I was 18 when I started in customer support. Bright-eyed, eager, convinced I could handle anything. The scripts felt clunky, the metrics endless, but I was ready. I thought enthusiasm could carry me far. I imagined it would be a stepping stone, a way to learn and grow.
At first, the rude customers were just small blips. One guy yelled at me because his phone “wouldn’t get coverage in the Eisenhower Tunnel while headed to work.” I apologized, explained the coverage limitations, and he hung up mid-sentence. I laughed it off with a coworker, telling myself, this is just part of the job. That tiny shrug of annoyance felt manageable, even funny.
Then the calls got sharper. A woman screamed at me for a mistake she made herself; she demanded to speak to a manager and called me every name in the book. Another time, a man spent twenty minutes berating me for something the system automatically did wrong—he blamed me personally. Managers cared more about metrics than people. My optimism started to wear thin. Each day chipped a little piece of the 18-year-old me.
And then came COVID. Calls surged. People were angry, scared, exhausted—and they took it out on whoever answered the phone. I remember one afternoon in 2020, answering back-to-back calls from shouting customers, while my home office felt like a cage. One woman screamed about being quarantined and not having internet to work at home. She demanded we repay her for lost work and emotional damages. I didn’t have the words to defend myself—I barely had the energy to breathe. No one in management noticed the toll it was taking.
I haven’t worked in almost ten months. I can’t go back to the telephonic equivalent of rape—the constant yelling, the dehumanization, the feeling that I exist only to absorb anger that isn’t mine. It’s left me traumatized, and some days I wonder if I’ll ever be the bright-eyed 18-year-old again.
Now, at 40, I feel the difference every single day. The energy, the eagerness, the bright outlook—they’re all dimmed. I still show up to life, but there’s a weariness in my bones that never existed when I started. That 18-year-old me would barely recognize this person.
I don’t write this as a cautionary tale or a call to arms. I just want to say it out loud: call center life can grind you down in ways you don’t see coming. And sometimes, looking back, the person you were at 18 is almost unrecognizable.
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