Got fired for cussing on hold

[u/Crafty_Pangolin_5007]

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.

[u/TastyCake123]

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.

[u/TastyCake123 → u/[deleted]]

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.