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Thought I'd share more tales from the call center tonight - 3 calls in which I felt more like a 911 dispatcher than a CSR:
Train Wreck:
First one was several years ago, when I was working in reservations for Amtrak. Just another night when a call comes in and I do my usual thank you for calling blah blah. There's a pause and a woman says, "I'm just calling to tell you all not to feel bad." Um, what?
Then the woman proceeds to tell me that she is going to kill herself tonight. On the train tracks. Throwing herself in front of our train. And we shouldn't feel bad about it.
So I am trying not to panic - I don't know if this woman is serious or not but it's not like I can take the chance. So I desperately flag down a supervisor while trying to keep her on the line. The next hour is probably one of the most stressful of my life. I can't put her on hold and I can't transfer for her to anyone else; I do not want to take the chance that I'll lose her. I spend the whole time just trying to listen while a supervisor is monitoring the call and the authorities are trying to trace it. She's telling me all about her health problems and how her family doesn't care and I'm trying to say the right thing and give her some hope and it's just taking. so. freaking. long for them to find her and of course she won't tell me where she is or her name. Then finally a supervisor comes and taps me on the shoulder and I mute her, at which point he says. "Just hang up. We found her; she's some nutcase who does this all the time."
Hang up? Hang up??? You've got to be freaking kidding me! At this point I don't care if she does this all the time; yeah maybe she's just an attention whore but what if this time she's serious? This woman is not killing herself on my watch. I basically blew up and said I will stay on this phone until I hear police coming through her door so make it happen!
So finally the police show up thank God and I am literally shaking and drenched in sweat. Never heard any other kind of update about her, except for a very weird, coincidental anecdote years later.
I'm back in my home state now, not where I was when I'd worked for Amtrak. It was the day I went to interview for my current job. It also happens to be the state the woman was calling from. I had been paired upon with one of the CSR's to listen to calls, and I told him this story. And he goes pale and tells me, 'OMG, I'll bet you that's the woman who killed herself on the train tracks a few years back!" Plus he mentions the town, which I never told him, and it's the same one she was in.
I wish I was kidding. I have no idea if it's the same woman or not but that's one hell of a coincidence. At least I know didn't happen that night.
Spare the Rod:
2nd one was at my current job, about six months ago. I get a call from some rude lady complaining about her satellite service not working. She's annoying, but not any more than the last one or the next one, except in the background a child starts screaming. Not that unusual, except I can hear quite clearly the sound of blows and someone saying over and over 'how do you like it?' *crack* *wail* 'how do you like it?!' This went on for about two minutes, which is a really long time when you're listening to someone get the crap smacked out of them, and especially when it's a child - I could hear him quite clearly; I'd guess he was between 6 and 9.
To top it all off, the woman on the phone, who is apparently his mother, puts her hand over the phone and talks to the woman in the background beating the hell out of her child who is apparently the grandmother... "Mom, would you keep it the f*** down before this lady calls the cops?"
The sound of it all was just horrific, well beyond normal corporal punishment. I mean, I have kids, and I have spanked them. And I've heard countless exasperated parents yell at their kids in the background and it's just something you're going to hear when people are calling you from home. This was so much more than that; I was tearing up listening to first this boy be hit and then the verbal abuse they laid on to him for the next ten minutes.
During all this I managed to get my supervisor and he started listening in but he missed the sound of the beating and of course it's the one call that doesn't get recorded. We even heard them at the end of the call when they thought the line had been dead telling the kid that they wouldn't have hit him if he didn't deserve it and his mother saying 'wait til I'm off the phone to hit him next time!'
So my supervisor basically said his hands were tied because he didn't hear what I did, and I was so frustrated. So I did something I would have definitely got fired for if I'd gotten caught; I took their names, address, etc and I called Child Protective Services in their state. I really wrestled with that - my husband's ex used to love to call in false reports to CPS and I've experienced firsthand the hell that a false allegation can put someone through. But at the same time I could not sleep that night unless I did something.
I was very truthful when I called them; I told them I have never met these people, I don't know what goes on in their house every day, all I can tell you is what I heard and now it's up to you. A CPS supervisor decided it did indeed warrant looking into and that was the end of that, for me at least.
At least until the next day, when I went into work and my supervisor waves me over. At first I thought I was definitely getting fired but he leans down and whispers..."I called the cops on that family! You never heard me say that!" and walks away.
Domestic Bliss:
Latest one was about three weeks ago. A woman in Virginia calls me and she is drunk off her ass. She pressed the wrong button on her remote and now it's up to me to navigate her intoxicated self back to the happyland of satellite tv.
Except her husband/boyfriend/whatever is in the background, swearing, screaming, and just being an overall douche. He's yelling that we suck, our system is crap, she's an idiot, blah blah and finally my SC screams back at him to STFU. Then it's on like Donkey Kong. During the lovely 30 minutes it took to get her to press the right button on her remote he called her a stupid fat whore and told her he was cheating on her among other sweet expressions of love, and in between screaming profanities she expressed the desire to kill him least six times. That's exactly what she said - "I hate him! I'm going to shoot him in the head!' I'm thinking, 'would you kindly stop saying that? I don't want to have to testify against you in court!'
So I'm thinking this is just a drunk couple that needs to sleep it off but at the end of the call she insists that I write down her name and his name in case he kills her and I read about it in the paper, because now she says it's his gun and he's going to kill her with it. So I tell her I'm afraid she's not safe and I want her to get out of there and she's all hemming and hawing that she'll probably be ok and that's freaking it; I've heard enough. Off to a supervisor I went and the police were called. AGAIN.
I swear, I just attract crazy. Next time it will probably be a bomb threat. Oh God, I should not have said that.
Train Wreck:
First one was several years ago, when I was working in reservations for Amtrak. Just another night when a call comes in and I do my usual thank you for calling blah blah. There's a pause and a woman says, "I'm just calling to tell you all not to feel bad." Um, what?
Then the woman proceeds to tell me that she is going to kill herself tonight. On the train tracks. Throwing herself in front of our train. And we shouldn't feel bad about it.
So I am trying not to panic - I don't know if this woman is serious or not but it's not like I can take the chance. So I desperately flag down a supervisor while trying to keep her on the line. The next hour is probably one of the most stressful of my life. I can't put her on hold and I can't transfer for her to anyone else; I do not want to take the chance that I'll lose her. I spend the whole time just trying to listen while a supervisor is monitoring the call and the authorities are trying to trace it. She's telling me all about her health problems and how her family doesn't care and I'm trying to say the right thing and give her some hope and it's just taking. so. freaking. long for them to find her and of course she won't tell me where she is or her name. Then finally a supervisor comes and taps me on the shoulder and I mute her, at which point he says. "Just hang up. We found her; she's some nutcase who does this all the time."
Hang up? Hang up??? You've got to be freaking kidding me! At this point I don't care if she does this all the time; yeah maybe she's just an attention whore but what if this time she's serious? This woman is not killing herself on my watch. I basically blew up and said I will stay on this phone until I hear police coming through her door so make it happen!
So finally the police show up thank God and I am literally shaking and drenched in sweat. Never heard any other kind of update about her, except for a very weird, coincidental anecdote years later.
I'm back in my home state now, not where I was when I'd worked for Amtrak. It was the day I went to interview for my current job. It also happens to be the state the woman was calling from. I had been paired upon with one of the CSR's to listen to calls, and I told him this story. And he goes pale and tells me, 'OMG, I'll bet you that's the woman who killed herself on the train tracks a few years back!" Plus he mentions the town, which I never told him, and it's the same one she was in.
I wish I was kidding. I have no idea if it's the same woman or not but that's one hell of a coincidence. At least I know didn't happen that night.Spare the Rod:
2nd one was at my current job, about six months ago. I get a call from some rude lady complaining about her satellite service not working. She's annoying, but not any more than the last one or the next one, except in the background a child starts screaming. Not that unusual, except I can hear quite clearly the sound of blows and someone saying over and over 'how do you like it?' *crack* *wail* 'how do you like it?!' This went on for about two minutes, which is a really long time when you're listening to someone get the crap smacked out of them, and especially when it's a child - I could hear him quite clearly; I'd guess he was between 6 and 9.
To top it all off, the woman on the phone, who is apparently his mother, puts her hand over the phone and talks to the woman in the background beating the hell out of her child who is apparently the grandmother... "Mom, would you keep it the f*** down before this lady calls the cops?"
The sound of it all was just horrific, well beyond normal corporal punishment. I mean, I have kids, and I have spanked them. And I've heard countless exasperated parents yell at their kids in the background and it's just something you're going to hear when people are calling you from home. This was so much more than that; I was tearing up listening to first this boy be hit and then the verbal abuse they laid on to him for the next ten minutes.
During all this I managed to get my supervisor and he started listening in but he missed the sound of the beating and of course it's the one call that doesn't get recorded. We even heard them at the end of the call when they thought the line had been dead telling the kid that they wouldn't have hit him if he didn't deserve it and his mother saying 'wait til I'm off the phone to hit him next time!'
So my supervisor basically said his hands were tied because he didn't hear what I did, and I was so frustrated. So I did something I would have definitely got fired for if I'd gotten caught; I took their names, address, etc and I called Child Protective Services in their state. I really wrestled with that - my husband's ex used to love to call in false reports to CPS and I've experienced firsthand the hell that a false allegation can put someone through. But at the same time I could not sleep that night unless I did something.
I was very truthful when I called them; I told them I have never met these people, I don't know what goes on in their house every day, all I can tell you is what I heard and now it's up to you. A CPS supervisor decided it did indeed warrant looking into and that was the end of that, for me at least.
At least until the next day, when I went into work and my supervisor waves me over. At first I thought I was definitely getting fired but he leans down and whispers..."I called the cops on that family! You never heard me say that!" and walks away.
Domestic Bliss:
Latest one was about three weeks ago. A woman in Virginia calls me and she is drunk off her ass. She pressed the wrong button on her remote and now it's up to me to navigate her intoxicated self back to the happyland of satellite tv.
Except her husband/boyfriend/whatever is in the background, swearing, screaming, and just being an overall douche. He's yelling that we suck, our system is crap, she's an idiot, blah blah and finally my SC screams back at him to STFU. Then it's on like Donkey Kong. During the lovely 30 minutes it took to get her to press the right button on her remote he called her a stupid fat whore and told her he was cheating on her among other sweet expressions of love, and in between screaming profanities she expressed the desire to kill him least six times. That's exactly what she said - "I hate him! I'm going to shoot him in the head!' I'm thinking, 'would you kindly stop saying that? I don't want to have to testify against you in court!'
So I'm thinking this is just a drunk couple that needs to sleep it off but at the end of the call she insists that I write down her name and his name in case he kills her and I read about it in the paper, because now she says it's his gun and he's going to kill her with it. So I tell her I'm afraid she's not safe and I want her to get out of there and she's all hemming and hawing that she'll probably be ok and that's freaking it; I've heard enough. Off to a supervisor I went and the police were called. AGAIN.
I swear, I just attract crazy. Next time it will probably be a bomb threat. Oh God, I should not have said that.
kill you all!
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