I work in a hospital call center.

It's not great work, but it pays the bills.

Working for a hospital call center, you get a lot of calls during your 8 hour shift.

Usually it was just people trying to find a relative who might be there

or someone trying to schedule an appointment in the surgery department

or maybe even people seeking medical advice.

I'm apparently not qualified to do any of those things.

So the job becomes a lot of

one moment while I transfer you.

Then they are sent to the desired department.

You get a lot of angry people too.

Most looking for the billing department, because the hospital dared to charge them for their

services.

Those people are best sent off quickly

before they can get a good head of steam under them. There are four to six of us in the

basement at any given time, mostly college kids or older people, and in all, I think around

ten of us work the switchboard. We take turns covering the midnight shift, most of us working

the day or midday primarily, and at the end of the month, we all

walk away with a nice chunk of overtime for our trouble. People, being people, there's always

12 to 16 hours of overtime a month. No one minds much. The job is easy.

I used to really like having a job where I could finish my schoolwork or play in my phone for 8 to 16 hours and still get paid.

That was before the heavy breather.

...