Some people deserved to be told off, but there's always a different time and place for that! Hope you didn't loose your job!

If you had elaborated on your "slightly less than civil manner" maybe you wouldn't have deserved it. But because you didn't YDI learn how to talk to your CUSTOMERS

i work at a call center and dealing with rude, stupid, selfish pricks is all in a day's work. i deal with yelling, cursing, personal attacks, dipshits, being talked over, disrespected, etc. its horrible but i knew it was par for the course when i took the job. if it was pleasant, they wouldn't pay me to do it. and never, never, never underestimate the simple beauty of the mute button. the wonderous, wonderful mute button....

Hope you like your new job!

I work with the public on a daily basis and i have had them scream, yell, swear etc at me and i swallow my pride and bite my tongue, never be less than civil with the customers at all costs!

Rule number one of customer service: you need to bend over and take it because without the customers there is no work. YDI 100%.

that doesn't give him the right to treat you badly

Unfortunately, sometimes telling jerk customers that they are jerks isn't always an option. Hopefully your client sees the flaw in how he handled the situation, and doesn't focus on your reaction. Best of luck to you.

What a douche nozzle... Sometimes the most frequent customers/clients are the biggest assholes just because they do so much business with you. There's no sense of entitlement for him acting like a jag off to you, I'd be irate if a regular customer/client did that shit to me. Glad you stood up for yourself, too bad it was against an important asshole such as himself. :/

Hopefully this work out for the OP, but it's part of the business. I can't count how many times I've had to answer the phone at my old job and the person was definitely rude. You just gotta be calm and deal with it as best as possible.