Today a coworker called me out for throwing by oversharing about the status of orders that her and other coworkers have for customers who ask her to fulfill them when they’re behind! I’m not trying to be a bitch!

When she asked me why I kept telling the customers about the status of the orders they called her for when she’s a little behind and hasn’t had the time to do them yet, I stupidly said “It’s instinct.” It really is, though. It’s not like I answer the phone in our office and think to myself “How can I ruin my coworkers reputation by throwing them under the bus to the customers they’re dealing with?” When customers ask me the status of any order, my first instinct is to look in our order entry system to see whether it’s been placed or not to try to answer their question, especially when it’s not an order that I did for them. If I can’t find it, that means it hasn’t been done yet.

I guess, I do have a mindset of “I just want to answer the customer’s question and move on.” When I can’t find an order that one of my coworkers did for a customer in our order entry system, the first thing I should be asking the customer is when did you give it them to enter, do you have a PO or order number? Then, if I still can’t find the order in the system, take down the customer’s number and information, ask my coworker in question about it, and then let them resolve it. It’s amazing how I know all that when I’m not on the line with a customer demanding to know where their order is, but then that all goes out the window when I’m on the phone because I get anxious and just want to move on with my day.

My coworker also called me out for oversharing about this sort of information more than once when she started yelling at today about it, though I haven’t heard her say anything to me about me doing this too much before. She pointed out, we don’t do this to you when you’re behind on orders or quotes for customers who asked you to fill them. I truly meant to cause no harm, but I feel like my anxiety and impulsivity causes me to overshare in customer service without realizing it in the moment on the phone at times.