“Come in,” she said bluntly, resting her fingers on her temples.
A scruffy looking young man entered and approached timidly. She waved him to the chair, where he gently sat and looked up at her sheepishly. She brought her hands to the desk and threaded her fingers, then looked squarely at the young man, not into his eyes, but simply at him. She had learned the impersonal gaze from experience, realizing it gave her a sense of authority over the subordinate (and more importantly, insubordinate) employees. The most troubling part of her job, it had turned out, was telling the differences between the truly insubordinate and rebellious employees from the ones simply in over their head, and it was an unbiased gaze of observation that could often tell that difference. The results, unfortunately, were usually the same.
The young man waited furtively for her to speak. The young man is me, by the way. I should have mentioned that earlier, but I wanted to start in 3rd person and transition to 1st. I thought that might be cool. Eventually, she cleared her throat and spoke. Again, it was at, and not necessarily to.
“So how do you think you’re adjusting to the position? Think you’re picking it up okay?” she asked like she was reading an unseen script just over my shoulder.
“Yeah, I think I’m doing fine,” I lied. At the moment, it seemed like the right thing to say, but aided with the clarity of hindsight, and perhaps a bit of honesty, it was pretty much an outright lie. She knew this.
“Really?” For the first time in the room, she seemed to actually be addressing me, but she tried her best to quickly return to her distant aloofness. “We’ve been monitoring your performance for the last couple weeks.”
I cringed. “That’s… good…” Again I lied.
Incompetent, she thought, this one isn’t bad, he’s just incompetent. If not for the sterility she mentally forced upon these conversations, the incompetent ones would be harder.
I had figured I’d been monitored. It was like all those paranoid moments when you’re washing your hands and think you see a pair of eyes over your shoulder in the mirror, but you turn and there’s no one there. When you can feel the stare on the back of your head, but there’s no one else in sight. When you enter a room and hear the faint skitter of fleeing shoes, but once you enter there’s no other door. Except, in this case, it was moreso the remote viewing of computers that the higher ups use to monitor their employees’ internet activity, the Orwellian “tattle” policies, and the constant threat of firing should you be caught in possession of a cell phone on the call center floor. Due to the fairly severe sets of privacy laws that govern cable bill debt collection call centers, I and all the other employees were rigidly monitored pretty much at all times, and had been told that at the beginning. Still, it felt a little invasive to be outright told this after being called into my superior’s office.
“Is there something wrong with how I’m doing things?” I asked, not really wanting to hear the answer, mostly because I already knew it.
“Well, let’s just take a look at one of your recent calls. I think this might explain things a bit.”
“Hello?” asked someone on the other end of the phone line.
“Hello, is this Alexander Simmons?” asked me, in a perfect, and I totally mean perfect Sean Connery voice.
“Um, yes, who is this?”
“This is Sean Connery with Time Warner Cable. It seems you have, rather unfortunately, been missing some payments. This, I’m afraid, is completely against our regulations.”
“Okay, this clearly isn’t the real Sean Connery, but aside from that I’d be happy to make a payment right now, if…”
“Hold on a second. What do you mean I’m not Sean Connery. Can’t you tell it’s me from my ever so distinguishable voice?”
“Why would Sean Connery be calling me about my cable bill?”
“It’s bring a world class celebrity to work day.”
“Yeah, not buying it.”
“I WAS IN THE ROCK!”
The line went dead.
The woman behind the desk stared at me blankly, until I spoke up to defend myself.
“I don’t see what Sean Connery’s poor bedside manner have to do with me…”
“Yeah, don’t even try that kid.”
“Okay, okay. You got me. That was me. It’s my daily 10 O’clock Impressions. I just wanted to liven the atmosphere once a day, so sue me.”
“We know about your 10 O’clock Impressions. Over the last several weeks we have recordings of Robin Williams, Marlon Brando, Hank Hill, and Rod Serling.”
“But what harm is a little fun if it doesn’t harm productivity in any way?” I asked, plaintively.
“Not a single of these calls have made a payment.”
“Okay, fine. So the 10 O’clock Impressions are out. Is that all?”
“No, actually. Why don’t we review this next call?”
“Hello?” asked the customer.
No reply.
“Hello?” she asked louder.
Slight rustling on the other end, and a bit of breathing.
“HELLO?”
There was a sudden snoring noise that peaked crescendo with a snort and a very slurred “Don’t eat me!” followed by a hasty “Yes who is this?”
“Uh, you called me…”
“Yesthat’sverytrue,I’mcallingonyourrecordsjusttoletyouknowletmecheckthecomputernoiseyouoweussomethingmoneyforyourcablebillservicehereisalistofthenearestpaymentlocationoutletswouldyouliketoknowourcurrentspecials?” My voice lilted up and down through the whole jumbled speech as I tried to do my job through hazy, half consciousness.
“Were you asleep? Are you even awake now?”
“Don’t tell my boss” came my slow, dreary reply.
“Don’t worry, I won’t. Just let me know what you’re calling about.”
“These… these men in coats said the books sent me to find the secrets…” there was a muffled thud followed by intense snoring. The line went dead.
“Sleeping on the job is a very serious offense, Harry,” the woman said sternly.
“Yes, I know, I understand. I’m very sorry about that, but it was just once on one of the first few days, and I swore I’d never fall asleep at my desk again, and I’ve taken steps to prevent it.”
“Yes, that might explain this next one, which was recorded the following day.”
“Hello?” asked the customer. There was nothing on the other end of the line but what sounded like some kind of static, and an almost imperceptible ringing.
“Hello, is someone there?” There was more of the ringing noise.
“Look, I’m going to hang up if no one answers.” The ringing seemed to begin to cry out frantically, but no sound of a voice ever materialized. There was a hang up noise, followed by several minutes of the ringing sound. Eventually, the line went dead.
“Actually, I remember this call, but I swear from my end it sounded like he was talking in slow motion.”
“Yes, this one took us a while to decipher. The boys in the lab eventually slowed the track way down and that noise is your voice speaking at an incredibly high speed. I think they said it proved a couple theories about the theory of relativity when it comes to subjective speeds.”
“…We have boys in the lab?”
“Don’t change the subject.”
“Oh, okay. See, that was my first Red Bull, and I’m starting to think those don’t agree with me. But hey, my words were technically still there, and didn’t I do a good job on those?”
“Not in the slightest.”
“Hmm… Okay. Well, is that all the phone calls?” I asked.
“Well, we kind of have one more. It starts out as a phone call, but the important part of it is what we’ve started to call “the outburst”. This is really the reason we brought you in here today.”
“Hold on. Alright, there’s no need to play that. I think I understand what this is about. This is about last Friday’s escalation? Yeah, I am very sorry about that. Things got out of hand with a very impatient customer, and maybe I lost my cool a little bit, but I think you should know it wasn’t entirely my fault.”
“We have $14,000 worth of property damage.”
“I maintain that the computer was broken before my reaction, and was a part of the stresses that led to said reaction.”
“Over half the damage was to the property on the next lot over.”
“Sometimes when I’m really mad, I need to take a walk to calm my nerves.”
“Eye witnesses described your actions. Of the many verbs used, not a one of them was the word ‘walking’. ‘Leaping’, ‘stomping’, ‘crashing’, ‘air punching’, ‘foaming at the mouth’, ‘Hulk-smashing’, ‘crying’, and ‘gnawing’ were all words that came up in multiple reports.”
“Perhaps a bit of an overreaction, but the good news is no one got hurt, right?”
“The customer from the other end of the phone line is having to go through extensive therapy. It seems that you repeatedly used the phrase, ‘This job is devouring my soul’, and the customer claims she saw ‘wisps of hellfire’ seeping through the speaker phone.”
“You can’t prove that.”
“I’ve heard the tape myself.”
I paused, “Hellfire?” She nodded.
“Is there anything, anything at all you want to say to explain for your actions?”
“Look, I can only say ‘I’m sorry’ so many times, but if it lightens the mood, would like to hear an apology from Sean Connery?”
I am fired.
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