Dear Customer: We Should Be Speaking the Same Language

         As you know, working in customer service is the thing of nightmares. It's where humanity goes to die. It's where stupidity gets it's superpowers from. It's where entitlement, no matter the race, class, gender, etc goes and breeds like fucking rabbits.

It's awful, ok??

        As a black woman, one of the things I hate is a black Karen. Hear me out. I know, also, as a black woman, how we go ignored, get no empathy, and are just kind of tossed aside. Whenever I come across a customer who's a black woman, I give undivided attention. That is not saying that I'm not with everyone, but again I know what it's like so I know where they're coming from and I know what is needed to be said/ done in certain situations to let the women, who look like me, know that I am listening and I'm doing everything I can to fix the situation if not make it somewhat better. 

        I say all that to talk about a conversation I had the other day with a customer who was actually kind of an entitled asshole. It was the same ol topic that I get 99 times a day about bills increasing, prices being high, etc etc. The common thing for a customer to say is "My bill keeps going up and I'm never notified." WRONG. It's on your bill beforehand. You just have to read that fucker every once in a while. This woman would not let me talk and pretty much went full on Karen. It pissed me off because black woman to black woman how dare you disrespect me and talk over me when I'm paid to help you. It made me mad because I had so many suggestions to try and help her out to get a decent deal and she shut me down every time I even opened my mouth. "I don't even know why you're talking. I would've gotten a supervisor by now." Kept tooting her horn that she was a dispatcher. I'm not sure who for. Assholes R' Us?? Then to go back and see that the supervisor that she spoke with told her all the things I was going to go over. So she got nothing accomplished, probably no empathy, and still a high bill.  

        Not to go into politics, but I know another reason this call rubbed be the wrong way is with the state of the world now and as the quote from Malcolm X goes "The most un-protected person in America is the black woman. The most neglected person in America is the black woman." I sometimes don't feel the camaraderie and that breaks my heart. If we don't have each other, who will? If we tear down each other, that gives everyone else permission to do so as well. 

        I try not to let calls get to me. Most of the calls are super redundant, but when I have calls like this that escalate for no reason and I'm not even given the respect or space to talk then what was even the reason for you to call? What is the point of you being an asshole to someone who is polite? It takes far less energy to be a nice person. You gain absolutely nothing from being a jerk yet so many people are. Make that make sense to me. 


- Asia Aneka Anderson 

Dear Customer

         So to get myself hype on continuing to write my book about how customers suck I think I'm going to start a writing series called "Dear Customer". The people I talk with daily... Bless their hearts. That's all I can say. The general public is something else to say the least. I'm hoping for little insights to calls to interactions with some of the absolute worst os nuttiest. 

Identity Crisis

         Lately, I've been thinking, and maybe my mom or my 40-year-plus followers can relate, that after a major life change it's hard to get back to who you are... or were. Then there's the question of whether there's an old you that even still exists. I love being a mom and my son is the best thing to happen to me, but as he gets older and becoming his little independent stubborn toddler self, it gives me freedom to reclaim parts of my old self.

..... But who is that?

        It's no secret that we 80s babies are some of the most nostalgic out there. We long for our Saturday morning cartoons, arcades, and a time before, or on the cusp of, social media. I'm not sure if it's because our pop culture was the best (admit that it was) or because it was the last time we felt safe since a lot of us were entering adulthood as shit hit the fan. I graduated in the summer of 2001. We all know what happened that fall and the world changed forever. Hooray, welcome to adulthood!! Here's war, fear, and don't worry, as soon as you try to get on your feet, here's a recession around the corner. You know, to spice shit up a little.  

        I try to think back on the things that brought me some peace and happiness, and I legit can't remember the last time I felt absolute joy and freedom in the hobbies/ activities I loved, and when I do I feel guilty about it. Why guilt? There's a few reasons, actually. One being, some of these memories are attached to people who are no longer in my life. Unfortunately, scrubbing some of these people from my life also wiped away fond memories or tainted those memories with the realization that those people were actually harmful and not interested in being a positive confidant for me. I can think back on seeing some of my favorite bands with my, then, best friend, but I also have to remember how this person, low- key, made me feel like one of her token black friends.

        Another major reason is cancel culture. Excuse me for a moment while I rant. We live in a time where everyone gets canceled for every mistake. Don't get me wrong. People need to be held accountable for things they've done/said wrong. It's the society not giving people space to correct their mistakes and redeem themselves that get me. How can people grow if you still condemn them for things they're trying to correct. I can't imagine being some immature 13 year old tweeting something dumb for likes and retweets only to have someone dig it up 15 years later to end my career. Like what is that? Ok, end of rant. The reason that cancel culture makes me feel guilty is because a lot of the art, music, movies, etc that I (and most likely a lot of other people) enjoyed are by people who society has "canceled". I don't want to hear someone's think piece just because they heard me play Kanye's first album. We can all agree that he's a problematic mess now ( and that's being polite about it), but come on... it's College Dropout Kanye. Let me live. I think back on how I love(d) to listen to music; all genres. I enjoy(ed) concerts, traveling, movies, festivals, etc., and because of the world we live in, now, I feel like I have to reevaluate all of that. My biggest love, as a preteen, was The Beatles. It's been years since I've listened to them because now I have to look at the fact that John Lennon was an abuser. Name any rocker from the 70s and chances are they groomed their fair share of underage groupies. All of these things are terrible and unfortunately a lot of these things were a product of their time and those rockers made some really good music. Even still a lot of the sexual and overall abuse was horrid and it puts the audience in an awkward spot. I can listen to James Brown and know that he did a lot for the civil rights movement and for our people and still at the same time hope that he is in the hot place for the pain he inflicted on Tammi Terrell, let alone all the other women he abused. 

        The final major reason is now the threat of realizing our own mortality. How can you capture the things that made you happy when you were younger, when the artists that you loved growing up are all dropping like flies? We can't even watch a Marvel movie without feeling a tiny pang in your heart whenever Stan Lee does a cameo.. or a recent one and know that there won't be one. There's an extra bit of sadness if you turn on an oldies radio station and Purple Rain starts to play. The social media posts that pop up on the anniversary of Aaliyah's death, Chadwick Boseman's birthday, or where were you when you heard Michael Jackson died are enough to make you realize that some of these people never got to see the age that you are now. It makes you realize that we're all getting older and that life is short, but hell, how do you live out the rest of it now that my youth is gone?

        We go through many life changes. There's our childhood, where many of us felt safe and everything was new and magical. There comes our teenage years, where hormones turn you every which way but loose, you're trying to find out who you are while at the same time facing the anxiety of becoming an adult. Then there's adulthood. Adulthood has many different roads. For most, one of those definite roads leads to working all the fucking time. You add a relationship and kids to the mix, then where does you, the individual, go? Maybe because my son is only 2 1/2 that I don't entirely see the light at the end of the tunnel of getting back to my creative, somewhat carefree self. I feel guilty that I want to go to a concert, when I could use that money on something for him. Or feeling like a jerk because mama would love to go lay on someone's massage table, but my mom already watches him four days a week while we work. I can't possibly ask her to do it for a fifth even though I know she won't mind. He's 2 1/2 and I can count on 1 hand how many date nights my boyfriend and I have had since he's been born. So not only where did I, the individual, go, but where did mt boyfriend and I go as a unit?

        I'm looking forward to the day when I find out who post mom Asia is. I hope she's freer and holds onto her youth while not trying to completely recreate it. I really want to create all sorts of fun adventures not just for me, but for my whole family. I made a promise on the day my son was born that each year we'll travel somewhere. I want him to get a thirst for life early because I didn't get to do that when I was young. I don't want to keep him sheltered like I was. As I feel freer, I want my son to always feel that throughout his entire life. Even though I don't know who I am in this moment I do hope that, as I do for everyone, that I'm ever-changing, ever-learning, ever-growing. 


- Asia Aneka Anderson

I Am Alive... I Swear

        When I last left you guys I just had my son. He's the coolest two-and-a-half-year-old you could ever meet. To say the least, he's kept me busy. Between him, work, and a social life it has been busy. Not only has it been busy, but the motivation to write is essentially nil. If you add in the fact that I'm my own worst enemy then you have the recipe as to why there's no new work or projects in the works. For a while I was putting together a compilation of poetry to publish to get one more small work out of the way before I completed and started the publishing process on my first novel. That never happened. There was endless editing and then telling myself that I needed new poems to add to give life to poems that I've had for ages. Then when it came to my novel there was edit after edit after edit and it still didn't/ doesn't feel complete enough for me. Now I know that's just my perfectionism sinking her teeth in, but I will never abandon the novel that I did finally finish. I put so much time and my heart into it and it will see the light of day. I just need to stop getting in my own way. 
        What has insipired me to make this post tonight is that I actually have another book in the works. This one is more non-fiction/ humor and along the lines of poking fun of customer service... mainly the customer side of customer service. After being in this field for more than 20 years I've got more than enough stories to tell. My boyfriend, who is my biggest cheerleader, has helped me brainstorm on how to make more of this project. I've mentioned to him that outside of this book I'd like to either build another blog or social media account to sort of promote it (when it's time) of quotes of some of the most outlandish or dumbest things people have said to me other the years. My only concern about that is, in the world of the internet, you have so many people who steal others work and repost it as their own and I didn't want the build of of my next book to go out like that. He suggested Patreon. I now of the platform, but have never dabbled with it, but that may be my next venture. Along with this book and the lead up to it, I had also thought about possibly a podcast or additional YouTube channel that talks about the horrors of customer service/ retail. I could literally talk for hours out the entitlement and ridiculousness of most people. 
        I hope to be more active in 2025. The world is shit right now so may as well create some art, spend time with my beautiful family, make money, and do more of what makes me happy. I hope you all are doing the same.

Until next time!!!

- Asia Aneka Anderson

The Ramblings Inside My Creative Mind: Call Me If You Need Me

         That's a phrase we've all muttered before and heard from someone close to us. "Call me if you need me." I've come to realize, as I get older, that this phrase is just said to keep up appearances or something to embellish sympathy. If a loved one of someone close to you dies it's almost second nature to say "Call me if you need me" without holding onto the promise that you'll be available and also with full knowledge that the person you've said this to will feel like too much of a burden to even bother with your request. 

        My son just turned a month old a few days ago. Most days are great and exciting, but when the days are bad they are really bad. What amplifies those bad days are looking at an empty phone and noticing that after about two weeks those "How are you and baby doing?" texts have almost completely stopped, with the exception of my mom. I have to hand it to her that she reaches out every day. It makes me wonder where is everyone else, but then I know that this is also something that is not new. I look back on when I lost my home in Chicago and had to come back to Dayton. Where was everyone? When my dad died my friends were scarce. When I miscarried twice there was nobody there. When I was laid up in a hospital bed for 46 days, waiting for my son to be born, majority of people were nowhere to be found. Now with my son here we are again. People think that a few likes on his pics will suffice or sending a onesie in the mail is enough. No. Where. Are. You? They say it takes a village to raise a child, but what do you do when your village is already small and with that small village I have to be the one who has to keep connections going because if I don't the texts dry up and even then they still do anyways. It's easy for people to say to reach out if I need anything, but unless it's nothing major I'm not going to be that person constantly reaching out because I need 10 minutes to myself or a nap. In the end, just someone's name popping up on my phone with the message "Are you ok?" would be enough, but I can't even get that. 

        I do realize that a lot of this feeling lands on my shoulders. I expect others to see me drowning because, to me, I am visably crashing and burning, while others might think it looks like I have it together. The other is, the main reason adult friendships diminish, which is that life gets in the way. People have to work, have kids or other family they look after, school, errands, etc and sometimes things get thrown to wind especially if they don't see them as important. I do understand these things, but even then all of this, for me, gets thrown out the window when I see that I'm ALWAYS overlooked. It adds extra stress to me because as my maternity leave winds down I know I should get busy on looking for another job or make arrangements with my current one so that I can still be around to watch my son, if my village seems to be a little unreliable. 

        I try by taking parenting classes and reaching out to other moms. Even the other moms that are in my life have almost completely ignored me (one I even told I desperately needed mom friends and I haven't heard back since) which makes me close in on myself when it comes to building friendships with other moms I don't know through these classes. 

       Moral of the story is it doesn't pay to be loyal in friendships that seem to have run their course, and it's ok to admit when some relationships have run their course. It also doesn't benefit growing up as the black sheep and letting that persona bleed over into every other relationship. Just because I'm the black sheep in my family doesn't mean that I have to be that in my friendship circles, but that way of carrying myself followed me everywhere. It became a part of me.

        So I  march on with mommyhood. Still the mpost challenging and rewarding job I've had so far. As soul crushing as it has been, sometimes, I would not change a single thing. 

The Ramblings Inside My Creative Mind: Not For the Weak

        Here I am a little more than two weeks into motherhood. I had no idea what I was expecting when it came to day to day with a newborn. The only intention I had was to be an understanding mom who practiced gentle parenting in order to raise a compassionate human being, but that's in the future. It's the newborn phase I wasn't prepared for and I am fighting for my life. 
        I didn't expect to feel extreme happiness one minute and extreme sadness the next. There is no in between. I find myself weeping because I can't believe this beautiful sweet little boy came from me and I find myself weeping because I'm so exhausted and frustrated and because of those emotions I dive into the deep end of mom guilt and my mind tries to convince me that I'm a shit mom. From day one when I had a hard time getting him to breastfeed, I felt I obviously had to be the issue because what mom can't breastfeed her baby like nature intended? I must be awful, right? It can't be that hormones threw my body out of whack and both me and baby are new at this. I beat myself up about that a lot in the very beginning. Not only because I felt like it should be natural, or that maybe he didn't want to bond with me, but also because there's so much shaming that goes against moms who formula feed and I desperately did not want to add to that, as if it was something I could control and as if my baby being fed should have been the priority.
        I've cried more in these past two weeks than I ever have in my entire life. I want to sit back and enjoy these moments, but instead I'm becoming detached and annoyed. Baby doesn't deserve that. He doesn't deserve a mom that's frustrated and sad. Most days are good, but it's those few that make me feel horrible. I deal with these days of mostly him and I alone and wonder why I can't be better. Then you add in words from others in my ear who said having kids isn't something I should do. Then I feel lonely and wonder if they were right. I said previously that my pregnancy was a lonely, by being in the hospital for nearly two months, but I had no idea parenthood would be the same if not moreso lonely. 
       You take all of these feelings of feeling like a crap mom and double them by feeling like a horrible partner. I have been in trauma mode since 20 weeks pregnant when I was diagnosed with vasa previa. That was 17 weeks (my c section was at 37 weeks) of knowing that at any point I could lose baby. Intercourse off the table, feeling sexy, or even tending to my partner's needs out the window. Now that the big bump is behind us it's almost like learning each other all over again, but you have this other person that puts a little bit of a stall on that. So what does my mind do? Try to convince me that my partner should go elsewhere. No one wants someone who looks like a slob all day, always sad, and chronically exhausted. Who would roll over in bed and think the former shell of a person they loved is attractive and the one they want. I then let myself get more lonely, more overwhelmed, and angry. 
        I know all this is momentary. This hardship will pass. Some things may be broken. Other bonds may become stronger. All I know is that every time I look in my little boys eyes or hear the little noises he makes my heart swells. All the shit we went through to get him here was a million and one percent worth it. I couldn't ask for anything more and he is the greatest gift I've ever gotten. I can't wait to see his little personality shine through even more because he's got such a big one already. I never thought I'd be a mom, and I'm still determined to be the best one for him. My little man deserves that and nothing, but the best. 

- Asia Aneka Anderson (c) 2022

A Look Inside My Creative Mind: The Mom I Want to Be





       In my latest video, I wanted to talk about the opposite that I did in my previous. I wanted to talk about the parent that I hope to be to my son. He will be here in a matter of hours at the moment and I can't wait to practice everything that I wish to and to be the gentle, encouraging, and loving parent I desire to be. Don't forget to like, share, and subscribe.