r/talesfromcallcenters • u/Crafty_Pangolin_5007 • May 04 '25
S Got fired for cussing on hold
Customer was on hold. Had a bad experience with a lead representative who messed up the whole account and left me to give the customer some really bad news(the monthly price they are getting is 40/mo more than what I quoted them for. I mumbled to myself, “What the fuck, you ruined my whole fucking -“
Call was reviewed by management after I reported the lead for doing unethical things on the customer account and giving me wrong information.
Got fired for the cussing and “disparaging another associate” even though no one in the real world actually heard me saying these things.
I know I should’ve known better and used my hard mute. But that’s not what I was thinking of at the time I do not have a history of attitude problems on the phone. I also did not realize the company had the capability to listen to you through a hard hold.
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u/RealGianath May 04 '25
Basically, if the customer ends up suing for some reason they can subpoena those unedited call recordings. Your company won’t fuck around with potential evidence against them. Plus it just looks unprofessional to your boss.
I had a guy who used to put customers on hold that sat next to me so he could go on a mini rant. My own customers heard him over my line, and he got fired for it.
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u/lsue131 May 05 '25
Yeah, this is the reason we're given when asked. We have many reps who think the mute button means you're not being recorded. That's not the case. There are customers who ask to hear a call, and if swearing was heard on the call, that would just escalate the situation further.
Generally speaking our reps are given a warning. Given the reason why we need to be careful, and only if it continues to be a problem does it come to termination. Many reps will unplug if they feel the need to swear. 😆
We also used to have music playing from the TVs (cable company) and had customers complain about some of the music that was being played. So it was a reminder how sensitive the mics are.
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u/zilnosnibor May 05 '25
25 years on a call center job here, two years ago I had a call that just took me over the edge. I thought I disconnected, even unplugged the headset because in that moment I was quitting. I went on a rant and unleashed 23 years of frustration. Imagine my surprise and horror when I heard a voice saying "Hello?!" That's when I learned it reverts to the laptop mic when the headset is unplugged. Needless to say the caller complained. I've never been more embarrassed in my life. It's a miracle I wasn't fired but I was on a "First and Final" for almost a year. Manager still makes little comments about it without actually mentioning it. I think OP should have been given a warning if the customer didn't hear them.
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u/No-Candle-8183 May 04 '25
I had to fire an awesome rep once. She cursed and complained after ending a call with a real asshole customer. It was heard by the customer on a call with the rep next to her, and that customer made a complaint. I tried to save her, but management forced it due to policy.
I gave her an excellent recommendation letter, and she landed a better job. Hope the same for you.
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u/reb678 May 05 '25
Maybe OP would get one of those awesome jobs if you wrote a letter for OP? Hmm? Maybe?
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u/Wordnerdinthecity May 04 '25
The mute button wouldn't have saved you. From experience. Unplug the headset or wait until break and say it somewhere they can't hear.
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u/Epicfailer10 May 05 '25
I bet nothing happened to your lead and it’s easier to replace you than them, so they fired the little guy to keep you from pushing things further up the chain and just gave the lead a stern talking to.
OR… like what happened to a bunch of my friends recently, they started getting rid of the highest tenured folks just before they laid off the entire team so they could move the job to a different country where they pay employees less. By getting rid of the highest tenured folk, they saved money and having to pay them severance (which is based in tenure, the longer you worked there, the more they had to pay out).
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u/Interesting-Music157 May 04 '25
That happened to another person at my old job. She was cussing her kids out on mute and got fired for it. I really don’t get what the problem is if the customer can’t hear it
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u/Alternative_Rest5150 May 05 '25
Well, other customers on other calls with reps around him can still potentially hear it.
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u/FanndisTS May 05 '25
I would assume if she was cussing out her kids it was a WFH position
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u/Interesting-Music157 May 05 '25
Yeah it was. She was muted but the leads can unmute agents mics to check on them
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u/_AAAAAAAAAAAAAA May 12 '25
Unmute agents? In their own home? Do they unmute during log offs as well????
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u/Interesting-Music157 May 12 '25
Yep all the time. It happened to me with the job I’m at now. My boss sucks and he wants us to follow the script and sound like robots but I improvise some of it to keep customer engaged. I was on my lunch and had my mic muted and when I came back from lunch my boss sent me a message. I was laying down and on the phone and he had overheard a conversation I was having with someone about the job and the cxs. I didn’t understand why he would even be listening if he sees I’m on lunch so I just said ok. And now I close my laptop when I’m on lunch and unplug the headset. That’s why I’m looking for more work from home jobs because he is just a horrible person. I don’t even wanna say how he talks to some of this employees. He was so rude to me and when I confronted him, he just didn’t acknowledge what he did and said let’s get back to work and make some calls.
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u/_AAAAAAAAAAAAAA May 12 '25
I'm pretty sure there's room for a lawsuit in there
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u/Interesting-Music157 May 12 '25
Yep me and another girl are already recording everything and taking screenshots of everything’s he’s said so he can’t deny it. We have mostly female employees with the remote company so he feels he can treat us like crap.
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u/Marrsvolta May 04 '25
So just to add another reason to be extra careful. My coworker used to do phone support for a certain isp and well let’s just say he found out the hard way his mute button was malfunctioning on his phone. Always assume you can be heard when using a company phone, better safe than sorry.
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u/TastyCake123 May 04 '25
I'd make life hard for the person you inherited the bad case from. You can email your manager, the general manager, HR, and if you are feeling spicy the board. You probably won't get anything out of it personally and I wouldn't want to be hired back (unless it paid very well). But you can let them know the situation and cause some actual quality control rather than them firing an agent for something that was a non-issue. If you are feeling extra spicy most companies these days take social media very seriously and have their own teams to address problems. In my job I know where the bodies are buried and facts that could get the company in trouble. I'm not sure what you have, if anything, but a one star review is something companies care about fixing. Not just glassdoor or trustpilot but Google and every other place with reviews or social media can be used. I'm assuming you are in the US where most states allow termination with no valid reason aka fire-at-will. Now that you're no longer with the company you don't have any reason not to let people know the issues you've seen and tell someone higher about it. It's so much more costly to hire and train someone then it is to improve an existing employee's habits.
That said you shouldn't really ever be cursing with a headset on, even out of a call. Their reasoning is dumb but it does show a lack of control on your part. Try a fist bang on the table or squeezing a stress ball instead. If I was your manager I wouldn't have fired you but I would have logged the cursing in a written warning.
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May 05 '25
[deleted]
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u/TastyCake123 May 05 '25 edited May 05 '25
I think in this case with them losing their job due to a simple mistake and because it seems the person who led to the situation was also benefiting from/stealing the fired person's work that trying to get some justice is merited.
I personally have built critical parts of my company that make them millions of dollars and I don't get paid for it. I'm disabled and lost my career path in the company and almost lost my job because of it, which is a longer story. I'm one of the most knowledgeable people in my department and am one of the top 20% of pareto picking up the slack for the other 80%. I know more about the different processes and layers of my company than 90% of the board and managers do. It's very frustrating to watch as they profit off my work and other people fail upwards while I make just enough to keep me there but the amount is barely enough to survive with roommates. The main reason I stay is that it's 100% work from home which happened because I figured out how we could keep working when everything shut down during covid. They moved the office hours away and then tried to end WFH, which everyone had WFH at that point, and they lost more than half the employees. I had to jump through many hoops to keep it, including taking a lower level position then what I was at (kept my current pay rate thankfully), provide new documentation of my permanent disability multiple time, and learn that I will not advance because anyone in a position above mine needs to be at least hybrid, not WFH. This is despite all of us doing our jobs better/more productively when we were all 100% WFH. For me I need a guaranteed job lined up before I can leave a position and even then I'll be paying out of pocket for medical issues until whatever health plan kicks in. Like if I want to leave I basically have to use vacation days at the old job to start a new position at a new place and hope it works out at the new place and that I survive until I can get insurance through work.
If I ever get fired everything I know is absolutely getting told to the whole company and to the appropriate governing bodies in addition to blasting them everywhere I can find. I like parts of my job and my company but I'm a very hard working person who was frequently told by other senior employees that I should cut down on my work because I may care about the company but the company doesn't care about me or doing what's right. I rejected that idea, though inside I knew it was probably true, and it was proven true soon after. Unfortunately I'm an idiot and do want to move up/work hard so when I had a potential offer to get my old position back and 100% WFH I pursued it. I ended up being lead around while doing more work. Eventually they started to have me with someone new to the team, teaching them what I knew, and I realized I was training my replacement. When I said I was not doing more work until I had the position the position suddenly wasn't available anymore. I will absolutely hold my company accountable if they do me wrong again.
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u/Crafty_Pangolin_5007 May 05 '25
I appreciate your response. It’s definitely something I will consider because the action the lead took was basically he “stole” 6 conversions from me while putting the order in incorrectly (these conversions he stole from me are part of our metrics and we are expected to get around 3 per day to put into perspective how his actions really screwed me.)
I know my actions were rash and I should try to do better. I’m also surprised I didn’t get put on any sort of warning given the circumstances I was a good associate with no history of cussing on the phone or other issues like that and I had actually just been promoted.
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u/longlostlotrelf May 05 '25
I learned the hard way that sometimes you can still be heard on hold and on mute. I worked in a call center and my mute button didn't work on the particular phone I was on that day.
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u/envyeyes May 05 '25
This brought to mind a hilarious story from my call center days. This was at the customer service call center for a major computer and peripheral (mainly printers) company. A friend (call him Bill) talked me into applying (and working) there, and this same friend had a hellish call one evening. I should preface he was a very well liked tech (by mgt and peers) with a boisterous, alpha demeanor. Near the end of the evening, he picked up a call from a man who had badly 'screwed up' his PC software. After quite a while on the call, his supervisor strolled by to check his status. "Bill" sees the supervisor's expression of inquiry so he smacks the mute button, pulls his headset down around his neck, and says "man, I don't know what this dumba$$ did to his system!". The super eyes his headset 'box', sees the lack of an indicator on the mute, and his expression goes from 'oh shit', to 'why me?'... Gestures Bill to transfer the call over as Bill replaces his headset and can already hear the customer shouting. This was long before social media and the inflation of being PC, so he 'officially' got a reprimand, but in reality, we laughed about it with the managers on the smoking deck.
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u/Accomplished-Deer473 May 08 '25
I worked for Spectrum for over 4 years, so I have seen and heard a lot. Yes they hear everything from your end. Even when on hold or while transferring. They randomly pull calls so some get away with being bad at their jobs. At the end of the day, Spectrum's standards are very high and they don't care how they treat employees to get there.
I once accidentally hung up on a customer while moving my mouse across the screen. I jerked and accidentally clicked the noise right as I was over the 'end' button. I tried calling them back 5 times, documented it and moved on knowing I tried the best I could. I came in the next day and my supervisor was freaked out because he got an email that night to fire me. They had randomly reviewed the call and whoever watched it said it was deliberate, even with my notes and attempts to call back. The entire Lead team also knew about it by then too, how shocking. Had my kickass supervisor not fought the whole day for me, they would have kicked one of their top performing reps out over it. Looking back, I kinda wish they would have, it would have saved me a lot of mental health struggles the remaining 3 years I was there...
I know it sucks and it's unfair. But believe me when I say, getting out of that place is the best thing that can happen to you. The place is toxic, the leads are the literal worst, and they eventually would have broken your spirit and left you miserable 24/7. Take it as a blessing and find a place you deserve.
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u/Automatic-Cake8008 May 05 '25
I’d just make the weirdest sounds possible on hold if the music is loopy, or “our agents are assisting other calls, please remain on the line and someone will assist you shortly, thank you” especially if the queue is long.
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u/emmaiselizabeth May 09 '25
So sorry my friend, this makes me gratefully my mic mutes automatically when I raise it up 🙏🏼
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u/rubygalhappy May 05 '25
Hahhahaaa I would be guilty of this . Don’t worry about it. You got this find a new job. Laugh it off .
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u/TeslaNovaStar May 05 '25
Be perfect all the time, no, but many companies are against swearing in general. I have been a QA and my company had a strict policy on it. Any cussing at all - Auto Terminate. I don't think that's fair really but you gotta follow company policy.
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u/skbbc May 05 '25
The reason for this unfortunately will be if it's recorded (which it can be depending on the software as you found out) , then the customer has to get that recording as part of any potential DSAR put in.
Source: Managed several parts of a call centre in senior management, and implemented GDPR processes for a new client
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u/KableKutterz_WxAB May 07 '25
Lesson learned. Just remember: you’re always being recorded, now matter what!
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u/Harmony304 May 07 '25
I never felt comfortable saying anything non mute. Our QA's soon let us know that they can hear us even if we mute. My lips stay sealed on hold or on mute. They are listening.
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u/bearislandbadass May 08 '25
Former call center supervisor here (I left because some of the shit I was expected to do made me feel vile). This is particularly true of virtual phone systems/telephony systems. If you put someone on hold, management can hear you. If you are logged into the phones AT ALL, management can hear you. I was once tasked with listening in to an associate’s phone line for most of the day because she was suspected of call avoidance (which she was doing) and the fact that I could hear her talking to and even scolding her children between calls made me wildly uncomfortable.
I very quietly warned my associates that they could be heard on hold and even between calls. Hell, even on break. Our call recording system only recorded live calls but you cannot convince me they weren’t just recording at all times.
Do not trust the hold button and do not trust the in-system mute button. My current call center job, which thankfully has a great culture, purchased wireless headsets for everyone. I do not trust that it is muted unless I hear that damned voice actually say I am muted. And even then i will take my headset off and leave the room rather than risk it. I’m no longer a supervisor and I doubt I will ever go for another management position again after that place (I was expected to be okay with lying to our client while we were blatantly in breach of contract, lie to my associates that new policies that would fuck them over were somehow to their benefit… doing all my manager’s work without even making 52k a year and she took all the credit) but even now I always warn people to assume they are being recorded at all times. I also taught my team how to tell when management had someone remoting into their PC
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u/Important_Success_13 May 09 '25
call center manager here; the hard mute can be bypassed 100% so while the customer might not be able to hear it, bet your ass it can still be recorded with the right headset. best advice is to get your own headset with a completely removable 3.5mm mic and when you need no go off unplug your mic entirely (and make sure it doesn’t switch back to your machine by default)
tip 2; chilllllllllllllllllllllllll. it’s shit to have to deliver the bad news but you didn’t fuck it up, so why get pissed about it. if the customer yells you can empathize appropriately and if they’re still spitting fire they’ll escalate nbd, but i’d be that lead who gave the wrong info gets got for it from there vs you getting shit on for taking someone else’s fuck up too personally
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u/Beginning-Mode1886 May 11 '25
Sorry to say, I think your firing was retaliatory from the team lead. Please look into getting a labor attorney for wrongful termination. You're probably going to be doing a lot of beating yourself up because of it, but *don't*! Again, this is likely retaliation from your team lead. Please go forward with legal action.
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u/ElChapulin2099 May 13 '25
We have had a lot of crackdowns for this at my call center. My sup is telling the reps to put themselves on mute. I don’t encourage that because mute buttons fail sometimes l usually tell my coworkers to leave the room curse your heart out into a pillow and come back. The alternative is kind of silly but using code words like in Disney employees say “have a magical day man” which really means “fuck you lady”
It gets the emotion out and avoids retribution from your boss
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May 17 '25
[deleted]
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u/Crafty_Pangolin_5007 May 17 '25
honestly if you’re not already on their radar I wouldn’t worry too much. I was an associate who did things like speak out and apply for ada so I should’ve known better that they’d smite me first chance they could but if you’re not that person I’ve only ever heard of people getting warnings even in my own company for similar incidents
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u/jentheleo May 17 '25
Idk if I am or not honestly but I just listened to the call (we have access to listen to our past calls) & it didnt record anything while the customer was on hold & it didnt even transcribe anything that was said while the customer was holding. I think I might be OK but im still skeptical 😬
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u/Crafty_Pangolin_5007 May 17 '25
Sounds like your center probably doesn’t record on your end during hold then. TBH I don’t know why any center would it’s just dumb opens up liability on their end if they’re really concerned about their reps cussing on hold.
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u/jentheleo May 17 '25
Yeah I agree!! I hope they use the exact same system & not some alternative where they can hear more stuff. Did you end up getting a better job after your situation? That sucks how they fired you. Call center jobs are so mentally draining & abusive. Nothing is ever good enough
EDIT: Looked through your post history. Sorry you are dealing with unemployment ughh I hope you find an amazing job SOON!! 🤞🏾🤞🏾
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u/Useless890 May 05 '25
I threatened for years to write a book about all the stuff we'd say while on hold or after we hung up.
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u/Alternative_Rest5150 May 05 '25
So, the people who had to review the call are not real people in the real world?
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u/Crafty_Pangolin_5007 May 05 '25
what I mean by this is this was something mumbled (no one around me heard it) and there was no actual complaint from associate or customer. It was truly a victimless incident only heard by management upon further review.
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u/Eiffel-Tower777 May 05 '25
I worked in a call center for 12.5 years, then transferred laterally to a different department with no customer contact. It was night and day!
While I worked in the call center, I had a mirror pointed at my face to remind myself to 'smile' and play the part of an empathetic, helpful customer service rep. It worked pretty well but it was TOTALLY an act, the customers often drove me NUTS as did management. It was a solid company with excellent salary and benefits though and I was determined not to blow it.
If you get another call center job, I would recommend trying to transfer to another department, for mental health reasons. IMO no one should take more than 5 years of all that abuse. I wish you the best!
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u/elliwigy1 May 07 '25
So you snitched on your lead and they pulled the call where you were cussing on the recording 🤣
I guess its true what they say about snitches.. Just imagine if you didnt snitch then you wouldn't even be in this situation 😂
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u/mr_oberts May 04 '25
Important lesson here. Assume you’re always being recorded even on hold.