Incompetent Employer Forces Technician to Work in Call Center, Gets Hit With OSHA Violations

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Ally Perry • Writer and Editor
Aug 1, 2023 8:00 PM EDT

A lot of jobs come with responsibilities that they weren't really advertised with. For example, many corporations have a sneaky way of introducing meetings where valuable hours of staring at spreadsheets should be. That said, this switcheroo is far more messed up when somebody is forced to do something completely different than what they are actually qualified for. 

This is exactly what happened to one irate Redditor, who was snatched away from their role repairing car parts to work in the customer service arm of their company. As if that wasn't bad enough, they were drafted into the role because the management was so bad, half of the call center had quit.

Understandably, they were not pleased at being forced to deal with unhappy people over the phone. So, they decided to give their boss a taste of their own medicine. Other Redditors couldn't help but support this act of malicious compliance. Some workplaces really are the pits.

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  • 01
    Font - r/ r/MaliciousCompliance u/HaElfParagon • 21h Don't Want me to Cold Transfer Pissed Off Customers to the Manager? Okay Then... M
    via HaElfParagon
  • 02
    Font - TL;DR at the bottom. I was a technician, working in a lab. My job was to repair car parts for this third party repair company. The company made such monumentally stupid decisions in a very short span, than over 50% of the call center all quit within 3 days of each other. So, the company started dragging employees from other departments kicking and screaming into the call center. Every day, I'd walk in and ask the building manager "What's up today? Am I doing my job? Or am I answering phon
    via HaElfParagon
  • 03
    Font - Well, I quickly learned what made alot of the call center quit. You see, at this company, we had a really good warranty policy. Lifetime warranty on the part, regardless of who owns it at any given time. If it has our sticker on it, and the sticker hasn't been defaced, we will service it for free. If you aren't happy with the quality, you can ask for a refund if you were the original person who sent it in for work in the first place.
    via HaElfParagon
  • 04
    Font - Well. It turned out we were losing money because when stuff would come in for warranty repair, some of the sales people would grab it, rip our sticker off, throw it in the junk pile, and call the customer saying we couldn't fix it, but we have a perfectly good one here that they can sell at a discount. They did this so much that customers started just asking for refunds instead.
    via HaElfParagon
  • 05
    Font - We got so many refund requests that the building manager told the call center that we would not be honoring the warranty anymore, but not to tell the customers that. Lead them on. When they ask for a refund, tell them it's being processed and will take up to 6 weeks. 6 weeks from now, when they call asking where their refund was, tell them it was in the wrong stack of paperwork, or there was an error at the bank, whatever excuse you can think of, and tell them it'll be another 6 weeks. Ke
    via HaElfParagon
  • 06
    Font - So, when someone called, pissed off that they haven't received their refund, I profusely apologized, let them know I'm sure there is a good explanation, let me get you a manager, and I cold transferred them to the building manager. He'd come back to his desk, find like 30 people on hold in his que. He got pissed, told me to stop cold transferring people. So, I stopped cold transferring people. Every 3 or 4 minutes, I'd let a new customer know I can get them the manager. I'd transfer them,
    via HaElfParagon
  • 07
    Font - Eventually I got pulled into a meeting with him and the CFO, and was told in no uncertain terms that if I continued to do so, I would be fired. I reminded them that the only reason this is happening in the first place is because A, they came up with this shitty plan in the first place. B, They're making me answer phones instead of doing my job. And C, they can't keep anyone, because whenever they hired someone new, the rest of us would fill them in on what's happening, and they would subs
    via HaElfParagon
  • 08
    Font - In the end, I found a better job, and quit that hellhole, and on my last day, filed a complaint with OSHA, filling them in on all the illegal/dangerous shit they'd make us do in the lab. TL;DR: Was forced to work in a call center for about 3 months, despite it not being my job. Went against company policy and cold-transferred irate customers to the manager, because they did not pay me enough to deal with preventable bullshit.
    via HaElfParagon
  • 09
    Organism - Red_Cathy 21h Lol, nice one, they'd not want me in a call center either, no way would I keep my mouth shut 4 Vote ↓ "ah well, your main problem is you bought it form a bunch of shysters who don't honour their warranties, you really ought to have gone elsewhere" HaElfParagon 21h ... Vote OP There was one coworker that said shit like that when he picked up the line lol.
    via Red_Cathy
  • 10
    Organism - paradoxical0 20h I take it everyone's give-a-fuck-O-meter since burned out at that point? HaElfParagon 19h G ... Vote had long Vote OP Oh yeah. Especially given we weren't call center people. We received no training, we were told "when the phone rings, pick it up, and do everything you can to get them off the phone."
    via paradoxical0
  • 11
    Font - Luke1521 19h Vote I had a job working for an Internet provider back in dial up days. We had a rich surgeon with his own T1 line and many very pricey services both home and office. Boss didn't want to honor a router buy back promise for like $700 when the guy gave us $1000s every month. Boss told me to lie about it and make up an excuse. I stewed on it all weekend ruining my sleep over it. Went in Monday called the customer, told him the truth and turned in my 2 week notice right afterward
    via Luke1521
  • 12
    Vertebrate - 91 verminbury 21h Vote ↓ I am always boggled when management decides to screw a large population, wholesale. I guess they just stick their fingers in their ears and refuse to consider that they're going to piss off a whole passel of lawyers eventually. ...
    via verminbury
  • 13
    Font - verymuchbad 21h How did the OSHA inspection go Vote ↓ 07 HaElfParagon 21h G OP Vote $24,000 fine, weekly followup inspections until they resolved all the issues, continued $10,000 a month fine until everything was fixed. When I got the paperwork back from the results of the complaint I filed, they had to ship it in a manilla envelope, as there were so many violations.
    via verymuchbad
  • 14
    Font - camxct 18h Vote Management: "Please commit fraud or we will fire you." Wise Employees: "hahahahaha forwards to authorities hahahahaha!" or: Philipp_CGN 17h ... ... Vote Management: "Please commit fraud or we will fire you." Wise Employees: "To ensure clarity and accuracy, I would need this instruction in a written format, in case I will need to refer back to it. Thank you in advance!"
    via cannact
  • 15
    Font - Alittlesoftinside 16h This sounds like a tutorial on how to take a dedicated and loyal customer base and convert them to competitor products as fast as possible. What a boneheaded move! ... Vote
    via Alittlesoftinside

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Tags

complaining management customer service repair call center malicious compliance warranty car toxic-management phone car repair technician complaint osha Reddit company
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