Ireallylikeeggs posted:

Hi.

I work for the NSPH as a paid crisis worker, and before that I was a volunteer. Pranks are most definitely a thing we deal with on a nightly basis. Most of the time, we can tell if someone is pranking us and we end the call quickly, but on occasion, some rear end in a top hat will go all in on it, and one of us (not me so far, thankfully) will spend 10 minute talking about their pain and loss before the hilarious Minecraft joke comes out and they hang up. And every call into the hotline requires a call report. And every time a prank caller says they are having thoughts of suicide and then hangs up on us, we are required to call them back unless we are absolutely 100000004% certain it was a prank. And then, when they inevitably don't answer, we are required to schedule a follow up call so that we can try and contact them one more time to make sure they are all right. And when we make that follow up, we have to make notes on the call whether it goes to voicemail or results in us talking to them. And then if we don't talk to them, we have to get final permission to close the follow up. Oh, and supervisors have to review every call report involving a suicidal individual unless we're absolutely certain it was a prank.

Prank calls eat up a massive amount of time that we don't have.

And gently caress. If one minor calls in a prank about another minor, that's everything above times three as we attempt to involve parents as well.

Also, like you said, people get put on hold because we're underfunded and colossally, mindfuckingly understaffed. For example, on most weekend nights, when many people are feeling their most isolated and vulnerable and alone, we'll have two people on the lines at our particular call center, answering calls for five different hotlines. Obviously I can't give any specific details, but I regularly spend over an hour on calls with people who are scarfing down pills mid conversation, or standing on bridges, or staring at a loaded gun. If both people working the lines are taking a call like that, yeah, people are gonna wait on hold. It sucks. It sucks to put one suicidal person on hold to bounce between calls with two other suicidal people. It sucks to have to end a call with a recent sexual trauma victim because you need to be able to give 100% of your attention to the drunk heartbroken dude who is on the verge of driving straight into oncoming traffic or whatever.

Add in the fact that it takes a certain kind of person to voluntarily spend their free time immersed in other people's misery, and you can see the issue here. Staffing is gonna be a problem. This is where volunteers come in. If you think there's a remote possibility that you could handle it, go find a local crisis line and look into volunteering. I make it sound horrific, and it is, but I also genuinely know that I have the best job in the world. I really do. As I'm headed home after a long, draining shift, I'm on top of the loving world, because chances are I stopped someone from doing something they'd very likely regret, and I've been told by multiple people that calling us helped them turn their life around.

So go get immersed in misery in your free time and make it so that someone at their lowest point doesn't have to wait on hold. It'll seriously change you in the best way possible.

rodbeard posted:

This is a McDonald's drive through.

Beer_Suitcase posted:

I thought that I could get my friends on FB to have a lil fun posting low effort meme recreations.

https://www.instagram.com/p/Bj_KfC8hrzL/

No one even responded and I loss'd my family for nothing.

I had to explain to my girlfriend why I thought a 10 year old dead baby joke is funny and why strangers on the internet would want to see it.

you probably don't

edit: and I'm phone posting and dunno how to post the image itself

Comptroll The Forums posted:

That is a lot of fuckups to be contained in a single post.

DACK FAYDEN posted:

from what little I remember of you posting in another thread, no wonder you personally probably have back problems

om nom nom posted:

om nom nom posted:

Beer_Suitcase posted:

I thought that I could get my friends on FB to have a lil fun posting low effort meme recreations.




No one even responded and I loss'd my family for nothing.

I had to explain to my girlfriend why I thought a 10 year old dead baby joke is funny and why strangers on the internet would want to see it.

you probably don't

edit: fixed it

Dragonstoned posted:

Ireallylikeeggs is an outstanding person, I wish I had half the courage they have to do a job like that but sadly I'm more the kind of person who'd be on the other side of the line. This is the main reason I was trying defend the suicide hotline in the first place. When I read that post I just felt incredibly depressed that people DO prank call them and just tried to put it out of my mind for a while. I had thought several times that I should reply and thank Ireallylikeeggs for the good work they do (with some comment about me losing a bit more faith in humanity because what kind of poo poo pranks a suicide hotline) but by that time the thread had moved on and I didnt want to continue the morbid derail.

As for my initial knee jerk reaction to your "they have plenty of staff its prank callers" post well...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WTsDqIcpHUc


Ireallylikeeggs if you're out there, you are awesome and thank you and your coworkers for what you!

honda whisperer posted:

You posted that picture on Facebook?

Jerry Cotton posted:

om nom nom posted:

Jerry Cotton posted:

LifeSunDeath posted:

idgi

Agents are GO! posted:

Some OC, because I'm playing MGSV:

Edit: Sorry, I don't know how to [timg] attatchments.

Agents are GO! posted:

Some OC, because I'm playing MGSV:

Edit: Sorry, I don't know how to [timg] attatchments.

Beer_Suitcase posted:

I thought that I could get my friends on FB to have a lil fun posting low effort meme recreations.




No one even responded and I loss'd my family for nothing.

I had to explain to my girlfriend why I thought a 10 year old dead baby joke is funny and why strangers on the internet would want to see it.

you probably don't

edit: fixed it

We Know Catheters posted:

Stoatbringer posted:

That's not what URLs are!

We Know Catheters posted:

Mr. Bad Guy posted:

I legitimately got poo poo poo poo.