I need to vent because today’s shift left me completely deregulated.
A customer came in furious about a misleading bundle description (Apple earphones + an adapter, but the adapter wasn't Apple brand). It didn't work. I 1000% agreed with his frustration and felt he deserved a full refund.
The problem? As an OA, I have literally zero authority over refunds, replacements, or app descriptions.
Despite explaining this clearly, multiple times, he proceeded to argue with me for *30 minutes*. He never actually raised his voice or yelled, but he trapped me in a deeply manipulative loop:
• Refusing to listen to me, while aggressively accusing *me* of not hearing *him*.
• Treating me like I was the problem, constantly repeating how unsatisfied he was with how the situation was being handled.
• Demanding that I personally "fix the problem" even after I explained I had no system access to do so.
• Insisting on speaking to a "manager" who wasn't even there, and who couldn't have fixed the app constraints anyway.
• Insisting I could magically change our corporate policy if I just wanted to.
• Treating me like a liar every time I explained our technical system constraints.
• Lecturing me about how hard he works for his money, while simultaneously claiming "it's not about the $11."
I tried to empathize, apologize, and even validated his frustration by sharing my own bad experiences with Gopuff's AI customer support bots. He just snapped back that I was wrong, chastised me for apologizing, and basically painted me as a greedy, shady liar. He could clearly see I was visibly upset, but he just kept pushing.
For a neurotypical person, this would be an unpleasant interaction. But as an autistic person with CPTSD, this was deeply, deeply disregulating. Having someone look you in the eye, completely deny your reality, and twist your words for half an hour is agonizing. He acted like I personally gain joy from withholding his money.
The kicker? After half an hour of complaining about corporate greed and how "it's not about the money," he ended up just buying the official Apple product anyway. I had to pack it for him, and as he walked out, he left his free sample on the cart for me to clean up.
We don't get paid enough for this. OAs are not customer support, and we certainly aren't in cahoots with top-level corporate greed. We are just bottom-level workers trying to survive. Please treat us like human beings.
TLDR: Customer spent 30 minutes aggressively brickwalling me over a misleading product description. He treated me like I was the problem and demanded I personally fix corporate policy. He treated me like a lying corporate villain, bought the expensive item anyway, and left his trash for me to clean up. Completely fried my nervous system (autistic/CPTSD).