The Good, the Bad, the Unfortunate

The Good

I am very fortunate to love my job. We work from home which allows me to be available for my 93 year old mother. It also saves commuting time, more time to exercise, more time to throw in a load of laundry. But really, I love my job because of my coworkers - the most empathetic, kind, helpful people I have ever known. We are customer service for an aging-in-place online retail company, meaning we sell products to make elderly and disabled people comfortable and safe at home. Now that’s rewarding.

We sell wheelchairs, rollators, bed rails, toilet risers. But the items we sell the most are incontinence items. Yes, adult diapers. These products are a fact of life and when a person doesn’t have the right ones, life can be miserable. Our role is to find the perfect thing for our customer’s situation and make caring for them more manageable. We are always hearing how grateful people are for our products but also for our compassionate listening skills.

We assist sweet new widowers whose wives always placed orders for their needs and who now have to do it themselves. They want to tell us of their loss; we hear their loneliness and tears and it is our privilege to make the purchase easier. So many people who call are clueless as to what to order, like adult children who have just learned their elderly parent is coming to live with them and they need to prepare their home for safety. We help men, who are very embarrassed at being incontinent after prostate surgery to feel more comfortable with handling the situation. Many older people will talk with us long after the transaction, just because they live alone and have no one else to talk to. They need to tell us of the jobs they retired from, the children they raised, the setbacks they’ve had in life, the successes. They consider us confidants and we appreciate their trust.

Okay - there is a price to be paid for my wonderful job.

The Bad

We hear it all. Customers tell us details about their bodily functions as though we are medical personnel, which we definitely are not. I have heard as much about bladder and bowel leakage as urologists and gastroenterologists. My degree is in Home Economics and I imagined, in my early 20’s, writing for the sweet women’s magazine Family Circle. Boy, did I get that wrong. It was a maze of a path to get here, but being a full time mother and part time caregiver for my aging parents sort of prepared me for this new role of absorbency guru.

Our work is not without adversity; it’s impossible to please everyone. But that is the life of a customer service rep. People take their frustrations and anger out on us. I would be an all powerful being if I truly had control over FedEx, storms, floods, wildfires, faceless warehouse personnel who package our orders, the pandemic, price increases and embargos, as I have been accused. Anything that goes wrong is our fault. But that’s okay - we laugh about it when the phone disconnects - after reassuring our customers we will handle what needs to be done.

We have customers so paranoid of neighbors knowing what they are purchasing that they yell at us for a little tear in the discreet shipping carton - a neighbor with binoculars might be able to see what’s inside! This from someone who lives in assisted living with neighbors who are all purchasing the same things. There are those who call in a panic because they don’t know which is the front of the disposable protective underwear (pullup) and yell about it (for all the years you wore regular underwear, didn’t you figure out the larger area goes in the back?) People who order the wrong size online themselves and then swear we must have changed the order on them - they couldn’t possibly have made that error! Those who accuse us of selling them defective liners that don’t work - when they are applying it on the outside of their briefs rather than on the inside. And customers who call male incontinence wraps “tacos”. That will put you off lunch.

The Unfortunate

There’s a reason we don’t want to publish our last names or have our photos on Facebook. Although most of our customers are pleasant people requiring help in choosing the right products, we are sitting ducks for people who want to take advantage of our kind demeanor and captive position to say things they would never say to our face. There’s the guy who calls us while sitting in a bathtub, splashing about (use your imagination). The person who wants to describe (over and over again -  in detail) their explosive diarrhea needing to be contained. The guy who is positive the largest tube for our manual vacuum erection pump is too small for him - and could we describe slowly how to measure for it? There’s Mr. L who angrily calls from the junkyard telling us he has found a part we can use to manufacture the product he needs and why aren’t we jumping at this opportunity? And of course, there are the many people who are members of the ABDL (Adult Baby Diaper Lover) community. Google it. They have asked us if we can come to their home to change their diaper. I had led a very sheltered life before this job.  

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So the positives of my employment far outweigh the negatives - and the negatives make for good stories. It’s not a glamorous job, but it’s a satisfying living. At least once a day I hear a grateful person say that I have made their life so much better. What could be more rewarding than that?