I work in a call center, and we often have people who clearly have mental health issues that will latch onto random people and call them constantly. I have one lady who calls me every two to three weeks, always in a really elevated state, and goes on long rants about random things totally unrelated to anything. Today it was a rant about drunk drivers that was so thick I couldn’t get her back on track to complete the quote she was ostensibly calling to get. It’s really clear these people have no one else to talk to and just call me when they are in an elevated state and need someone to talk to. I have had 1-3 of these people at any give time at multiple different phone center jobs for the last 4 years. The only thing worse than the regular calls is when one of my long time people stops calling, I can’t stop thinking about what happened to those people, especially the ones who called me like clockwork for years only to stop one day.
For people who live in countries with better access to mental health care, is this still a rampant issue?
Update: literally seconds after posting this, moments after getting off the phone with her, I got a call from another customer before I had a chance to hit the break button and take a moment to process my feelings. A totally normal call, but I had to put on the “Customer Voice” and pretend like everything is ok in the world. I’m crying right now. Wtf is wrong with this damn country/world that we leave people to suffer and expect poor fucking customer service workers to fill the gap and act like it’s all normal.