Confessions of a Call Center Gal: a novel

by Lisa Lim

  Not to be outdone, Karsynn’s sweater actually plays music. If you squeeze Rudolph’s nose hard enough, it lights up and plays a garbled tune, Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer of course, and it probably sounds garbled from being thrown in the washer one time too many.

  To showcase her sweater, Kars honks Rudolph’s nose a few times for good measure.

  Mika doubles over. “I’ll have to go with Karsynn’s.”

  It has been almost an hour now, and I have yet to receive a call; that is the beauty of working during the holidays—most people think we’re closed! And anyone who does call in on Christmas day is a friggin’ Scrooge.

  Beep!

  Speak of the devil.

  “Thanks for calling—” I pause in my semi-drunk state, trying hard to remember what I should be saying. Oh yes! “Lightning Speed Communications. Now how can I help you this Christmas day?” I slur sentimentally.

  “I need you to update my billing address,” says the caller.

  “Oh-kay.” I hiccup. “I can help with that. Let me just ask you a few questions to verify you.”

  After the caller has passed verification, I ask blearily, “Um… what did you say you needed help with again?”

  “Updating my address,” he says patiently.

  “Right,” I say fuzzily.

  Jeez louise, Maddy. Pace yourself and pull yourself together! You’ve only had some wine. Although, I think it was the comedian Jo Koy who once said that wine is real classy...until you drink a few bottles, then it’s just booze.

  Right. Focus. Everything is a blur.

  I squint, hunting and pecking at my keyboard while he rattles off his new address. Midway through the call, his voice falters and cracks. Seconds later, I hear a muffled sob of despair.

  “Um…are you okay sir?” I ask tentatively.

  “Sorry to call you today, but-but I just feel so alone. My wife just left me and she took the kids. Sobs. And I just lost my job. Sniffles. And I know it’s only a matter of time before my home’s foreclosed on,” he wails piteously.

  “Oh no,” I say empathically. “I’m so sorry to hear that.”

  Then I run out of things to say. Bugger! I have no idea how to comfort him. Meanwhile, he’s having a good cry over the phone. An infinite sadness tugs at my heart. I even feel a bit tearful. It hurts to hear a grown man weep.

  “Sir, why don’t I give you two months of service—for free!” I exclaim in hopes of cheering him up. ‘Tis the season of giving, and it is the only thing I can give him right now.

  “O-okay,” he stammers. “I just really appreciate you being there to take my call.”

  “Well that’s what I am here for sir. Now you can talk all you want. I am listening,” I say with a tenderness that surprises me.

  He proceeds to tell me his whole life story.

  When the call ends two hours later, I feel so utterly down and depressed. To liven things up, I start giving all my callers two months of free service, and it feels so good to give. I feel a thrill compounded by kindness and generosity, at the thought that I could be helping someone out in some small way, that perhaps I’ve made a tiny footprint in their lives.

  A little bit of kindness goes a long way. Jill Robinson, founder and director of the Animals Asia Foundation, has brought about huge changes in the attitudes toward animal welfare throughout Asia, and her tireless plight all started with rescuing one Moon Bear.

  Someday, when I am old and gray, I hope to emulate her and set up my very own charity foundation. I’ll name it The Mika and Maddy Harket foundation, you know, like The Bill and Melinda Gates foundation. I’ve got to start somewhere, so why not here? Why not now? There is no time like the present.

  With the trickle of calls that filter in, most of the customers are pleasant enough, and I repay them with my generosity.

  But one of the callers is so darn nasty that I am convinced he is the Grinch that Stole Christmas.

  “I WANT MY INTERNET UP AND RUNNING NOW,” he explodes, rupturing my eardrums.

  “Sir,” I slosh, “I am stho sthorry. But the sthevere winter sthorm has cut one nof our lines inth yer area. Unforsthunately, we won’th be able tho get our stcehnicians outh sthere sthill sthomorrow.”

  “THERE’S NO EXCUSE FOR THIS BULLSHIT! AND DON’T GO TELLING ME IT’S ‘COZ IT’S CHRISTMAS. I DON’T CELEBRATE THIS BLASTED DAY SO I COULD CARE LESS.”

  “Oh,” I say in a relaxed and fluid voice, still abuzz from the wine. “Stho what holiday do you selethbrate sir?”

  “NONE OF YOUR GOD DAMN BUSINESS.”

  “Um, okay sir. Well, is sthere anything else sthat I can help you with?” I ask blearily. MUTE. Burp.

  “WELL NOW THAT YOU MENTION IT, THERE IS!”

  Great! I’ve just cracked open a can of worms. I hate that we’re forced to ask our callers that asinine question: Is there anything else? Even if there is nothing else, it forces them to think of something.

  The floodgates open, or rather, the Hoover Dam breaks, and The Grinch barrages me with problem after problem, fires off complaint after complaint, and harangues me with rant after rant. Sweet baby Jesus, save his miserable soul!

  After spending an hour assisting him with his never ending needs, I’ve had it with his sour attitude. Before The Grinch can launch into another tirade, I kindly cut him off, “Well, if that is everything sir, thanks for calling and have a Merry Christmas,” I say in a jolly ol’ fashioned way and promptly disconnect the call.

  Whooooopsie! I was supposed to say Happy Holidays.

  Oh well, hopefully that call won’t get monitored.

  And I did not give The Grumpy Grinch two months of free service.

  Bah-Humbug to him!

  Without even taking a breather, I take thirty calls in a row. Now I am starting to feel slightly aggravated.

  “Why in the name of the donkeys in Bethlehem are all these people calling us on Christmas?” I groan.

  Kars looks just as annoyed. “I know, what the hell? Don’t they have better things to do?”

  We’re both so fed up that we jam our Not Ready keys to stop the flow of calls and saunter to the Ladies room.

  Aha! This time I have come prepared.

  After locking the door behind me, I rip off a piece of Post-it Note and stick it right on the eye of the toilet sensor. There!

  Demurely, I set my bum down and wait.

  And wait.

  Nothing happens.

  “HA! I HAVE OUTWITTED YOU!” I shout triumphantly at the toilet bowl. No more nasty water spraying up my bum.

  I rise ceremoniously to my feet and peel off the strip of sticky paper. And sure enough, the toilet flushes.

  Genius. I am so proud of myself.

  Standing in front of the faucet, I am washing my hands with a gratifying smile, feeling incredibly smug.

  Kars narrows her eyes at me. “Maddy, I think you should hold off on the Fat Bastard. I just heard you talking to the toilet.”

  By the time that Kars and I hop back on the bleepin’ phones, the calls have died down.

  “WOOT! WOOT!” I whoop in a celebratory mood.

  A head pops out of the cubicle in front of me.

  “Greetings,” I announce grandiosely. “Merry Christmas! Feliz navidad! Mele Kaliki Maka!”

  An equestrian looking woman glares at me.

  “Mele Kaliki Maka is the thing to say, on a bright Hawaiian Christmas Day,” I carol gaily. “C’mon, sing with me.”

  But Horse Lady does not sing back. In fact, her whole face is molded in a permanent scowl.

  “I’m Maddy,” I say in a gracious manner and extend the olive branch. “And you are?”

  “Tori,” she says frostily and scrunches up her face, looking like a horse that just ate a lemon.

  I offer the sour horse a kind smile. “Tori, nice to meet you,” I say merrily. After all, poor Tori looks like a horse that just ate a lemon, so that warrants some kindness on my part.

  “Keep your voices down,” she says tersely. “You’re cr
eating a ruckus in here. You and that other girl.” She points at Kars.

  “Sorry.”

  “And I do not celebrate Christmas!” she hisses.

  “If you don’t mind me asking, what do you celebrate Tori?”

  “Birthdays!” She flashes her horse teeth, displaying more gum than teeth.

  I find myself staring at her mouth, slightly mesmerized by her out of whack tooth-to-gum ratio. “Well doesn’t it suck that we’re forced to work today?” I say with strained politeness.

  Tori shoots me a filthy look. “I volunteered!”

  My mouth falls open, forming the capital letter O.

  Since it’s Christmas, I decide to take the moral high ground and play nice. “Do you have any kids?” I ask amiably. Kids are a safe topic and serve as an excellent conversation warmer.

  Tori’s face softens a micrometer. “I do. I have a daughter. And she just turned thirteen yesterday.”

  “Ah, she’s a teenager now,” I say brightly. “What did you get her for her birthday?”

  “I paid for her boob job and nose job,” she says this like it’s no big deal, like she just bought her daughter a sweater from Old Navy and a scarf from Abercrombie.

  My smile wavers slightly. “Oh, how nice...”

  Now, I have nothing against people getting ‘work’ done if it makes them feel better about themselves, you know…whatever floats your plastic boat. But I do think that thirteen is a little too young to be going under the knife.

  Karsynn gives me one of her classic Karsynn looks, and I know she’s thinking the exact same thing. But I remain placid and civil.

  Who knows? Tori may strike me as odd, but in her daughter’s eyes, she could very well be Mother of the Year.

  Blatantly, Tori fixes her patronizing eyes on me, looking me up and down with an air of spiteful evaluation. Her sharp gaze stops at my chest. Then she turns her critical eye on Karsynn’s chest. “You girls have lovely little blinkers,” she smirks, adding, “and those are some of the ugliest sweaters I have ever seen.”

  Her sarcasm is not lost on me. I am barely a B cup and Kars is a 36AAA. Not to mention, our ugly Christmas sweaters have completely obliterated our barely-there-bijongas. But still, that is no excuse for Tori to be bitchy and disrespectful. Poor Kars is already convinced her bijongas look like poached eggs. I dart Kars a worried glance, and I can tell by the look on her face that she’s smarting from the insult.

  Tori has been malicious and mean-spirited all night, and she has worn down all my tolerance for her nastiness. And as for our ugly Christmas sweaters, well d’oh! That is the whole point of it.

  But I do not deign to tell her so. She just wouldn’t get it.

  I never set out to provoke Tori, and I was poised to exit the conversation, but that was before her undeserved attack.

  Okay, Tori wants to play dirty. Fine. I can play dirty too, I can do passive aggressive. With my lips set in an angry line, I give Tori a taste of her own medicine. Casting a disdainful eye her way, I see that her acrylic sweater is completely covered with pet hair and dander. Aha! Horse Lady must own a horse after all, or at least a dog or a cat. And her bijongas are definitely fake. They resemble gigantic, rock hard cantaloupes, and those dingle bobbers point at me like rocket propelled grenades.

  “At least ours are real,” I say demurely. “And what we lack in size, we more than make up in sweetness.”

  “Well that’s debatable,” sneers Tori.

  Karsynn bolts up. “Well if you weren’t such a miserable horse, maybe you’d see our sweet side.”

  Tori’s oversized horse nostrils flare up. Neiiigggh!!!

  Karsynn’s claws are out now. Hissssssss!!! “And you know what, Tori? We didn’t purchase our bijongas, so we’ll never suffer from buyer’s remorse.”

  Touché. And burn. I believe Kars has just struck a nerve.

  Tori looks absolutely stricken. “You-you,” she sputters.

  “What?” Kars lifts her chin coolly, feigning innocence.

  “You girls are nothing but jealous little bitches!” Tori arches her back, overtly displaying her cantaloupes. “And just so you know who you’re talking to, I was Miss Idaho 1990.”

  Karsynn emits a loud, exaggerated snort. “So you were a pageant queen? Well how lovely. Perhaps along with your boob implants, you should’ve gotten a brain implant too.”

  Tori huffs and puffs and grabs her things. “You know what? Thankfully for me, my shift ends right now. And I am so glad. I simply cannot stand to be in the same vicinity as the two of you!”

  “Likewise,” I say eloquently.

  “It’s too bad you girls are stuck here on Christmas!” Tori rubs salt into our open wounds, then storms off in a fury, leaving a cloud of horse hair in her wake.

  “Bye bye, Seabiscuit! See you at the Kentucky Derby!” Kars hollers after her. “That horse sure poisoned our peaceful night.”

  The plume of horse hair travels my way. “Ah-ah-CHOoooo!” I sneeze, clearly allergic to it. “Hasn’t she heard of a lint remover?”

  Kars crosses her arms. “My Christmas wish is for something large and heavy to fall on her airbags and deflate ‘em.”

  “Hear, hear,” I grunt in approval, raising my Snapple bottle filled with cheap red wine.

  “Amen to that,” affirms Ingeborg, lifting her Hello Kitty water bottle filled with vodka.

  Seeing my near empty bottle, Ingeborg totters over and tops it off. “Here, have some vadka.”

  I give a gracious nod at her generosity.

  And so begins the bijonga discussion: Real vs. Fake.

  Kars muses out loud, “I wouldn’t mind getting implants if they’d actually look natural. Heck, I don’t want to end up looking like I’ve got David and Goliath for chesticles.”

  “No, don’t do it!” cries Ingeborg. “You are beautiful just de vay you are. I had a breast veduction; they hurt my back too much.”

  Waving my bottle in the air, I claim their attention. “All right, here are the cons so far—they look fake and they hurt your back. What about the pros? Other than the obvious of course.” I take a swig. “Holy shit!” I gag and hack. “This shit is strong!”

  Blargh. This vodka has killed just about every germ in my body. Hell, maybe even a couple of my organs. I’m pretty sure my GI tract is blitzed into oblivion.

  “What the hell is this?” I splutter.

  “Balkan 176. It iz 176 proof.” Ingeborg grins impishly. “It iz a Bulgarian vadka, and it iz dee varld’s strongest.”

  I stare at her for what seems like several minutes. “Ingeborg, I don’t think this vodka is meant to be consumed neat.”

  Ingeborg simply knocks back another belt of her vodka.

  “Give me some of that!” Kars orders. “I’ll drink it straight.”

  Obligingly, Ingeborg tops off her bottle. “Dar ya go.”

  “Merci mille fois,” Kars tinkles gaily, and for a little while she looks thoughtful as she nurses her potent drink. Suddenly, she bursts, “Oh! I’ve got it!”

  “Got vhat?” slurs Ingeborg.

  “Another reason to get airbags—for identification!” Kars cackles derisively. “It’s like a fingerprint!”

  I shoot her a puzzled look.

  Kars explains, “Didn’t you guys hear about that murder case in the news? This poor chick was murdered by her ex-husband. He mutilated her face, cut off her fingers and yanked out all her teeth so the cops had no way of identifying her. But guess what? They did!”

  “How?” I ask, befuddled yet riveted.

  “By the serial number on her boob implants!” Kars practically yells, all hyped up about this CSI-like case.

  I take a swig of my turpentine.

  Yech. It tastes like shoe polish, but I gulp it down anyway.

  “Now that could be a pro, but it could also be a con,” I say objectively. “Say your murderer knew about this, you know what’ll happen? When the cops find your dead body, you’ll have no face, no fingers, no teeth and no baby feeders!”
/>   “Yikes!” Karsynn’s eyes pop open in a horrified sort of way. “That would be awful.”

  “Zimply terrible,” seconds Ingeborg.

  For the next several minutes, we lapse into a deep silence and remain poignant. The mood is morbid and macabre to say the least. “Enough about murders and mutilations!” I slap my thigh forcefully. “It’s Christmas guys. Christmas.”

  To lighten the mood, I flick on my radio.

  “Yessssss,” I cheer as my favorite Christmas song plays on the airwaves. My whole face is animated as I listen to Baby It’s Cold Outside. I’m being extra cheesy, snapping my fingers like Sinatra, grooving to the tune, swaying to the melody—

  Karsynn butts into my reverie, “You do know, don’tcha, that this is a date rape song.”

  “Quit ragging on my song,” I cry huffily. “I do not need you psychoanalyzing it.”

  *DA* *DA* *DA* *DUM* *DA* *DA* *DUM* *DUM* DUM*

  The wavy, synthesizing hum of a digital keyboard emanates from my radio.

  “Ack!” shrieks Ingeborg. “Last Christmas. I love dis song!”

  “We love this song too!” Kars and I squeal with delight.

  Last Christmas is Wham!’s best hit ever, although, Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go trails closely behind. Kars and I watch a lot of VH-1’s I Love the Eighties, and we are huge fans of eighties bands with kooky names. Names like A-Ha, Duran Duran, Pet Shop Boys and of course Wham!

  We know all of the words to this song, and so does Ingeborg. Together, we sway drunkenly, belting out the chorus. Mika saunters over, clutching his sides. Surprisingly, he joins in on the chorus; and soon all four of us are singing and slurring sentimentally off key.

  The Gods must be smiling down upon us. There are no calls in queue. Nada.

  “Okay everyone.” Kars claps her hands. “Time to exchange prezzies!”

  This year, all four of us agreed to do a Secret Santa. But it is no secret since we just couldn’t keep our mouths shut. Mika is my Secret Santa, I’m Karsynn’s Secret Santa, Kars is Ingeborg’s Secret Santa. And so, by natural deduction, Ingeborg is Mika’s Secret Santa.

  “I want to go first.” Without wasting any time, Karsynn rips into the wrapping paper. “Aww,” she gushes. “A basil seed kit for my Aerogarden.”