computer use at work, and how many hours do people really work?

[sanantone]

I don't know how I feel about this. It really does depend on the job. In some jobs, there really is nothing to do. I worked as a telemarketer as a teenager. Sometimes, the calls would come in several minutes apart. On really slow days, we could wait 15 minutes or more for a call. We were losing available numbers as more and more people added themselves to the Do Not Call List. Our manager did not want us reading magazines or books. The computers worked on MS-DOS. LOL. All we could do was stare at the computer screen and twiddle our thumbs. What a mind-numbing job.

Then, you have emergency dispatchers and call-takers. During the graveyard shift, it's often slow. What are they supposed to do when calls aren't coming in?