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Strange Client

A

Anonymous

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I sadly work as a customer service rep in a call center. I was working for a cable company and once I received a reall strange call. An old woman, pretty energic and happy, was telling me she was seing a big yellow peice of paper with symbols on them on every channel. She wasent scared but actually thinking it was some kind of secret message people are sending. The really strange and cool thing about it was that I was asking her to flip around the channels to see if its there and she was telling me yes at all of them. It wasent a yello square appearing in the screen . Of what I understood it was a peice of paper but laying around in the background of the shows. I was asking her to look at the news. She answered " yep its there on the desk". "Okay then put it at the soaps". "Well its on near the chair". It was even in a cartoon!! I dont remember all of the details but it was really intriguing. I finally told her I had to hang up because i was speaking to her for a half hour and I would get in trouble but that Id call her later. I called back and she said it dissapeared. Still she was really glad that I listened to her and called her back.

I wonder if she was hallucinating or maybe just making his stuff up but I like to think she was really sing something.

Anyone heard a similar thing before?
 
Okay. I'll bite ...

Did it occur to you, her or anyone that someone might've stuck a post-it note on the television screen? Which had fallen off when you'd called back? Hmmmm?
:rolleyes:
 
I was going to be in a serious state of mind, butthe post it note wins my vote.....:)

Seriously, very odd. I cant help suggest anything but hullucination. Surely if it was a broadcast, then more than one person would have seen in, even if it was designated to just that area??
 
reflection on the screen of a piece of paper in the room?
 
I used to be a directory assisstance operator in Chicago. We would get some very odd calls. There were several that we figured out were from various mental health facilities in the area. They had payphones, and 411 was a free call. While some of them were amusing and/or interesting (like the Area Code Man, who seemed to have an engineering degree), we would often get calls from older folks who just wanted someone to talk to them and show (in even the most minor way) that they mattered.

If your caller was one of these, you certainly made her day checking back with her.
 
Perhaps it was good you made her day by speaking to her ... but it's a sad indictment on the way we treat our elderly that they are so isolated (usually in the midst of people) that they have to phone a stranger for company.
 
Customer service reps in call-centres like you are worth their weight in gold, even if the bosses don't think so.

Did she say what was written on the paper? I imagine she might not have been able to make it out if it seemed to be placed on desks etc.
 
She said they where symbols. Not actual phrases. I remember her saying it was secret messages send from goverments to agencies. Stuff like that.

She was propably imagining it . Thats the most obvious answer. But she gave me ideas for stories
 
well bless you for phoning her back ... it possibly was a piece of paper in the room that was being reflected on the TV screen, I seem to remember an elderly man being confused that all he could see on his TV was a man sitting in a chair - the poor soul didn't know how to switch the TV on and could only see his own reflection ... :sad:
 
When she started to go senile, my gran used to see a man in the television, even when it was switched off. You'd be having a normal conversation with her, when she would beckon you over and ask you if you saw the man in the TV! This caller might have been like that.
 
Heard an interesting police call on the scanner several years ago. Woman complained that several people were in her home and wouldn't leave. Naturally, a number of officers responded. Turns out that the people were in photographs.
 
I wish there was more to it, but i do think your old lady may have been a little bit mad. We used to have an old lady with alzeimers ring up when i worked at the Halifax bank (or Helltrax bank of satan me and my ex colleage call it) saying people were stealing her money. The halifax being the compassionate company it is shut her account down so she had to bank else where.

on a more amusing note i once had a man call up when i was working for will hills and he would just make animal sounds down the phone, nothing else! not even laughing! It was v funny.

Good for you checking up on her later, your too good for your job.
 
llkit said:
The halifax being the compassionate company it is shut her account down so she had to bank else where.
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I worked for such a compassionate company myself, Illinois Bell Telephone. One of the other 411 operators in my office did a heroic job, talking a woman out of killing herself and getting her some help. A week or so later, the same operator was sacked for poor performance.


"Yes, you saved human life, but it wasn't in your objectives for this quarter."
 
I must admit that when I first moved to this area I was so lonely (ex out all day and night, family miles away) that I would ring up utility companies and ask them to explain my bills just to hear a human voice and have a conversation, so it's not just a preserve of the elderly.

Stories about technology always freak me out, ok the poor love may have been senile but the idea of TV pictures being altered in some way is just :eek!!!!: to me...I have very specific and strange fears.
 
I, too work in a call-centre, but the kind that calls out (its NOT telesales!) rather than in, so our weirdos don't even have to want someone to talk to. I've often wondered what the chances are (Given an average of getting through to someone, say, every 5 minutes and (hopefully) never calling the same person twice) that I've spoken to a serial killer or suchlike...
 
About 19 years ago I had an episode of working for British Rail enquiries at Chester, some of the enquiries were unforgettable.

Middle aged woman: I want to visit my cousin.

Me: Yes, where does your cousin live?

MOW: Cornwall.

Me: Where in Cornwall?

MOW: Oh, is there more than one place in Cornwall?

Me: Yes, there's lots of towns.

MOW: Oh. Could you give me the train times to somewhere in Cornwall?

Me: You could go to Penzance, is that all right?

MOW: Yes that'll be fine..........


I gave her the times, and hoped that if she actually went there the chances of her finding her way back to complain were minimal.

I have a theory that the hundreds of people who go missing every year, just get on trains or buses at random and never find their destinations or their ways back.
 
I can quite believe that. When I delivered food, I might ask "can you tell me how to get there?" and they often would reply "Im afraid I dont know"

Sometimes, of course, they would be new to the area, but not always!
 
Nadim, you're a hero in my book. I'd hope, if my grandma were still alive, she would have encountered someone like you in one of her, um, how do you say, not lucid moments? She'd had a few strokes the last several years of her life and her memory wasn't always that great but it's good to know there are people like you who take the time to reassure people like her, even if you can't help. Kudos to Nadim.

And to Hedgewizards friend! The world needs more people like the two of you. :likee:
 
tygerkat said:
Nadim, you're a hero in my book. I'd hope, if my grandma were still alive, she would have encountered someone like you in one of her, um, how do you say, not lucid moments? She'd had a few strokes the last several years of her life and her memory wasn't always that great but it's good to know there are people like you who take the time to reassure people like her, even if you can't help. Kudos to Nadim.

And to Hedgewizards friend! The world needs more people like the two of you. :likee:
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I second that - I have a mother who's had a stroke and she can be confused at times, or imagine things. Knowing that there's at least some compassionate, thoughtful people out there is comforting.
 
I have worked in an EMI unit, and this reminded me of a lovely elderly gentleman resident there.He would see things like this all the time.He would get puzzled when no one else could see it.
 
I may be able to help solve this one:

I had an elderly relative who was also a neighbor of my mom's. She developed Alzhemier's disease very badly. Before she was diagnosed she was hallucinating a lot. There were many days she would call my mom on the phone and complain to her about the people in her living room, how they were threatening her with guns. My mom went over there only to find it was the people on tv she meant. She told my mom they wouldn't let her change the channel.

Other days, the people on tv were her "friends" and she would sit and talk to them for hours. They even told her what time to go to bed at night.
She also would take pictures of people down off her walls and sit them up on chairs as if they came to visit her.
It was very scary and she did not know it was all in her mind. She truly thought the people on tv were out to get her.
So the lady in the original post here may have been suffering from something similar, if not the same thing.
 
Yes it sounds rather like Alzheimers. We used to have a shop, a few of our customers seemed to have it to a certain extent but there was one poor old guy who had it really badly. He would get terribly confused all the time and turn up on the doorstep on Wednesday afternoons (half day closing) ringing the bell. He would keep trying to collect his pension even though he already had it. One day he turned up with a video box for the Clint Eastwood film "A Fistful of Dollars". He thought he could exchange it for a fistful of dollars! Poor old soul.

Another time I was at my friends house (also a shop), it was lunchtime and my friend had nipped out and I was in there alone. The phone rang, I answered it and woman asked "Is that [Min]?" How did she know who I was??! She then went on to talk about how there were people in her house and surrounding it watching her and she had complained about it but nothing was ever done about it etc etc. I talked to her as best I could (I was only about 14) but was very relieved when she rang off. The phone was in a dark corridor as well which made it worse. I told my friend about it and she knew who I meant. The mystery of the woman knowing my name was solved though when my friend reminded me that a girl with the same name sometimes worked there part time!

Horrible disease. :nooo:
 
Like you i used to work in a satellite tv call centre and it never stopped amazing me how stupid some people are-like the guy who phoned to say that always lost his picture whenever someone opened his gate (careful questioning drew the conclusion that the dish was actually fitted on his gate) , or the countless people who called our technical advice to say they weren't getting a picture (even though their TV s were unplugged )- i guess it is a form of technophobia
 
Yup same with my Grandad. When he developed senile dementia it seemed to kick off from a stroke. During this time he would often hallucinate and see people that none of the family could see, describing them in detail. I like to think that where his brain was being messed with from the stroke, perhaps those people were actually there? Generally people can't see ghosts and stuff, but apparently a few can. They can't ALL be making it up can they? I think this has to do with the brain and what percentage we use. If we could use a higher percentage than usual, I think it would make us more succeptable (can't spell that) to accepting, or seeing ghosts. So, actually I think that these people can see something, but hey thats just my oppinion.
 
tumtimes said:
I think this has to do with the brain and what percentage we use.
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To be pedantic, we actually use all of our brain, it's sometimes argued what some of it is used for and dependant on how efficiently it works. People suffering from strokes or alzheimers tend to have a certain amount of 'rewiring' and chemical inbalances going on in their heads, which has a lot to do with the hallucinations.
 
Once upon a time, a long while ago (won't go into specifics) I worked at a 'call center' for new 'pooter owners who needed help. We mostly got calls from the technologically inept, but I remember one chap who was quite delusional. I remember because we were coached on how to 'talk him down' if we got him on the line. He would call regularly and report 'little men' popping out from behind word documents on his screen. Scared several of my mates, as he was quite serious and definitely not yer average prankster. Made us all wonder where he was calling from, and how he had access to a 'pooter. (One of my mates passed around the details on where we could check out the call notes, and they were hair raising!
 
Hiya Guys

After reading what you were all saying about the elderly, Hallucinations and chemical reactions in the brain, there is a proper medical condition called Charles Bonnet Syndrome which can cause this.

http://www.rnib.co.uk/xpedio/groups/pub ... 03641.hcsp

I found this on the Royal National Institute for the Blind website after my boss was concerned about her elderly mothers hallucinations. She suffered from malcular degeneration and as with quite a few eye complaints this had brought on by Charles Bonnet Syndrome i.e. seeing people who weren't there. Its well worth a read IMHO.

My boss and her mother are feeling alot better now they have spoken about what was happening to her. Her mother it happens was frightened of talking about seeing people incase the family thought she was mental!

Also now that her mother knows what is happening to her shes become a lot less frightened of being on her own aswell. Bless her. :)
 
I work for BT and have recently been passed a complaint from one of the faults people here, the complaint ran "customer called, not happy as the phone will not ring when it is unplugged"...after a) laughing and passing this to my friends and b) banging my head on the desk when I realised that the person that passed me the complaint did not seem to understand why the phone did not ring when unplugged either I came to the conclusion that there are many many more stupid people out there than we could ever imagine....
 
As a Directory Assistance Operator, I get to deal with 600-800 calls a day. Most are very routine and done in seconds. Some are a little more complicated.

Last week, a woman called to confirm that she had the right number. Seems that when she dialed, she got a man saying something along the lines of Don't mess around with me, I know who you, I know where to find, I'll get you if you mess around with me. Sent that up to the supervisor. Found out that it was the greeting on the answering machine. Apprently, they thought it was funny. Their friend was less than happy.

We do get our share of the delusiona, though. They can be pretty tough to deal with, but a certain amount of patience and compassion helps. My only complaint is with the nasty and the humorless. I was having a hard time understanding this nice old lady, and asked her to spell the name of the town she wanted. She screamed "F*CK YOU BITCH" and slammed the phone down. And this week, I answered while chuckling over something a co-worker had said. The woman on the line snapped "Is this funny?" Being the kind,understand chap that I am, I replied, "No ma'am, I was laughing about something else" and proceeded to treat her with the sweetest care possible. After all, it's always better to kill 'em with kindness.
 
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