I lost myself a few months ago, and I've been struggling to relocate my identity and purpose in life ever since. In the past month, I've learned that one thing is certain: a technical support agent, I ain't. Hey, I tried it on for size, so you at least have to give me that. But some people simply aren't meant for the customer service industry, and I have discovered that I'm one of them.

Never mind that I didn't know a whole lot about web hosting; I knew that I would quickly learn everything necessary to assist clients. It was the getting yelled at by complete pricks that finally did me in. It made me cry. Pathetic, I realize, but true. No amount of coworkers and supervisors instructing me to not "take it personally" and to "not take it to heart" could alleviate this problem. Looking back over my life thus far, it's evident that I am overly sensitive. I know this about myself, and I've certainly tried to correct this flaw. If it were so simple to just turn it off, to let the insults "just roll off" me as suggested by those surrounding me, I doubt I would have made it to 26 still wearing the crown of The Biggest Crybaby in the Universe. Honestly.

I still remember the first customer who yelled at me on the phone. It bothered me that much. His name is Jay Rodrigues, he's a freshman at UPenn (and therefore thinks he's superior to the rest of the world, apparently), he's a complete and total douchebag, and he has a particularly ugly Adam's apple. Ah, the joys of Google.

Anyway, this jerkface called in on behalf of an organization with which he didn't even appear to be directly involved. When I asked for account information, he replied, "I don't know, they just called me in on this." I should have ended the call there, as the company doesn't provide support to individuals who are unable to verify the account. However, I thought that I would do Mr. Rodrigues a favor and see if I could locate the problem for him. I found that the website of interest had incorrectly set name servers, an issue that must be rectified with the domain's registrar.

When I gave this asshole that information, he exploded. He flooded my ear with a cacophony of ignorant insults and screams, vehemently insisting that this must have been our fault. Even though there was no way the DNS changes could have been made on my (former) company's end; even though the the mistake clearly was made by someone associated with the website. It was an easy fix - it was just a typo that needed to be corrected with the registrar. But Mr. Jay "Ultimate Douchebag" Rodrigues refused to accept that. He instead informed me that there was no way anyone associated with the organization could have made this mistake, because "they don't know anything about servers." Looks like Lord Ivy League doesn't know anything about servers either, if he's unable to distinguish them from name servers, which were actually the cause of the problem at hand. "I run an internet business," he kept telling me screaming at me. Then he started cursing at me, pitching his pathetic little conniption and threatening to move the site elsewhere. Good luck with that, dude. Switching hosts won't change the fact that you're an idiot. I would not recommend doing business with this guy. Unless, of course, you enjoy being unjustifiably yelled at by ignorant, egotistical bags of douche. Different strokes for different folks, and all that.

Are all UPenn/Wharton students ignorant douchebags? Or did the admissions people just make a mistake in letting this one in?

There were more assholes after this one, but Jay still sticks out in my mind. You never forget your first, or so the saying goes, eh? Maybe I can't blame Jay, or any of the other pricks. Perhaps I spent too long in my false ivory tower at grad school over the past couple of years, where people were always treated with at least a modicum of respect. When I decided that I did not actually want to pursue epidemiology, I was faced with the prospect of having to start again from the bottom of a different industry. So I guess I should have been prepared for how ugly it could be.

I lasted a month before I just couldn't take it anymore. I died a little bit every time I walked in the building, and it was starting to cause problems. I loved my coworkers, and the company itself was great - everyone was super nice and the environment was totally laid-back. But outside of work, I had begun to morph into someone I didn't like. I kept picking fights with Jim for no real reason, I had a headache all the time, I was constantly stressed, and I never got enough sleep. So I quit.

So here I am again, with no bloody idea what I'm supposed to be doing with my life. Other people out there seem able to pick a path and stick with it, but that's proven rather difficult for me: neuroscientist, physiatrist, dermatologist, disability evaluator, optometrist, veterinarian, epidemiologist. I'm done with the whole health field. I clearly can't sustain interest in it for long enough. Too bad my BS in Neuroscience and MPH work in Epi aren't really conducive to pursuing career paths outside of health care.

Damn.