I think their anxiety benefits the employer more than anything else in terms of any demand (and where none has been made) being met straight away and, if impossible due to workload, through copious amounts of unpaid overtime out of a morbid terror that it hasn't been done yet).
They were practically hysterical at me down the phone today, claiming a dire emergency that I had to deal with in a particular way with particular equipment - and when I went to check if this equipment even existed, a lengthy trek of six foot away, they rang constantly demanding to know if I'd got the equipment yet. No, because it doesn't exist for those (non)specific circumstances. So I had to check the information (as they were too hysterical to give me more than one word). Took me 20s to look up, and as I was walking the 35 foot to the location of this dire emergency, I could still hear the phone ringing repeatedly, presumably checking whether I'd sprinted down there yet.
Got there. It wasn't an emergency. It wasn't needing any particular equipment, much less the stuff that didn't exist in the first place. It was necessary to go there, yes, but it was hardly calling an Air Ambulance, National Guard and Superman urgent. Quick chat and all sorted out, strolled back to my office.
Avoided them until the last ten minutes of the day, where I'm then shooed back to my desk (that I was already approaching - four foot away at that point) because I hadn't been sitting there waiting for a phone call nobody knew was coming - and I have to try and deal with it whilst the person is talking to somebody next to me about 'Has Mitzi made a mistake? Doesn't Mitzi know what to do? Have I told Mitzi how these things must be handled? Has Mitzi done something wrong?'. I had to pause the call and transfer it to be able to say to them five times 'It's fine. I wasn't at my desk because I was doing x part of the job - the urgent bit - first and then I was coming back to do the non urgent bit. I do know how to do it. Yes, I do. Yes, I really do. It's fine. I've got this. I'm fine.' I then fetched my coat and left the building considerably faster than the speed at which I approached the Dire Emergency earlier that day. Using the only exit that meant I wasn't walking past their door or window.
Calm evasive action is the only way to deal with it. Because, obviously, I can't tell them to get a fucking grip and a prescription for beta blockers because they're doing my head in with their shrieking. Because that would be mean and unprofessional and the fucking truth and they're on the whole, of far more use to the employer than somebody who takes their legal break entitlement. Well, until the day that they spin around so fast that they reach liftoff and spontaneous combust at ceiling light level, at any rate.
Strangely, nobody recruited for my post in the last two years has stayed more than six weeks. Can't imagine how that happened. Or why the pay magically increased to a respectable level when it came round to my interview.