So I work for my states public transport call centre and just this week I saw an email in my inbox saying they have blocked Derrick’s number (Derrick is just a name I will use for the purpose of the story, no real identifying information).
This lovely person is autistic, and their hyperfixation is trains. He would call every day multiple times asking about becoming a train driver. Long story short over the last 3 years I built a connection with them and their mother, well doing my contracted job as well by helping but keeping it professional and under the AHT of the centre. I pointed them towards plenty of services and opportunities to help engage with trains, apart from actually being able to be in the driver cabin or go to the train driver academy due to occupational safety laws.
In among all the negative phone calls I would have in a day that would chip away at me, any phone call from Derrick would always bring my spirits up. After having a talk with him and how he is going he would always put his mother on, his primary carer, and I would spend 5 minutes seeing how she is going with getting support for Derrick and services she can use. The mother was an elderly Italian woman who had trouble with English, but together we helped get a support worker for Derrick that actually spike Italian.
I hadn’t heard from them both in the last few months due to the virus and personal issues making work a bit of a problem, but just last week I got a call from them and it made me so happy. Now work has blocked their numbers and wants us to report any other numbers he calls off. I am not ashamed to say it has hurt me even knowing its unprofessional.
We were a regular part of this family’s routine for years before I started in 2018, but because it was seen as a negative impact on the centre as a business by management, they have been more or less abandoned them.
Just needed to get it out to people that understand that those kind of callers can help us too.
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