Enabling bullies

In the heat of a conversation with a very abusive customer, he called me a "B...h". Without thinking, I answered with "Your mother's a B...h". I knew I was wrong to let the customer get to me like that, but I didn't want to get into trouble for hanging up on him. After the call, I messaged my team members to BOLO (Be On the Look Out) for him. One team member responded that she just got him on the phone and he hung up on her because he didn't like her voice. I replied to her that she should have heard what he told me. Finally, a team leader asked for the contact information on this customer and the other team member said that she didn't have that information but that I did. So I voluntarily emailed the team leader with my contact information for the customer. Later on that day, my team leader asked me to call her so that we can discuss this call. She then told me that I was wrong, that I should have hung up, and that I shouldn't have posted anything in the chat about this call. She said that policy instructs me to hang up and report the call to my supervisor. I told her that I was trying to find the policy in the KC, but couldn't find it. She then searched and couldn't find it either. She then informed me that she would have to discuss this matter with HR and get back to me the next day. She didn't. Three days later, she had me call in to speak to her and HR. At this point, I was informed that I was terminated because I violated policy. I expected a write up, but to be fired for one bad call out of over 3,000 calls, seems excessive to me.

I'm also unclear on which policy I didn't follow. Was it because I paraphrased the customer or was it because I didn't report it? Was it because I talked about it in the chat room, or was it because I couldn't recall the policy? It really just appears that the team leaders have the power to fire anyone for any reason they deem plausible. I say this because one month earlier, I was being bullied by a team member. He kept emailing me, taunting me about a decision I made on a customer. He then went into the chat room and posted all of my responses to him, without including his communication. The entire chat room started calling me "scary" and saying that I should be reported and coached. I then replied on the chat line that he didn't give the complete story and once they found out it was me, they apologized. Finally, a team leader got on the chat to console HIM and to tell him that if he needed to talk about this, he should inbox her. I replied that I was the one being bullied, and then she said that I could call her if I needed to talk. Once I told her the entire encounter, she assured me that he really didn't mean anything bad and that I should just forget about it. I was so shaken by this experience that I had to take the rest of my shift off to collect myself. When my team leader found out, she called me and told me that she was very sorry this happened to me and that he definitely broke policy by contacting me. She stated that he should have reached out to his team leader and let her handle it. She also assured me that he didn't mean anything bad and she suggested that he, I, and one of the team leaders should talk this over. Of course, he played innocent on the phone and apologized if I took it the wrong way. He said that he posted it on the chat line to get everyone's opinion to see if he was wrong. I informed him that if he really wanted an objective opinion, he would have posted the entire conversation and not just my responses to his questions. I then informed him that I felt that he was bullying me and that I didn't appreciate it.. His team leader said that he has learned his lesson and, in the future, would know how to handle this.

All three of these team leaders admitted that he broke policy, yet he was not even suspended. Why? Are there certain policies that are forgiven, or is it because of something more disturbing? I'm from Brooklyn, New York and used to dealing with all types of people. In Brooklyn, if someone curses at you, you curse back at them and life goes on. The customer whom I was speaking with didn't make a formal report, so why wasn't I just written up or coached? I put in a formal complaint against this team member, and nothing happened to him. Isn't bullying against Amazon's policy? It goes without saying that he is White, as are all three of the team leaders involved. My team leader even admitted that I didn't start the argument with this customer and went out of my way to help him in spite of all of the cursing he was doing. She said that because he started out the conversation cursing, I should have terminated the call. Yet, the policy states that if you don't find it offensive, you don't have to disconnect. Cursing doesn't offend me. I finally hung up because he kept being sexually explicit.