Stopping Listening

It's been a little more than a year since I began volunteering at a crisis call center. To fulfill the counseling experience requirement for admission to Master's degree programs in genetic counseling and in social work, I was volunteering my time, three hours a week, and one overnight shift a month.

After I had completed an ear-opening eight-week orientation, and began volunteering, I had expected that the most difficult calls would be from those people who were in serious crises, those who were being abused, desperately lonely, or suicidal. Although these calls were extremely stressful, from my perspective they were the easiest to handle. The call center had given us an established plan of action for handling suicidal and abused callers, which gave me confidence and made me feel I was doing some good. And when dealing with lonely callers, those who seemed to have a profound lack of human connections, I really felt that by just listening to them, I was doing something helpful. Not surprisingly, these calls were also the most rewarding.

Unexpectedly, I had the most difficulty with callers who called to talk about nothing. Although these calls were much less stressful than the crisis calls, it was these calls that gradually led me to question the value of what I was doing.

Was it all just a waste of time?

At first I enjoyed the callers who just wanted to talk about their love lives, their business plans, their neighbors, etc., because the calls just seemed so normal. In many instances the conversations were similar to ones I would have with my own friends and colleagues. It was easy to forget that the person I was talking to was calling an anonymous call center, and that perhaps these calls weren't as "normal" as they seemed. It took me a few weeks to come to this realization.

For example, in my first weeks, I fielded a call from Caller A. Caller A was young and friendly. She was confused about her career, and she wanted to talk about her idea for starting an internet business. We had what I felt was a very productive call, and we ended the call on a very positive note. Hanging up the phone, I felt really good. I felt like I had really helped this person.

But a few weeks later I got Caller A again. This time she had a whole new plan, something completely different. And I don't mean her new plan had evolved from her old plan. Instead, after speaking with Caller A several times, it became obvious that it was all just talk and that she was never going to actually do any of the things she talked about.

And there were so many callers just like Caller A. With each one of them, the first call would seduce me into thinking I was really helping them get their lives organized. But I would gradually learn that each one of them was just another Caller A. Eventually, my enthusiasm and my ability to listen began to wane, and I started feeling like I was just wasting my time.

The Rules of the Game?

We were encouraged to keep our calls with repeat callers short, about 20 to 30 minutes. We were also periodically informed of callers that, once identified, we were not supposed to speak with. I understood the reasons for terminating some calls, e.g. those from callers who became verbally abusive and those from sex callers.

But there were other reasons for terminating calls that I didn't really understand. For example, we were told not to speak with callers who were obviously intoxicated. But I felt that if an intoxicated caller is reaching out, s/he deserves to have someone listen.

We were also told not to speak with callers who had been classified as being dishonest in some way. To me, this contradicted what I'd been told during my training – that we were not to challenge a caller's reality, since we had no way of knowing what their reality really was. So how were we supposed to know if a caller was being dishonest? And even if what the caller was saying wasn't true, I couldn't understand what made the caller who talked about a fantasy husband and children any different from the caller who said and believed things that were not only wrong but could actually lead her to harm. According to call center practice, I wasn't supposed to talk to the former, and I wasn't allowed to challenge openly the beliefs of the latter.

Who was making these distinctions, and why? And did they really make sense? And if the call center was supposed to be for everyone, then why were distinctions even being made? Was the problem my lack of education and training in the counseling professions?

Coming to a Decision

Ultimately, I decided that a call center just wasn't the place for me and after completing my one-year commitment, I stopped volunteering at the center. And although call center counseling is very different from social work and genetic counseling, I have also decided that these career paths aren't right for me either.

Discuss This Article

Have something you'd like to say? Tell us what you think! Read and post comments for this article.

Find a Job

Choose your career:

MedHunters is the world's biggest healthcare job board. Our job directory has 18,008 jobs with 2,507 hospitals and other direct employers.

We want you to find your next job on MedHunters. Need Help? Call us at 1-888-884-8242, email us at info@medhunters.com or sign up now.