I’m looking for some advice because I don’t know what to do right now. I’ve had a couple of drinks tonight to hopefully help me get some sleep because my nerves are absolutely fried.
I work in a call centre in the South of England which is basically a message taking service for a bunch of different companies. We mostly just take some basic information and pass a message through to the main office to deal with. Some of the details I give are going to have to be a bit vague as our clients contractually oblige us not to reveal that they hire an overflow service.
I was at work today and it had been fairly quiet considering we’re normally heaving this time of year. I’d just come off my second break and I was flicking through news articles in the time between calls.
My screen flared up for a donation call which we take pretty regularly on behalf of a charity organisation that helps sick kids. I thanked the person for calling and asked how I could help, which is pretty much our standard greeting for everything.
The person sounded young and really nervous, like they had a social anxiety thing or something. I had to keep asking them to repeat themselves as even with my headset turned up I couldn’t make out what they were saying.
Eventually, I managed to get a name and contact number, so then I asked if he’d like to make a donation today. He’s still mumbling at this point but he sounds like he’s started to cry in between words. This can happen with these calls too due to the sensitive subject matter of them, so I ask if he’s is okay to continue or if he’d like us to call him later.
It’s as though he was standing at the other side of the room and he’d just leaned into the phone. The line was suddenly loud and crystal clear. The caller kept telling me “You can’t reach him, he’s not there. Not now. He was here. But, not now.”
I was trying to ask if he’d maybe like to call us later instead but he just keeps saying this stuff over and over. “Not here, not now. He’s not coming back. Not where you sent him.”That last bit caught me off guard and I wasn’t sure how to respond. That doesn’t happen much as I deal with all kinds of people everyday.
He trails off and he’s just gently crying into the receiver. I tell him he may have the wrong number and try to explain what the company does. That was it. Out of nowhere the dude is screaming at me. “Fuck you! Bring him to me. Fuck you! Fu…”
That’s where I terminated the call. We have a policy with pranks or inappropriate calls where we can use our discretion to terminate. At this point he was swearing at me and screaming over what I said so I decided whether he was messing about or a bit unhinged I wasn’t going to be able to help.
It was all a bit strange but, honestly I didn’t think much of it. I’ve had people swear before, people ask me to sexually gratify them, people threaten to sue me or kick my ass. Some people are a bit much and it kind of just rolls off your back after the calls done, so I got on with the shift.
I was almost done for the day when my supervisor came over and asked me if I’d taken a call for this charity today. I told him I had and he took me over to his computer where he had a list of details for calls taken that day. He wanted to know what had gone on as four different people had called in the last hour raising complaints that I’d used vulgar and threatening language towards an 11 year old boy earlier in the day.
One of the call takers nearby even still had one of them on the phone who was refusing to hang-up until he’d spoken to me directly. Obviously, my supervisor wouldn’t allow this and took over the call himself telling the caller the matter would be investigated and taken seriously. After the guy had gone we listened to my calls together and clearly this had never happened. We were both really confused so we alerted the client that we may have a ‘serial pranker’ and then got back to work.
Nothing else happened and although I’d been a bit unsettled at first I was more annoyed about it than anything by the time I got home. I started making dinner and just had some music playing in the background. I was making some chicken with these rubbish pans so I had to stay with it to stop it burning to the bottom.
The whole time I was cooking though once every couple of minutes my speakers would make that horrible distorted sound like when you are playing the radio while going through a tunnel. I realised I’d left my mobile right next them and it must be disrupting it. I hadn’t had a chance to check it since my last break at work. (We can’t have phones in the call centre for data protection).
I went to grab it but something caught my eye and this is what is really messing with my head tonight. I had 44 missed calls spread evenly between four different numbers. I just stared thinking I must be misreading it but sure enough it was right. None of them were recognised by my phone and each was different to the last except they all ended 000411. I’ve not seen anything like it before. They didn’t have a local dialling code, but they didn’t look like a company number either.
No texts had been left at all but when I checked it I had 4 new voicemail messages. I listened to maybe 5 seconds of the first one before I put my phone down. The voice was the same nervous and quiet one I’d heard on the charity call at work, but bolder.
“I’m going to take him back from you. I know how.”
That was all I heard. My heart has never beat so fast in all my life. I was spinning around on the spot expecting to see someone. Nothing there at all. I dropped the phone on the table and heard it vibrating again.
This time I didn’t even look at the number before I hit disconnect. I’ve turned my phone off now because I’m so freaked out. I don’t know how he could have possibly got my personal number. I never even gave him my first name. I’m feeling so paranoid now. I don’t know what else he knows about me or if all the numbers are him even.
I thought about calling the police but I feel stupid. Like, what has he actually done for me to make them take me seriously? I’m thinking of going to my supervisor with the voicemails tomorrow and seeing what he thinks. I just don’t have a clue.
Submitted December 15, 2016 at 10:33PM by brokenjoker http://ift.tt/2gPRchm
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