I experienced a customer interaction that had left me dumbfounded.

As a technical advisor in my level I have to deal with customers daily. And we can get all types. 

So, I had an experience with a customer that didn’t go down very well. But just to lay a bit of ground work. There are particular people in this world who would, otherwise, consider themselves either entitled, or like to play a certain minority card and then cry “Discrimination”. It’s all about them.

I answered an incoming consult from a lower-tiered advisor wanting to transfer.

The consulting advisor briefed me on the problem. They were having an issue with a particular service and getting angry. The advisors stated that they were able to calm the person down. I said “ok…” (under my breath, great just what I want, an angry customer), “pass the customer through.”

When I received the call, the customer sounded like a relatively young male, maybe in his late 20’s, possibly early 30’s. It’s very hard to tell over the phone. I’ve spoken to 80 year old men who sounded in their 50’s. So while he proceeds to tell me his “issue” and hearing his tone. My thoughts immediately went to, “he’s young, he’s arrogant, with an ego to big for his britches. He’s gonna be the demanding type.” After years of customer services, you tend to pick out the type by their tone of voice and the way they talk.

He proceeds to tell me that this is his ‘husbands’ product that he was having issues with, not his own.  My first thought…. ok cool, he’s gay. (As am I) 

He continues on about the issue and then he proceeds to inform he had an issue with a previous advisor from a previous call (yesterday) but he had no case number to provide to me. Then went further on to explain that he (the caller) was a trans…. and that the previous advisor kept saying “sir” all the time and refused to call /her/ by the correct pronoun.

… I paused at this point …

I thought, Ok well, I can see why, because of /her/ voice, it’s deep, manly, rough. So I focused solely on trying to avoid any pronouns in case, perhaps, I slip up and say “sir”. After all…. I can’t see the customer, I simply hear a voice. 

Example… If Bugs Bunny called me, I would mentally envision Bugs Bunny not Mel Blanc. Get the picture? ok. 

So after this customer told me the story and the outcome of a particular issue with a product and how outraged they were, I did my best to accommodate but being the weekend, certain departments of my company are not open, they’re closed. I can’t do a thing about this and when attempting to let /her/ know I had given /her/ all options possible for today, the customer refused to accept that. Let me repeat, the customer refused to accept that.

With my temperature starting to rise with this customer and /she/ being arrogant and impossible and having an “all about me” attitude, I belted out a “Sir!” …. that was it, the customer went off on tangent and yells at me saying, “I told you NOT to call me Sir!”

The call, needless to say, exploded from there. I tried every way possible to apologise and explain that I cannot see them. I can only hear them. Regardless, it did not end very well. They hung up on me then called back again and spoke to someone else.

Now…. here is where I get pissed off with people of younger generations getting “offended” if the wrong pronoun is used.

I was born in the mid 60’s… I was conditioned to use pronouns, he/she/him/her/ma’am/sir…. that’s how I was raised. There were no social media platforms, there were no political correctness and social out-cries of being “offended”. No one ever spoke up about being “offended”. The only discrimination I grew up with was with Black History. Even then, I never discriminated against anyone. I never saw “colour”. 

My situation was a ‘voice’ over the phone, my brain was hearing ‘hims and he’s’ and Sirs. I cannot see the face I am speaking with. The name alone was gender neutral and in spite of how hard I tried at the start of the call to avoid pronouns or saying ma’am or sir, and trying my best not to make the customer ‘unhappy’ it still happened. I still ‘offended’ but not because I wanted to. It was purely accidental. It was extremely hard to envision a female on the other end of the line with the voice I was hearing.

I really do not know what this generation of transgender (depending on when the transition occurred) – or gender neutral people expect us older people to do. We are CONDITIONED this way to say he or she. We were BORN to use those terms. We were TAUGHT in school. How dare you yell at us and whinge and whine because we used the wrong pronoun and say we are discriminating. Don’t you DARE pull that race card out on us!

I have absolutely no problems what-so-ever with any transgendered person, or any neutral gendered person or gays, bi’s, whatever you wanna call yourself. I’m a lesbian myself. I’ve had my fair share of ridicule growing up in the 80’s. I don’t judge, I don’t care! But if I accidentally slip up because of a simple pronoun and you all want to do is get offended by that, then that’s YOUR own problem. YOU are the one that is not accepting of mistakes. If you sound male on the phone, and I cannot see the face on the other line, I’ll naturally say what I was conditioned to use. 

You cannot change overnight. Of all people, Trans people should know this. You don’t go from male to female or vice versa overnight. So don’t expect us elders to change our vocabulary in a 20 minute phone call to just suit your gender!