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Spring forward, fall over
Oct. 27th, 2002 01:12 pmI've survived the first of two consecutive overnight shifts that I was scheduled. I generally don't get them unless there's some kind of scheduling crisis, and in the case the crisis in question was Daylight Savings Time. The problem is twofold: (1) Everybody who's up after midnight decides that the best way to make sure that the clocks have truly turned back is to dial 0 and ask the operator; and (2) You work for 9 hours and get paid for 8. Compound this with the usual horde of drunks telling you to go fuck yourself because you can't figure out the number that they can't remember and the pay phone won't accept Canadian pennies, and you've got yourself a mess o' fun, fun, fun, fun, fun.
So around the time that I gave up and simply started announcing the time at the get-go ("It's 4:27; may I help you?", to which the caller would usually reply, "Operator, what time is it?"), I got a call from a fellow who needed the suicide prevention hotline. Now, the problem is, you can't actually get through to the suicide prevention hotline on a Saturday night, because it is always busy. So it's usually a matter of keeping the caller on the line and talking while you wait out the busy signal, and not calling 911, because that'll usually make them freak and hang up.
This was how this one was going, until the caller let drop a little bit of information: he had already swallowed a handful of 3 different kinds of prescription antidepressants. All of a sudden, it didn't matter if the man freaked or not. I got 911 on the line, and stayed on while they talked for a few minutes (usually for privacy reasons we put 911 calls on hold so we can't hear what's happening), and when the man did in fact hang up I passed as much information as I could to the dispatcher. I had my supervisor get in touch with security to try and get a location on the number, but every single database was down or unresponsive; ditto on the dispatcher's end. And we kept the caller's line open, so that if he did happen to pick up, he would come right back to us. Luckily he did, 911 talked him out of going out to walk his dog (it was 1:30 in the morning), and we eventually got an address and a response team heading in his direction. This was about the time when I was really ready to go home; unfortunately, I had another 5 1/2 hours to go.
You get these calls every once in a while when you're an operator, pretty much as a rule. And although I wish they would come less often than they do, they are among the very few times when I feel like I'm actually doing something with this stupid job, instead of just helping teenage girls crank-call their ex-boyfriends without their number showing up on caller ID, or listening to 9-year-olds who think they've being hysterical when they dial 0 and try to order a pizza. Strangely enough, I think I'm pretty good at handling the emergency calls; I say "strangely" because I'm usually about 3 seconds away from blowing a blood vessel in my temple while I'm on the boards. I have got to get a better job. (Oh, and I just found out that I'm working a day shift on Thanksgiving. Oh, lucky me.)
Right now, I'm still semi-comatose, trying to muster up the energy to attend Abbey's Halloween parade. Wouldn't miss that for anything.
So around the time that I gave up and simply started announcing the time at the get-go ("It's 4:27; may I help you?", to which the caller would usually reply, "Operator, what time is it?"), I got a call from a fellow who needed the suicide prevention hotline. Now, the problem is, you can't actually get through to the suicide prevention hotline on a Saturday night, because it is always busy. So it's usually a matter of keeping the caller on the line and talking while you wait out the busy signal, and not calling 911, because that'll usually make them freak and hang up.
This was how this one was going, until the caller let drop a little bit of information: he had already swallowed a handful of 3 different kinds of prescription antidepressants. All of a sudden, it didn't matter if the man freaked or not. I got 911 on the line, and stayed on while they talked for a few minutes (usually for privacy reasons we put 911 calls on hold so we can't hear what's happening), and when the man did in fact hang up I passed as much information as I could to the dispatcher. I had my supervisor get in touch with security to try and get a location on the number, but every single database was down or unresponsive; ditto on the dispatcher's end. And we kept the caller's line open, so that if he did happen to pick up, he would come right back to us. Luckily he did, 911 talked him out of going out to walk his dog (it was 1:30 in the morning), and we eventually got an address and a response team heading in his direction. This was about the time when I was really ready to go home; unfortunately, I had another 5 1/2 hours to go.
You get these calls every once in a while when you're an operator, pretty much as a rule. And although I wish they would come less often than they do, they are among the very few times when I feel like I'm actually doing something with this stupid job, instead of just helping teenage girls crank-call their ex-boyfriends without their number showing up on caller ID, or listening to 9-year-olds who think they've being hysterical when they dial 0 and try to order a pizza. Strangely enough, I think I'm pretty good at handling the emergency calls; I say "strangely" because I'm usually about 3 seconds away from blowing a blood vessel in my temple while I'm on the boards. I have got to get a better job. (Oh, and I just found out that I'm working a day shift on Thanksgiving. Oh, lucky me.)
Right now, I'm still semi-comatose, trying to muster up the energy to attend Abbey's Halloween parade. Wouldn't miss that for anything.
