How do you cope being new, in a role without much room for patience?

I have been working in my new role for eight weeks.

I like to think of myself as a pretty fast learner, and I am a pretty ambitious worker. Sometimes, though, that means I bite off more than I can chew. And some things, you can’t learn without experience.

I started doing phone calls yesterday. I had a very frustrating client today.

I brought up her page and she had multiple accounts with us. I was reading the wrong one. She asked me to confirm a detail. I had her on hold for literally three minutes and when I came back, she said she didn’t like that I was being put on hold for so long, because she was at a social table tennis event. Literally. She corrected me on something I had right.

Then she gave me some advice, said I should have everything ready before I make a call. She asked me whether I was in training and I said yes, and she said “that explains it. These calls are being recorded, is that correct?” Yeah, you drew the short straw, didn’t you lady? The pure inconvenience of speaking to a new consultant.

Honestly, we both […] up on that one…

This is my thing.

When something is unclear, people get angry, but getting angry is just going to annoy me, and it’s a lot easier to miss something. Treat me with respect and you’ll end up getting a better result out of it.

Yesterday, this guy e-mailed in and said his statement was wrong. Didn’t go into much detail about how it was wrong. He just said “I fail to understand what’s so confusing about the transaction I asked for”. In that situation, I’m focusing more on his gutter attitude than on the situation. Today, I revisited it and saw what he was talking about. So now this guy’s being disrespectful to me and I’M APOLOGISING TO HIM. What a sad situation.

Being sorry doesn’t make a difference.

I really hate it when people treat you poorly and then they come back “once they’ve calmed down” and apologise. I don’t care whether you feel bad about it. The damage is done. It’s just an excuse, “in the heat of the moment” not everyone takes it out on others.

I’ve got to get used to it, because inside and outside of work, people are […] [….] […….] [..]. That’s a joke, I’m not actually trying to say anything LOL.