Nightline

Hi,

Ive just finished Nightline training at my uni (I'm posting anonymous in case anyone from my uni reads this thus finding out who I am, after many times of being told to keep anonymity!), and have got my first shift next Sunday. I was just wondering if anyone else has done this, and how they found it and if they have any advice regarding talking to people, staying awake(!) etc!

Thank you!

Reply 1

G4ry

I wanted to do it, but i became put off at having to commit a certain number of nights to it and my course had a lot of early mornings last year. Is it a big uni you're at? I'd imagine if it's big it might be busy enough to keep you up, but if it's a smaller one probably coffee and you'll speak with other people sitting around to i'd imagine.

Reply 2

britishseapower

I use to know someone who did it and she didn't like it because of some rule stipulating that if someone is gonna committ suicide or something like that, you can't talk them out of it, only listen, or something like that. I don't think the calls will be that bad though, I think mostly at my uni, it was just an advice line for pizza delivery and taxi phone numbers e.t.c. it's finished now though at my uni.

Reply 3

Anonymous #1

It's not a big uni, but hopefully it'll be okay! Im okay with the not-talking-people-out-of-suicide thing, probably because I've been in the situation before, and hated people talking me out of it, but am now worried slightly about what'll happen if someone rings me with that. It's very rare though, so hopefully...! Hopefully it'll be okay! Thank you!

Reply 4

britishseapower

good luck

Reply 5

nicki04

I signed up for this at my uni, the service has closed down now though due to lack of volunteers and lack of calls! It was good though, on my shifts mainly i only took about two calls a night and unfortunately we had a dodgy bloke ringing up and hanging up if a male volunteer answered and if a female answered then he'd ask not-so-nice questions.

As for talking to the person you're on shift with...you'll find loads to talk about. Where they're from, course they're on, music, siblings, fav clubs/pubs in ur uni town etc etc. Take some uni work and also some dvds if you have the facilities to watch them. We just watched all three american pie's and then both nodded off for a bit.

It was good fun but 12 hour shifts i think are just too long. More people would do it if they split that into two 6 hour shifts.

Reply 6

Anonymous #1

Yeah, mines 7pm to 7am which is just long! We've got two beds (always good!), dvd/video, microwave, internet connection so we aren't gonna run out of things to do but I just dont wanna start getting annoyed at people ringing up at like 3 asking annoying questions (I'm so sympathetic!!)! Apparently there is one guy that rings up all the time asking not so pleasant questions, which won't be fun but the service broke last term and he hasn't rung back since, so hopefully...!!