I validate this!
I worked there about 15 years ago and Frank (I had forgotten the name, to be honest) was doing the rounds then. And there was a guy who used to come on and demand "a manual reverse charge call to the Samaritans... manual, manual." and you'd just say "certainly, sir, may I have the number?" and he'd start trying to pick a fight. "Oh, you've got a problem with that?" and so on. Prick.
I enjoyed 999 routing too. And freaking out kids who'd call from a phone box to swear at you by parking the call up in one of your three little boxes and watching the receiver go up and down, and you knew they were panicking like motherfuckers...

But bestest about the BT job was that they gave me extra bread to very occasionally conduct a 155 call in French. A whole 30p extra an hour to infrequently connect a homesick student to his mammy at pay-up-or-piss-off rates.

In fact, with the people I worked with and the varying nature of the job, even the 6pm- 2am shift I was on I'd say that if it paid more than a few grand a year I'd be there to this day.

The only thing I hated about it was the mother hen bitches who were old BT staff and not agency and acted like they were the shit.
(Rhye, Thu 3 Sep 2009, 19:19, 1 reply)

You had the very same "you sound like a tall young man" man??? small world eh?
Anyway, I totally identify with all of that especially the 3 call slot thing. I once had a kid who was stupid enough to do it from his house... i waited 10 seconds, called him back and said if he did it again we'd have to notify his parents.

I too was an international operator (although, just an English speaking one). I can remember trying to connect someone to a call to either Iran or Iraq - but when their international operator heard my dulcet English tones, they simply hung up - nice.

Oh, oh... and trying to connect someone's call to a ship at sea via the satellite thingy (was it inmarsat?)... exciting :|

And then there was the time an English woman was trying to call an American friend. The number wasn't working so she rang us. I tried it, it wasn't working. So I dialled up the number for the relevant US operator only to be told that their systems were down so they couldn't help me, although they could give me the number for the localised faults department. So I rang the number and I was "greeted" by a typically bored sounding American lady's recorded salutation. I instantly went into my scripted spiel for international calls "Good afternoon, this is the United Kingdom calling...", explained my caller's predicament and asked if they could help us. "SUUURE!" she replied excitedly, "Thank you" I said, "YOU'RE WELCOOOME!"... It carried on like that for what seemed like ages. It was as if she had 1) Never heard a sexy English voice like mine :p 2) Never been spoken to politely in a genuine and sincere way, and 3) had just cum in her knickers! So much so that my caller even gave a lil' guffaw at what was obviously the tell tale vocal signs of a wide-on.

Aaah, happy days.
( mr.dogshit The world's premier anthropomorphic canine faeces, Fri 4 Sep 2009, 2:08, closed)