[vandahm]

I used to be a software engineer at a nonprofit that handled a lot of customer care requests. I wanted to see what frustrated our users, and I also wanted insight into how we could better support the customer care team. So I talked to the volunteer coordinator, took a day of PTO, and worked a shift in customer care. (Because I did it as volunteer work on PTO, my boss and project manager couldn't tell me not to do it.)

Reader, working in customer care blows. It sucks hardcore. From my engineering work, I actually knew what the cause of the problems were and understood the timeline for fixing them -- information that real customer care reps rarely have available to them, but even that wasn't enough to appease some people. Even when people weren't rude, just the never-ending barrage of complaints and problems that I had to fix wore me down. And I only worked one shift, and then went back to engineering the next day.

People who can do this day after day, retain their composure, and somehow not burn out from the nature of the work are awesome, and they have my respect. Their jobs are absolutely more difficult than mine.