In my first job out of college, I had no training or experience in customer service. I was horrible at it without knowing what I was doing wrong. For example,

In my first job out of college, I had no training or experience in customer service. I was horrible at it without knowing what I was doing wrong. For example, our system allowed for different ship-to's per order, but one vendor's receiving system wasn't able to handle multiple ship-to's. I should have referred them to my supervisor to negotiate something, but instead said, "you'll just have to change your system." They got irate. That and a few other "people skills" issues that needed tuning got me FIRED. I was devastated. I had taken a "communications" course in college, but it was horrible in hindsight. The author and instructor should have been fired...uh, mentored, I mean. They should have made us read, "How to Win Friends and Influence People". Colleges have something against that book because it's not based on empirical data and doesn't try to sell the idea of using good logic. Instead it deals more with the "squishy" side of human nature. Humans are social creatures above all else.