Wednesday, November 23, 2022

Thanks given and thanks received

Tryptophantastical

If you're celebrating¹ Thanksgiving this week, may your queues be calm and your Turkey song weirdly affecting. I'm thankful for you, friend, caring enough about your job and your customers to spend your time with me.

If you are working through the holiday, I hope your bosses and customers appreciate it. And though customer service work can be exhausting and under-appreciated, there are things we can all give thanks for:

For the customers who take great screenshots and the ones who attach the right file. For every single person who reads the help documentation.

For the colleagues who take over when you just can't anymore, and the bosses who know when to give you a break.

Be thankful for the people who are polite even when they are in the right. For those who admit their mistakes and especially the ones who apologize. For the people who get your name right, and the people who at least get your jokes.

The ones who know the difference between rating the product and rating the service, and the ones who know the difference between a request and a demand.

Give thanks for the people who provide the relevant details, and the people that provide irrelevant gifs. For the leaders who invest in customer experience, the managers who listen and the engineers who care about users.

For the customers who give us work to do and people to do it for.

And for all the kind ones.

See you next week.

1 For the folks merely tolerating or even suffering through Thanksgiving...we're with you too.