So apparently I have superpowers, though nobody really told me. Now don't go thinking that this is an exciting adventure story with a happy ending; let me clarify before you think this post is something that it's not. This story is a sad story and it makes me sick. It is mildly interesting, and it shows you just how random my job can be. You'll also understand why my heart sinks a little bit lately every time the phone rings.
Before getting into all that, let's rewind a little bit. Part of my job description is to answer all phone calls that arrive to our department, and then transfer the calls to the relevant professor or staff member. About 20%-30% of the calls can be likened to junk mail, and we have deemed them "crackpot phone calls." These include telemarketers, spammers, clueless people who ask outrageous things and crazy people. Basically, the objective with these phone calls is to get them off the phone and make sure they don't call back again. So, for spammers, this could include yelling at them, for example. Sometimes, it requires more tact than that, though. For example, we have people call to present their scientific theories. I admit that I have pretended to be a professor so that they would actually swallow that I am qualified to tell them that they haven't really solved the mysteries of the universe.
A few months ago, I received a call that doesn't really fit the categories of clueless or crazy, per se, but I didn't particularly want to spend a lot of time talking to him. He introduced himself as Orville, and he desperately wanted help. He told me that he was from Idaho (by now, I don't remember where), and that he had an enemy up there. What he described next was out of a science fiction movie: his enemy lived in a trailer with a whole bunch of antennas and satellites attached to it, and that this man had a machine that would track Orville wherever he went. Although Orville now lived in the Salt Lake Valley, this enemy (whose name I don't remember, but I do remember looking up his name and address, and it really is a real person....I was tempted to call him) would find Orville and shoot Electromagnetic Radiation at him, causing him severe pain and numbness. (Typing out Electromagnetic Radiation over and over is going to be really annoying, so I'm just going to use EMR, ok?)
Over the course of multiple conversations, I gathered that this pain and numbness were, in fact, real to Orville. I also learned that he was a resident in an assisted living center, and that he was regularly seeing a doctor, though I never knew what for. He did, however, tell me that he was on medications, and that he wasn't taking them. "Aha!" I said to myself. That has got to be the solution to his medical problem. He was convinced that his problem was a physics problem and that our department had whatever means to protect him from the evil EMR. So, I had to very methodically convince him that his doctor was, in fact, very well-trained in physics, and that his medication was specifically designed to help him. It took some convincing, and he started calling me Dr. Merrill, but eventually he stopped calling. Although I had felt horrible that there was some older gentleman in severe pain, and that there was absolutely nothing that I could do about it, I didn't give the matter any further thought and put it behind me when the calls stopped.
Fast forward to this week... I got a call from a doctor at an assisted living center. Apparently, I was promoted to 'Dr. Merrill, Head of the Department of Physics." Anyway, she had Orville in her office, and she was trying to figure out what he was trying to tell her. He was telling her that a few months ago, this guy was attacking him, but that Dr. Merrill had done something to protect him. Just this last weekend, he had moved to a new senior apartment, and apparently the change had caused the pain and numbness...a.k.a. the EMR attacks...to return. So, he pleaded with her to call me. His words were to have me do whatever I had done before to help him. Well, I felt a pang of guilt...knowing full well that I had done nothing.
So, I'm praying and hoping that Orville can get feeling better. It kind of makes me feel guilty as lazy as I am as a super-powered benefactor.
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