This is who you get when you call Sallie Mae

Have you called Sallie Mae yet? Did you get the Yell Staff? This is the training center for EVERY SINGLE PERSON who works at call centers or any other agency where you have to negotiate a completely confusing phone tree that routes you from one unwanted option to another for twenty minutes until you finally start hitting random buttons to get an actual operator (after a twenty- to one thousand-minute wait) who merely tells you that they can't do what you want, no way, nuh-uh, never in a million years. And, when you ask why not, they get pissy and pull out their Yell Staff, Inc., manuals and go down the list:

1. Attack customer's basic premises. Example: Customer: "I want to renegotiate my loans." Staff member: "You already negotiated them. We don't REnegotiate them. It's impossible. You can't redo what you've already done. You signed contracts. Your request is unreasonable. Therefore, your conclusion -- that your loans will be renegotiated -- is untenable. Sorry! [Hang up.]"

2. When customer becomes enraged after being told that you will do absolutely nothing for them, tell them all the reasons why their rage is completely unjustified and will not be tolerated. Staff member: "I will NOT be spoken to that way, sir! Your problems are YOUR problems, and you should deal with them before calling us. We are not psychiatrists. We don't care about your personal life. I am disconnecting you now. But first, let me just say: you need to reevaluate your life. Your priorities are in disarray. You, sir, are a mess and a child and are in no way capable of acting as a productive member of an adult society. [Hang up.]"

3. Insult your customer and then give a false name so it can't be traced back to you. Staff member: "You're a fuck-up, dude! It's laughable -- HA! -- to think that I'm going to do ANYTHING for you! You don't know where I am, so your threats are meaningless, and I don't care about you, and there's no way I'm getting my fat ass out of this chair to help you in any way and NO WAY I'm asking anyone anything about your problem and ABSOLUTELY NO WAY I'm pushing any buttons on this computer to make your problem disappear, so fuck off! My name is Nebuchadnezzar, feel free to talk to my manager about this if you're not completely satisfied with the service you've received. Ha! Loser. [Hang up.]"

The Yell Staff, Inc., manual is not overly-complicated. Very simple directions, mostly taken from observations about how people really treat each other every day in this crappy degraded capitalist world of mannerless fucks.