Leah had a particuarly difficult customer who in all honesty was rude, demanding and unreasonable. We had all dealt with her on the phone at one time or another but Leah always took the main brunt of it and to be fair she shouldn't have had to.
One day this customer called in and was plain rude and pretty horrible to Leah who subsequently left the office when the call had ended. When she walked back in it was clear she had been crying and was still struggling to gain control of her upset.
I have never seen Tracey move so fast. She was out of her seat like a runner off the blocks.
"Oh Leah what's wrong?" she cooed hugging Leah to her and being all comforting and caring.
"That bitch Sue has been on the phone again. It's not fair, I have to take all her flack and it should be Dave who deals with it. It's him that agreed to sell her 50 vans."
"Well I'm not having a member of my staff upset. I'm going to call Dave and John and tell them this has to stop."
I sent an email to Dee saying I bet she'd never move that fast to support one of us. I didn't have to wait long for her to prove me right.
After a few hours of people moaning and generally spreading bad feeling about the office I decided we had to put a stop to things there and then. I went in to see Charles and Tracey and asked if we could have a meeting...now!
"Yeah, uh ok um..." Was all I got from Charles and Tracey just sort of nodded without looking at me.
I went and sat down and waited for the meeting. From my desk I could see Tracey at hers and after waiting 10 minutes and becoming a little more than bothered about no-one moving to hold this meeting I looked up to receive what can only be described as the smuggest look I have ever seen, from Tracey. She obviously thought it funny that nothing was happening. It was the final straw.
Storming back into their office I asked rather more firmly than before "Can we have a meeting NOW please?!"
"Uh yeah, sorry um I was just uh, I needed to finish this report" stuttered Charles
"Yeah and I need to get these done by 3" smugged Tracey
"WELL FUCKING SAY SO THEN!!" I shouted before storming out literally shaking from head to toe with frustration.
Did Tracey jump out of her seat to see why I was so upset and angry? Did she offer to call my superiors to sort out whatever issues I had? Did she hell. Apparently I was not as valued as her little friend Leah and Tracey had just shot herself in the foot.