I work in an office providing customer support for a small pet food manufacturer. I assist customers over the phone, email, and a live chat function on our website. So many people assume I’m AI in chat, which makes sense. A surprising number think I’m a bot when they call in, because I guess my voice sounds like a recording.

Most of the time it’s just a funny moment at the start of our interaction, but especially in chat, people can be downright nasty. I can’t believe the abuse people hurl out when they assume it’s not an actual human on the other end. When I reply in a way that is polite, but makes it clear a person is interacting with them, I have never gotten a response back.

It’s not a huge deal, but it still sucks to read the nasty shit people say. I can also understand people’s exhaustion with being forced to deal with robots from my own experiences when I’ve needed support as a customer. I also get feedback every day from people thankful to be able to call or write in and get an actual person listening to and helping them. If we want to continue having services like this, we need to make sure we’re treating the people offering them decently so they want to continue offering that to us.