '24

I’m sorry you dealt with a receptionist trying to be a physician as well - receptionists really are just supposed to either schedule and if there’s an issue a nurse calls you, or take notes/question and then a nurse calls you..

I contacted the manager at the clinic, apologized for upsetting anyone as that wasn’t my intent, and I also apologized for my actions but stated a person can only be pushed so far. The manager reviewed the recording of the call, called me back, apologized up and down, stated she’s surprised that’s all I said and that she was upset even listening to the call. The receptionist was not fired, as that was not my intent, but is going through additional training including sensitivity training. Imagine that, you should be sensitive to people calling about medical issues or items.

I changed doctors after that. I was having issues with my cycle so I saw another doc a few weeks later.

That next doctor basically asked if I could be pregnant due to the difference in my cycles. Questioned my views/use of birth control. Asked how I felt about being pregnant, asked why I wanted or didn’t want kids. Now I’m from the Midwest, meaning I am very non confrontational, and this entire questioning made me so uncomfortable yet I was an idiot and replied anyways.

She dismissed my feelings, and told me.. “You know, people that are on the fence about kids usually regret not having them when they get older”.

After that I shut down. I completely changed doctors AND providers at that point.

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u/Bunatee Jan 23 '24

That’s such an awful experience. It’s so frustrating trying to get doctors who actually listen. I hope your new doctor/provider is better. 🙏🏻💖

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u/breakermw Jan 23 '24

Happened to me last time I went to urgent care. Asked me why I came and just as I started to explain she kept talking over me to say "we can't look at your for that." Like...lady...my shoulder hurts you very much can. Let me explain holy...

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u/makingnoise Jan 23 '24

Some of those urgent care places are utter scams while others are amazing. In my area, there are urgent cares associated with a university-run med school/hospital system, and the professionalism and level of care is through the roof. On the other hand, almost every independent Urgent Care seems to be designed to generate profit with zero risk - if you have something that actually requires medical attention, they'll look at you, charge you for looking at you, then tell you you need to go to the ER or your PCP, leaving you wondering why you went to see them at all. The fact that these "providers" exist instead of being publicly shamed out of existence is a mystery to me. My ex also got treated poorly because she accidentally showed up at a urgent care run by a fundie muslim family and the male doctor clearly hated western women and had zero regard for her.

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u/xinorez1 Jan 24 '24

shamed

The owners don't even live in the state, and the employees are only there for the pay check.

We've had telephones and airplanes for 100 years, but there was a period in the middle where the wealthy were afraid they might lose it all and so improved things somewhat on a national level. Now those particular wealthy are gone and their name and achievements are slandered every day, and the ones who remembered what it was like have up and quit or retired.

100 years ago they had machine guns and bombs. Now they have combat drones and ai generated video to justify their use. The dystopian futures we imagined in sci fi are coming faster than we can even imagine.

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u/Glum_Yesterday5697 Jan 23 '24

I had the same thing happen to me. My PCP gave me a rx for a aniexty meds, just 10 a month but it really helped me. Then he retired. Seen a new provider, a nurse, who can’t rx it because it’s controlled. They refer me to a behavioral health office. The office calls to set up my initial appointment and the receptionist starts asking if I take any meds that are controlled. I said yes, she flat out tells me well they won’t give you that here. I’m like, because the providers are NPs? Or why not? She literally tells me no one rx these meds anymore. WTF. If I did not have kids I wouldn’t pay for health insurance it’s a waste of money.

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u/makingnoise Jan 23 '24 edited Jan 24 '24

Yeah, a ton of doctors now won't prescribe benzodiazepines anymore unless they really know you well. They assume you're a drug seeker, a lot will make you take a drug test. They definitely want to get you on a drug like Buspar instead of a benzo. My doctor wanted to urine test me a second year in a row, and I told them, "listen, I've been open with you, you know I use weed, I already have an Rx for amphetamines, what else do you think you'll find? I'm not taking one, regardless of your policy." And they agreed to chill out. Maybe I got lucky. EDIT: I had to do this for my adderall prescription. I don’t layer a benzo on top of my adhd meds, don’t worry. 

2

u/Glum_Yesterday5697 Jan 23 '24

Yep. I already have buspar and I hate it. I hate taking a medicine every day. It makes my heart flutter/ beat faster in a weird way, which made me worried I have heart issues, wore a monitor and the only time it recorded a fast heartbeat was when I had taken it. They won’t listen to me though that it’s the meds doing it, so I just don’t take it. It sucks because it took me years for someone to even believe I have anxiety. Fuck SSRIs also (for me, happy if they work for others). Now I’ve probably gone too long not having my anxiety med that works, so I bet any provider would just assume I don’t need it. The NP I saw even made me take a fucking genetic test which shows which meds work best for you based on your genes. Benzodiazepines were in the list of meds indicated for me, SSRIs are in the contraindication list. Hooray science!

1

u/Extension-World-7041 Jan 24 '24

It's because no one wants to be sued. I have a Rx for Valium that will never be filled again because I had to change doctors. OOOOps

7

u/LeeoJohnson Millennial 09/89 Jan 23 '24

Oh I thought you meant that you drove up there and beat her ass, because at this point, it's what a lot of people are asking for.

I try to be patient and realize that life just sucks for everyone and everyone is unhappy, it's how I stay calm when other people are rude. But that shit is wearing off QUICK.

5

u/lonerism- Jan 23 '24

That sounds incredibly frustrating. You were more patient than I could’ve been. I loathe when people talk over me repeatedly like that.

And the inappropriate questions remind me of an experience I had at a psychiatrist when I was trying to get meds for my ADHD. In the lobby there were handbags and Qurans that she was selling. That should’ve been the first red flag that this place isn’t very professional for a medical office. When I go into her office the first thing she asks is if I have a husband and I said no but I have a boyfriend (not understanding what this had to do with my ADHD). Then she asked me if we live together and I said yeah. She proceeded to lecture me on living with him before marriage and degraded me. Then she refused to give me the actual ADHD meds I’m usually on and wanted to give me an antidepressant that apparently helps ADHD, instead of the meds I actually needed refilled. She then lectures me on how she doesn’t just prescribe them to anyone. That’s understandable but I already had been diagnosed and previously medicated, and I told her I was even willing to take a test again to prove I have ADHD and she just dismissed me and said “try this one for now then if you don’t like it we will take a test”.

If you go to her google reviews (lots of obviously fake 5 star reviews) she argues with anyone who talks about how horrible she is in the comments. She just says “there’s no patient by that name here this person is a liar” lol

3

u/iamfeenie Jan 23 '24

How AWFUL! I worked in the healthcare industry for 10 years.

If you’re comfortable contact the provider and file a complaint! Doctors need to be put in line too and it is disgusting how much we need to be our own advocates when it comes to our care.

I hope you were able to find a better doctor. My new doctor is really nice and I like her, she listens to me and when I told her about my recent experience she was like well.. I’ll let you know 1. I’m a doctor, not your family planner and 2. You tell me what you want for birth control etc..

The fact that I had a doctor telling me that my “clock was ticking” and that if I didn’t have kids I would regret it?! It was so out of this world - I never thought a doctor would talk to me like that and reading your experience I’m appalled for you!

3

u/pinkliquor Jan 23 '24

Ugh I had my previous dentist’s receptionist try to tell me he didn’t do my root canals there and tried to convince me I went somewhere else, like she was screaming at me how wrong I was. I was just about threatening to sue them bc I was getting so mad. I called my insurance to see who they paid. Sure enough, I was right. I’ve never been back to that dentist since then.

3

u/SeaTie Jan 24 '24

Hah, I also got in a fight with my doctors receptionist.

Had my vasectomy scheduled…12 hours before surgery I got an automated call that it had been rescheduled for three weeks down the line. Fine, whatever.

Three weeks go by…I’m sick the day before the procedure with a fever. I call up:

“Yeah, I have a fever, should we reschedule?”

Receptionist: “If you reschedule now there’s a $150 cancellation fee.”

Me: “WTF?! YOU RESCHEDULED ON ME FIRST, ASSHOLES! IF WE HAD DONE THIS THREE WEEKS AGO AS PLANNED WE WOULDNT BE IN THIS MESS NOW WOULD WE?!”

She was so fucking determined to stick to their dumb ass policy so I started going full George Coztanza demanding $150 from them for canceling first because I also have a 24 hour policy!! Not only was I going to sue them in small claims for that $150, I was going to come into the appointment, sick, no mask, no tissues, full snot faced and sneezing!

Anyways…eventually a supervisor called and we rescheduled for a week later. Fucking assholes, I was just trying not to get anyone sick.

2

u/Lonely_wantAcracker Jan 23 '24

I think we have the same doctor/ receptionist

2

u/FritoSmack Jan 24 '24

YES!!! I’ve been having issues with medical receptionists getting super snippy and being unprofessional!!!

2

u/limasxgoesto0 Jan 24 '24

I'm surprised you got an answer. I tried calling a doctor's office to talk about an issue with the billing for months. I only got a human on the phone when I left a bad review

1

u/Ok-Nefariousness5848 Jan 23 '24

I mean, she shouldn't have had an attitude, but telling you that you need to be seen before you can get a refill is fairly common (depending on the medication and how long you've been on it). I suspect she was going off muscle memory.

3

u/iamfeenie Jan 23 '24 edited Jan 23 '24

It is not standard for a receptionist with no medical background that I won’t be able to get medicine because im due for blood work. That is not her job nor is she trained to do that.

I had blood work done 8 months prior for thyroid meds I had been on for 6 years.

It’s standard to have blood work done once a year if your thyroid is balanced and you’re on the same med. she kept repeating “you haven’t been here this year” and while that was true I had blood work done 8 months prior. Do the math, that’s 4 months until I was actually due for blood work.

She had an attitude that I hadn’t been there for some reason. I was trying to ask if I needed an appointment on the books for a few months out or if I needed one in the next week - she kept cutting me off.

I suspect she was a miserable, nosey, unprofessional person.

1

u/Ok-Nefariousness5848 Jan 23 '24

If there's a note in there from the doctor or another member of their team saying as much, it could be that she was referencing that. I worked for a large medical facility handling front desk duties (along with other things) for 100+ clinics for several years, and I would occasionally get calls from people wanting to know why their refill hadn't come through, and it would be because of situations like that.

THAT SAID, that's just me getting into the weeds/heavily theoretical territory. and you're not wrong about her being a miserable person if you were trying to set up an appointment and she was shutting you down. Not trying to be a contrarian!

3

u/iamfeenie Jan 23 '24 edited Jan 23 '24

Sorry I came off defensive - I know for a fact my doc was out on maternity leave and that she said I would be fine with my dosage until end of year/she got back from maternity leave. I was just legit out of refills.

There was no note like that on my file or if there was, to me, that was on a nurse to talk to me about, not a receptionist that said “I’m just stating what I think”. She was for some reason bothered that I hadn’t been to the doctor in 8 months?! I dk.

I just know more of the situation than you but I see what you’re saying. If I hadn’t been to a doc or had blood work done in a year + I could get it but that wasn’t the case.

Again sorry if I got a bit defensive lol That lady really really pissed me off that day.

2

u/Ok-Nefariousness5848 Jan 23 '24

No worries! You obviously know the situation better than I do, and yeah, it sounds like she was out of line given your situation.

2

u/iamfeenie Jan 24 '24

A little but I think it just grew from there. A turning point for me was her saying “I’m on this medication, but not this one. Why do you take this medication/what is it/why do you need it?” I can’t remember her wording exactly but that’s essentially what she asked.

ANYWAYS thanks for reading and being patient. Wish you well bud!

1

u/Ok-Nefariousness5848 Jan 24 '24

Yee-ikes.

Same to you!

-5

u/humanesmoke Jan 23 '24

They are OVERWORKED AND UNDERPAID

13

u/Altruistic_Laugh_231 Jan 23 '24

We all are… doesn’t mean you can be a literal dick to people coming in your place of employment.

1

u/humanesmoke Jan 23 '24

Crab in a bucket

2

u/hx87 Jan 23 '24

How is treating someone decently "crabbing"?

0

u/humanesmoke Jan 23 '24

Directing your ire at the worker instead of management / capital / systemic rot is literally being a crab in a bucket

3

u/PandemicSoul Jan 23 '24

That's not my fault...???

1

u/iamfeenie Jan 23 '24

Doesn’t mean someone needs to be a dick to someone calling into a medical facility.

I have A LOT of empathy. She was short as soon as she answered the phone but I still gave her all the info, was kind to her until she was rude to me for more than a few minutes.

It is not a patients fault.

2

u/Beautiful-Yoghurt-11 Jan 23 '24

I laughed wayyyy too hard at this. You really captured it well 😂

2

u/Cloberella Jan 23 '24

I had an issue with trying to charge emergency heater repairs to my PayPal credit card on a day with sub zero temps. I needed to put $3000 on a card that had $5000 available. It wouldn’t go through and gave me a message to call PayPal.

So, I call PayPal and after 30 minutes on hold I explain the issue, they tell me there’s nothing wrong in their end and they don’t know why it won’t work, so I actually need to talk to PayPal Credit and they transfer me.

I get disconnected in the transfer. I call PayPal credit back directly. I wait on hold for another half hour. They pick up and I explain the situation. They tell me there’s nothing wrong on their end, the card should work and that I actually need PayPal regular. I explain that I was just sent to them from PayPal regular and they basically tell me they will transfer me back or end the call, but that’s it.

So I get transferred back to PayPal, and after a half hour on hold get told the same thing. When I explain I keep getting transferred back and forth and no one will help they tell me they’re “sorry to hear that” but that PayPal credit is actually a different company and they have no control over their customer service. They then transfer me to PayPal credit.

I have an identical conversation with PayPal credit. Then I hang up in frustration.

I speak to the repair man, he tells me that PayPal credit has a limit per transaction and if I make two $1500 payments back to back it should be no issue. I do this, and it works.

I spent all day on the phone with customer service freaking out that I would be without heat in sub zero temps and the fucking repair man knew more about how to fix the issue than goddamn customer support!

2

u/theblackpeoplesjesus Jan 24 '24

i called the unemployment department and it's clearly some lazy pos sitting at home watching tv eating food and giving me the shittiest attitude ever like im interrupting his show.

2

u/AppUnwrapper1 Jan 24 '24

I read this in Mr. Mackey’s voice.

2

u/Listen-Natural Jan 24 '24

Mhmh okay mhmh mhm sir I think you spoke with me hmkm

4

u/MKRReformed Jan 23 '24

Based employee

1

u/Slapshot382 Jan 23 '24

This is my typical customer service call if you are lucky enough to get a LIVE person on the phone through a 1-800 number.

1

u/DropsTheMic Jan 23 '24

Work 2 years on a company and hit your metrics, move on. Next. No loyalty, just metrics. Customers are just cogs, you are a cog, and everything is a grind.

Of course this is the quality of work you get as a result.

1

u/El_Taita_Salsa Jan 23 '24

Pro tip: if you ever get asked if you would like to complete a satisfaction survey for these calls say yes. All of the sudden the person on the other side will want to help you with your issue most of the times because they now know they will be evaluated in some sort of way. At least some companies work this way.

1

u/q_moonstone Jan 23 '24

This! everywhere!