Accoustic shock!
Posted in Work by Lori on October 3rd, 2007

What is it?

Acoustic incidents are sudden, unexpected loud noises occurring through a receiver during telephone or
headset use. They may be crackles, hisses, whistles or shrieks or high-pitched noises.

Although many acoustic incidents occur in call centres throughout Australia, only a very small proportion cause
the symptoms known as ‘acoustic shock’ in employees who have experienced them.

The noises can come from a wide variety of sources, either within the transmission system or from the customer end.

Quite a few have been had in the call centre since about February this year, I’ve had 6 people in my team have them, and tonight I had one. So what can cause these nasty sounds?

Within the transmission system:

  • faulty or damaged networks, telephones and headset equipment;
  • broadband and narrowband interference; and
  • mobile phones or fax machines used in call centres.

From the customer end:

  • noises made close to the receiver;
  • such as people whistling and babies screaming;
  • feedback oscillation from some cordless phones;
  • alarm signals and signalling tones;
  • phone receivers slammed down or dropped; and
  • tones from misdirected facsimiles and modems;

Awesome! Some symptoms include, headache, ear ache, sharp pain, ear feeling full, that type of thing. So I guess tomorrow, I will be sent off to get forms signed and hearing test conducted so I can be told officially i am deaf! w00t

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 3rd, 2007 at 12:08 am and is filed under Work. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

6 Responses to “Accoustic shock!”

    1. Snoskred October 3rd, 2007 at 3:34 pm

      You know, I used to work in call centres. I once saw someone, with my own two eyes, throw up all over their desk during one of these incidents. I could hear the noise (it sounded like a siren) coming out of her headset and I was about 10 metres away, facing her.

      People don’t realise how badly it can affect you - in the middle of your ears is the thing that keeps you balanced, and having a loud noise in one ear and not the other can make you physically ill.

      And yet colleagues would still use their mobile phones within the building. I wanted to jam them up their *ahem* rear passages.

      It is so important to protect yourself from this as much as possible - do you know what caused it?

      Cheers,
      Snoskred
      http://www.snoskred.org

    1. sclozza October 3rd, 2007 at 7:35 pm

      You might be able to start using TTYs, which are pretty awesome. Free calls for everyone (who has access to a TTY :))!

    1. Lori October 3rd, 2007 at 9:46 pm

      hey.. Not sure what caused it, it might have been background noise, the dude I was calling was at the pub. It wasn’t a huge incident, recent ones that I have heard have been like feedback noises similar to shoving a microphone next to a speaker. it was just short sharp chirp that hurt like all hell.

    1. Lori October 3rd, 2007 at 9:48 pm

      hahaha..

      awesome i can’t wait, i can type real fast!

    1. steph October 7th, 2007 at 1:34 pm

      You should be paid danger money!

    1. Feebles October 16th, 2007 at 4:24 pm

      I knew a woman who worked for Telstra who had irate customers set off smoke detectors to do that. She collapse and had migraines for a week; she had 6 in a year!

      I hope you’re okay. Most call centres have phones that block that now. You might need to speak to some management to see if yours is working.

      -F-

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