Has Florida Sunk Into The Sea Yet?

For all the shit our field technicians get into with us, a lot of them have it really rough. I've spoken to people in just my area who work for our company as field techs, and they have been shot, stabbed, fought with dogs having been sent after them, people pushing them off ladders and all other sorts of nastiness. My first team I made friends with an ex field tech that came into the center just to get off the streets. What colored his decision was that he had been stuck on a pole behind someones house for 8 hours. He got up on the pole, the guy let his three rottweilers out, and my friend dropped his walkies. The dogs kept circling the bottom of the pole and he was stuck there for 8 hours until his supervisor came to find out where he was. After another short wait for animal control and the police, he came down, went home, and transfered to the call center. To put if further into perspective, the tech supervisor that did my cable install when I first started with the company shared stories about how many times he had been shot or stabbed while doing installation. So yeah, these guys take a lot of abuse. With that in mind I bring you a classic call from Florida.

me: Thank you for calling HSI support my name is jacapo, how may I help you today?
cx: Yeah, I had an appointment for today, tech never showed.
me: I can certainly help you with that. Let me just pull up your account here. Can I have the phone number?
cx: *gives me the number*
me: *pulls up the account, shows the customer did have a tech, but the notes indicate the customer cancelled at the door, meaning the tech was turned away when he showed up* Sir, I'm showing here on the account that you cancelled the appointment when the tech showed up.
cx: I didn't cancel, I told him to send someone else out!
me: Is there a reason for that sir? What was wrong with the technician?
cx: I don't want no filthy fucking mexicans in my house!

Now our monitoring software didn't always record for QA's, but we had the ability to manually record calls incoming, I felt that this call was in need of being recorded so I hit the button to begin recording.

me: Sir can you say that again? I don't think I heard you right.
cx: I don't want no fucking mexicans in my house. You heard me.
me: I'm sorry sir, but we don't control the race of the technicians that go to the homes.
cx: well you best better start, cause I see a fucking Chewy or a fucking porch monkey and I'll blow their god damn head off.
me: I would advise against that action sir, as it would probably land you in jail.
cx: Who the fuck cares about them, they cant speak no good english and they're takin american jobs. I cant stands them.
me: Well, I would thank you to not use such derogatory terms on this call sir, and unfortunately, again, we cannot control the race of the technician coming to your home for your internet trouble.
cx: Like I said you best better find away
*I hear the "shink" sound of shells being loaded into what I can imagine is a shotgun followed by the pump action cocking it*
cx: If I see one of them damn mexican or colerds, they either gonna be shot, or strung from a tree.
me: Sir that is an open threat against an employee of our company. I will ask you this once and only once, are you being serious in this threat?
cx: Damn skippy I am.
me: Thank you sir.
*I hang up the phone*

I toss myself in an aux state and make my way to my supervisors desk. She's new and I feel bad but shes gotta get broken in sometime

me: Hey , got a minute?
sup: sure, whats up?
me: Just had a customer threaten to shoot one of our techs.
sup: Oh... um.. was he serious? *The look in her eyes was of the OMFGWTF variety*
me: He was loading a shotgun I could hear the shells being loaded and heard him cock it.
sup: Oh jeeze, um... what do we do?
me: I recorded the call, what you need to do is get on the horn with this guys local police and report it asap, I'll call dispatch and let them know his house is a no fly zone.
sup: Ok, god, You don't think he'd really shoot the tech do you?
me: to quote the customer "better not be no Chewy or Porch Monkey" the guys IQ is probably less then mayonnaise and he has a gun, chances are someones going to get shot, him or other.
sup: Oh my. *she was obviously nervous about this, If I was wrong shed get in trouble for a false alarm, if I was right and she didn't do anything chances are a tech would wind up dead. Being Florida our tech were predominantly hispanic. *

So I show her the mp3 of the call, she extracts it and listens to it, her eyes wide like saucers. She then extracts the file and calls this guys local authority and sends them the mp3. About an hour later we get a call on her phone from the local authorities. The guy was arrested sitting on his porch with a loaded shotgun, apparently waiting for our tech. Scary shit.

Now I know I just bitched about our techs and their attitude, and while I may not like the vast majority of them, I'd be damned if I would wish a shotgun wound on any of them let alone death.