Operator: She’S Ready To Talk With Customers On Christmas

Operator, get me Ava Bowen on the line.

As a supervisor for Qwest directory assistance in Spokane, Bowen said she gets calls line operators don’t have time to handle.

Because she’s not clocked, she has the time to talk.

Bowen always volunteers for a Christmas shift. When volunteers are short, she may also be pressed into service on Christmas Eve.

Pay at double-time-and-a-half helps buy gifts, said Bowen, who works out of the Qwest building at Second and Post downtown.

Christmas calls are different, she said.

Sometimes siblings are trying to find brothers or sisters they haven’t talked to in years.

Bowen said it’s not unusual for the callers not to know the last names their family members are using.

Other callers are already trying to find a Kmart, for example, so they can make gift exchanges.

But, Bowen said, many of the callers she deals with during the holidays don’t want a phone number, they want comfort.

“You can just feel in their voices they’re lonely, they’re down,” she said.

Bowen said isolated senior citizens will call just to talk. “Sometimes we’re the only people they can get ahold of,” she said.

Many conversations start casually, then the person on the other end of the line collapses into depression, she said.

“I’ve had to connect people to the crisis center,” said Bowen, who has been an operator for more than 30 years.

She said she feels better at the end of a shift if she has been able to soothe the agitated or lonely.

“Every call is a challenge,” Bowen said. “People depend on us.”