Ya know, working in the customer service industry I take certain things for granted. Like, everyday, I know I will speak with at least one asshole, pissed off about something that has nothing to do with me or my department. I'm ok with this, it goes part and parcel with the job. I am paid to get screamed at by assholes, and that is my job. I'm good with that because normally I realize they are angry at my company and not attacking me personally. But every once in a while a customer will strike one of my nerves, and I fire back.
So the other day a guy calls me completely interrupting my greeting saying, "I need the country code for [name of small country deleted], Do you even know what that is?" Now, normally I would kindly inform him I could help him with his request (even though I'm in Marketing, and this is a request for Customer Service), but this hit pretty much the only nerve that I have when speaking with a customer. The assumption that I am a moron.
Roughly 80% of people in my department are college educated, the other 20% have been at the job so long they are better at the job than me. Basically when you call into customer service, or our department in particular, you are not speaking with an idiot. This asshole was assuming that just because he wasn't speaking with a doctor or lawyer, he was speaking with some sort of GED reject. He was basically assuming that I dropped out of school before I could attend 10th grade Geography.
So, before he could get the "S" sound out in "Do you even know what that is?", I fired back "It's a small island in [geographical area deleted]. To which he said "Oh." I said "Here's your country code". The kicker is he didn't even want to know that tidbit of information for anything even related to our company. Dick.