I heard it through the Tarot-line.

Chapter One

In the early 1990′s I worked in the telephone and data communications industry which gave me the knowledge and insight to the forthcoming, ‘Technological Revolution’ and how this phenomena was about to rocket us into the 21st century. A few years earlier I had seen, in the ‘Jobs vacant’ section in one of the local news papers, a company asking for Tarot readers to work on a, ‘Tarot Line’, basically they would be taking calls from the public who would request a Tarot reading from the individual reader who answered their call. The same thing happens today but is far more sophisticated and is now predominantly internet-driven.

In 1994 I applied for a job on one of these telephone ‘Tarot Lines’ to do some research on how effective was Tarot reading over a telephone line. My intention was to stay for about six months maximum, but it turned out I stayed for two years. During this period I met all kinds of people and all kinds of readers. I’ll tell you about some of these amazing people in another article.

I worked on the night shift for several months purely because it was the busiest time of day and it passed the time more quickly and you got paid by the amount of total minutes you spent on calls during your shift. The night shifts became the most popular ones to work on. Many different types of people called the line and the variations in questions were limitless. There were some pretty strict rules to abide by too. On answering the call the caller would have the rules explained by the reader and if the caller was happy to continue with the reading the reader would then start off the reading. I just need to explain a few of these rules before I can begin the story.

Please bear with me………..

First of all there was an age restriction of 18 years old, you also had to be the telephone, ‘bill payer’ or have permission to use that line by the ‘bill payer’, this stopped people running up large company phone bills by their night shift staff. It also stopped young teenagers trying to use the service from their in-laws and parents phone line and so on. And finally, you would explain how much the call would cost, usually a price per minute, and in those early days it would be about 36 pence per min during the day and about 46 pence per min at night.

One  early November night, whilst on a 14 hour shift which had started at 7pm that evening, I received a call between 11:00pm and 11:30pm, from what sounded to me like a very young child, possibly female. Of course, the first thing I asked was if they were 18 years or older, which they replied that they were and that ‘she’, was 21 years old. Still unsure, I raised my hand to the supervisor, which was a signal for assistance and motioned at the same time for her to listen in on the call. Once the supervisor was ready I explained to the caller, that in my view, I felt that she was too young to use the service and would have to disconnect the call. I looked at the supervisor and she gave me the thumbs-up to go ahead and disconnect the call, which I did after a brief explanation of why it was necessary to do so.

Chapter Two

Want to know what happens next? …………………….

Chapter 2 coming soon.

SAM

Sam

I am going to start with a very good friend of mine who I have had the pleasure to know for many years now. He has given me permission to write this story but I will change his name to SAM. He has always been a fairly positive person for most of his life but due to certain circumstances over the past 5 or 6 years his life has changed dramatically. Sam came out of hospital a few years back after a very serious illness to find part of his flat had been burned out. Yet today he is as positive as anyone I know. What makes this guy keep going with all the bad luck he keeps having, I ask myself?

Well, Sam is one of those people no matter what happens to him, he just keeps going regardless. So I asked him how he does it. And what he said surprised me immensely. His actual words were, “I just keep my life simple and it works”. ‘People cloud their minds and judgement with all the wrong things these days. People just want material things to keep them happy. That’s wrong and people should start to look at life differently. I only give and never take, this gives me a sense of strong emotional feelings that make me feel good and happy. Anyway, what is life for if not for giving, I don’t see the pleasure of taking and wanting all the time, it just puts too much stress in ones life. The only other thing is laughter, you can’t beat a good laugh. If I can make someone laugh or smile then it makes me happy too’. When I see Sam and sit down with him to talk, he does one thing that very few people can do. He inspires me with the things he says and some of the things he does at times. He likes to prove things about the human nature, constantly.

I was having a conversation one day, when Sam was in hospital and he said to me, people don’t listen to a word you say! Why? I asked with some astonishment. Well listen to this and I will prove it, he said. A doctor came in on his rounds and visited every patient on the ward. He then came to Sam and went through his notes, checking this and that he turned to Sam and said “We are going to have to operate on you, it’s called a ———– operation.” Sam instantly replied Oh good I wanted to have one of those done, which, the Doctor never reacted to at all. He just carried on explaining about why he had to do this operation and that he was very sorry to keep Sam in hospital but also that there was a chance he could die from the operation or further operations may be necessary. To which Sam replied. I don’t mind, you’ve got your job to do and who better to perform it on but me. The doctor smiled and started to walk out of the ward then stopped, turned around and said to Sam. It’s ok, don’t be afraid you’ll be all right. After the doctor and his entourage of nurses and doctors had left, Sam turned to the patient in the next bed and said. “I don’t think he heard a word I said to him.” I was certain he hadn’t too. So let’s all take something positive from this. Listen to others around you and be aware of what is really happening. If you just stay wrapped up in your own feelings and thoughts how can you know what is going on around you day in and day out.