You are such a (insert insult here)

[jackfaire]

So you work for a company and the company policy is that no matter what you continue working with a customer even if they call you the worst most racist, sexist, etc slurs in the book.

If they start talking about how all the gays, jews, etc should be dragged out and shot. If they start talking about what lazy lowlifes those immigrants are.

Through all of this your company says you stay on the phone, at the counter, whatever it is and do your job. Oh and don't argue with the customer. You don't have to agree with their statements but you can't disagree and you can't tell them to go away.

So at what point do you decide that's a bad policy? Or do you think that's a bad policy?

[HYHYBT]

Yes, I do think it's a bad policy. I *suspect* it's also illegal under harassment laws; if your employer cannot legally harass you in that manner, it makes no sense that they can make you take it from others. Of course, since many places do have such a policy and they're still in business, they must get away with it somehow.

"Don't argue" is one thing; "don't hang up or ask them to leave or drop the subject" quite another. Particularly, from the business's point of view this is a bad idea at the counter because by not putting a stop to it you're making *other* customers listen as well. On the phone, of course, that doesn't apply.

It would, though, be interesting to hear someone take the other side (Of course this is a wonderful policy! Why would anyone NOT have such a rule?) and really mean it.

[Glados]

Yes it is a terrible policy. I worked for a company with a policy like this. No person should be allowed to verbally abuse/bash an employee. I had customers who would insult me personally, sometimes, for 45 minutes.

I also know from when I trained new employees on sexual harassment prevention that if the talk is sexual in nature that it is illegal if the employer does not address it when an employee makes it known. I would guess that other behaviors may fall under the "hostile work environment" rule but I'm not 100% sure about that.

Employers know that the only recourse that the employees have is to sue. Most retail/customer service employees do not make enough to hire a lawyer and if they do the companies drag the case on for years until the employee cannot afford it anymore and drop the case. This is how they get around the fact that it's technically illegal. They also fire anyone who makes an issue of it (as the company that I worked for did when employees dared to complain about not getting paid for overtime that they worked).

[Andara Bledin]

It's a bad policy all around.

First, from a humanistic point, it's demoralizing and debilitating to your staff. They are reduced to automatons, not allowed to assert themselves in any manner to the callers, emasculated by the company for which they work and offered up as verbal punching bags to the SCs of their clientele.

Then, from a financial standpoint, you have to consider the cost of turnover rates as operators burn out. And then there's the cost of not serving customers with actual needs while you're letting abusive assholes tie up yours staff.

It makes no sense at all from any standpoint. Even paying off people that you allow your staff to tell off would be less expensive.

^-.-^