Stalkers

I can't stand people that use the telephone as a method to their madness.

I have had an ongoing problem with a phone..shall we call 'pest' for the last few months.

The woman called me after an advertisement looking for people for work.

Her manner on the phone was just plain weird - rude and abrupt.
Not off to a good start - we are in customer service - rudeness doesn't go down well.
She asked me to post her out some 'literature'.
Unusual as we usually meet people face to face.
I obliged, and also included a questionnaire for her to complete.

She rang to say she had received it, (left a msg) and repeated her address and phone number several times throughout the message - weird.
She posted the 'literature' back - the handwriting was illegible - I'm not kidding - I couldn't make out more than a few words.
Not really good if she needed to leave a note for a customer, or if they can't read her phone number.

I sent her a letter thanking her for her interest, and that we did not have a vacancy in the area she requested or anything close by, that we would keep her details and get back to her if something came up (trying to be let her down gently).

She then called a week or two later to say that she received my letter and wouldn't keep calling me, and hoped to hear from me soon.

A few weeks passed and I hadn't heard from her.
Then she started calling my work number repeatedly, as in 8 or 9 times in a row and not leaving a message.
She then calls my mobile.
I know the number now and just don't answer it - I'm starting to feel uncomfortable about the whole thing.
Eventually having called all day (I wasn't here) on a Friday, until 7.30pm - then Saturday morning, she left a message to say that 'Perhaps I could meet with her and she could find out a bit more about me and what HC is all about' but that she doesn't call me much, and won't keep calling.
I ignored this as I had already made it clear there wasn't a vacancy - if this is how she is with me what might she be like with customers? I dread to think.
In the mean time she had also called head office, and one of the other managers - asking the exact same thing - for literature to be posted out.

Last Friday morning she called again - I had the message bank on - no message.
She then calls my mobile.
I ignore it.
I was seriously over it by this stage.
Even though the phone only rings once with the message bank switched on it's enough to wake the Big A when it rings repeatedly - he works 12 hour day and night shifts and needs his sleep!

I send another letter to her last Friday, saying thank you AGAIN for your interest and so on, in other words don't call us, we'll call you.
She would have received this Monday.
Tuesday morning I receive a call from one of the other managers with a lead - GUESS WHO???
She told him she had called me and didn't want to seem 'overbearing'.
OVERBEARING????
That's a polite way of putting it.

I let this go again.
How many times can I repeat the same thing?

So this morning I am woken up by the phone ringing.
I had my mobile switched off.
Guess who????
No message.

I was stalked on the phone as a teenager living at home with Mum and Dad.
It was awful.
He was a very, very sick depraved man.
Some of the things he would say to me I couldnt repeat.
The worst part was he would ring when Mum had gone to work.
He must have lived close by.

One day Mum drove out like she was going to work, and came back again 15 minutes later.
She got to hear him on the phone.
Unfortunately technology back then wasn't as it is today and the ability to trace calls would have been a trickier exericse.
He would call in the morning and then again in the afternoon.
Telling me I looked good in what I was wearing, that he saw me mowing the lawn - rubbish like that - enough to really scare me - I was 16 years old!

Eventually I moved out of home.
I had been away for a few months and decided to go and have a weekend with Dad (Mum had gone by this time).
Dad picked me up from town and we arrived home at about 9pm.
The next morning as if on cue the phone rang.

It was him.

I was a mess.
How could he have known I was there?
This time the call was a threat.

Rather than disrupt things for Dad any further - the previous few months had been a nightmare for him with Mum leaving - I came back up to town and didn't stay at Dads again for a long time.
Why should he have to change his phone number?

I am still funny about the phone.

I can talk on it for hours - but I get a bit thingy about calls from private numbers, or repeated calls where the caller can't leave a message.

If the business with this lady continues I really don't know what to do.
I may ask my boss when she is here.


G
xxx