Confessions of a Call Center Gal: a novel

by Lisa Lim

  I’m stunned into silence. God. What an arrogant, portentous, pompous ass. I would certainly hope that he did not spend eight or nine years in med school solely for the title.

  Okay. I get it. Doctors save lives and kudos to them for being a great service to the community. I’m even a huge fan of Doctors Without Borders. But c’mon already! Nurses, firemen and cops devote their lives to helping others and saving lives. They may not have spent half their lives in med school, but the jobs they perform on a daily basis are no less valiant, yet they do not demand to be called Nurse Betty or Fireman Johnny. Heck, even Jesus did not demand to be called God.

  And while it’s certainly no secret that most doctors can’t keep their profession a secret for longer than two seconds, this caller actually tops the list of being the most narcissistic, self-indulgent egomaniac I have ever come across. I feel sorry for his wife. He probably needs constant praise and adulation on a daily basis to validate who he is.

  It sickens me. This caller sickens me, and he’s a Doctor. If the only callers I got were stuffy, conceited, ostentatious doctors like this quack here, my whole body would just shrivel up and DIE.

  Shouldn’t doctors be healing instead of killing?

  I have to grind my teeth to refrain from calling him Mister.

  But by the end of the call, my resolve wanes. He has been nothing but rude, running his mouth at me in a hostile way, his tone condescending whenever I try to interrupt him with pertinent questions.

  Despite my best efforts, he just keeps on inferring that I don’t know how to do my job, and that he knows what he’s doing.

  “I know what the hell I’m doing, what do you think I am? Stupid?”

  “Err...”

  “Don’t answer that!” he blasts. “You clearly have no idea what you are talking about! You people are fuckin’ useless! Good for nothing, towel headed, turban wearing Taliban!”

  “Um Doctor Wood, I don’t live in a Taliban regime that forces me to cover up. And even if I did, women don’t wear turbans. I believe the headscarf is called a hijab and the garment is called a burka.”

  Plus, I highly doubt the Taliban are operating call centers; they’re much too busy indoctrinating future terrorists in their madrassas.

  “Burka, Buppa, Buca di Beppo, they all sound the same to me!” he scoffs mockingly. “Missy, let me tell you, I know exactly what I’m doing! I graduated summa cum laude from Harvard. But I’ll have to say, your website is horrendous! I highly doubt anyone can figure it out.”

  Well then why the hell are you calling me? Go figure it out yourself if you’re so damn smart. I can navigate the site without ANY problems whatsoever and so can my five year old niece. So you are obviously very DENSE! Although I shouldn’t be surprised given that your last name is Wood. You graduated with Latin honors, but can you even tie your own shoelaces? Why don’t you go summa cum laude in your face! You should rightly sue your own alma mater!

  “GET ME SOMEBODY ELSE WHO KNOWS WHAT THE HELL THEY’RE DOING,” he roars.

  “Sure. No problem, I’ll get another agent on the line for you.”

  I decide to amuse myself at his expense. “Thanks for calling Mister Wood, and have a nice day Mister Wood,” I babble happily and transfer him back into the queue.

  Humph. That dipshit doctor really needs to shut up and eat some humble pie. What a vacca foeda!

  That’s Latin, by the way, for stupid cow.

  Quantum materiae materietur marmota monax si marmota monax materiam possit materiari?

  Oh! Was I just speaking Latin again?

  Silly me! Sometimes it just sort of slips. Anyway, the literal translation is: How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?

  And finally, Sona si Latine loqueris: Honk if you speak Latin. Yes. I learned Latin from car bumper stickers.

  Karma’s a bitch. I should never have messed with that doctor. As I trudge into work the next day, I can hear Truong hacking from a mile away. Yikes! He is coughing so violently, I’m afraid he’ll hack up a lung.

  And Tiny is taking rapid, shallow breaths and turning very blue. “Tiny, are you all right?”

  He shakes his head and shoots me a look of pure agony.

  Glancing over at Ingeborg, I’m immediately taken aback. Her rosy cheeks have lost all vestiges of color. She is pale, gaunt and shadowed with sickness. Christ Almighty! This is a Hot Zone.

  Truong emits another whooping cough.

  “Are you okay, Truong?” My eyes pop open at his decaying, emaciated frame.

  He groans like a dying man, “I think I may have the swine flu. My nephew got it from preschool and he probably spread it to me.” Hack, hack, hack. KEKH!

  “Swine flu? SWINE FLU?” I wheel my chair back. “What the hell are you doing at work contaminating the whole place? You should be quarantined!” I fume.

  I absolutely abhor it when sick people drag themselves into work, spreading their germs everywhere, infecting everyone.

  “How the hell am I supposed to stay healthy?” I splutter. “You expect me to wear a mask to work?”

  HONK. Truong blows his nose into a Kleenex. And then he does the unthinkable! Like a lecherous leper, he holds the tissue up to my face and peels it open in extra slow motion.

  Grossness. I’m forced to stare at his gooey, green mucus.

  It’s his way of saying go F-yourself.

  And it’s very apparent that he’s enjoying my discomfort.

  “Truong! You’re a revolting pig!” I cry in mock disgust, edging myself as far away from him as possible. Squirting out a glob of Purell, I begin savagely sanitizing my entire work space. “Next time you’re sick, please stay at home like you’re supposed to!” I huff, smearing more anti-bacterial gel over my keyboard.

  Work becomes exceedingly more difficult when I’m trying not to breathe the whole time. I swath my nose and my mouth with a tissue every time a cough breaks out. Consequently, my speech is muffled when I converse with my callers.

  My gaze shifts down to my hands. I turn them over ruefully, examining the blisters and cracks. Perhaps I was being a little too militant with the hand sanitizer, but I’ll be damned if I catch the swine flu. When the flu virus hits me, it hits me as hard as a ton of bricks, putting me out of commission for weeks.

  A huge wave of relief washes over me when my shift finally ends. “Bye, Truong! Bye, Tiny! Bye, Ingeborg! I hope you guys feel better.” I gather my things and blitz out of the building without so much as a glance back, consumed with fear of being ravaged by the plague that is now sweeping the entire call center.

  Listlessly, I turn my key in the lock in slow motion and shuffle into my apartment. I find Karsynn slumped on the sofa, glued to the TV. She took the whole day off because today is a pivotal day. It’s the season premiere of Gossip Girl: Season Three and Kars just had to watch it when it aired. And so she called in sick even though she’s as healthy as a horse and as fit as an ox.

  Incidentally, Karsynn never gets sick.

  I’m convinced her ancestors ploughed and toiled the barren fields of Ireland in the 1800’s, surviving through the potato famine and thus blessing her with stellar genes.

  “Hey, Kars,” I mutter miserably. “Good thing you ditched work today. A swine flu pandemic has hit that place.”

  “Shhh Chuck and Blair are together at last,” she says quietly.

  “Did you record it for me?” I ask and she nods in response.

  Marching purposefully to the kitchen sink, I fill up a glass of water, rummage through the medicine cabinet and gulp down ten Echinacea pills, followed by ten Vitamin C tablets. That should build up my immune system.

  Next, I heat up a can of Campbell’s hearty chicken soup. I sit and eat, but my mind is still rattled by the whole swine flu business.

  Clasping my hands together, I pray silently:

  Dear Heavenly Father,

  If you forsake me from the swine flu, I promise I’ll be much nicer to doctors and call them Doctor, no matter how arroga
nt and obnoxious they may be. Amen.

  Satisfied with my short appeal to God, I set my dirty dishes in the sink. “Good night, Kars.”

  She jerks her head up. “You’re off to bed? Already?”

  “Yep! I need to stay healthy. According to Doctor Oz, sleep is my best defense against the H1N1 virus.”

  After brushing my teeth and washing my face, I tuck myself in for a restful night of sleep.

  Ahhhh, I dream of Mika dressed in nothing but a kilt.

  I’m encircled in his strapping arms and he’s whispering sweet Gaelic in my ear...

  Gaol ise gaol i, Gaol ise gaol i,

  E o hao-o hao o,

  Ro-ho i o hi o,

  Hao ri ri o hu o

  Gaol ise gaol i, Gaol ise gaol i.

  Morning arrives much too soon. My throat feels scratchy, my joints ache and I am running a fever so high that my brain is scalding. With Herculean effort, I drag myself out of bed and stumble into the bathroom.

  I inspect my appearance in the mirror only to groan with displeasure at the reflection staring back at me. God. I am one hot mess. I look like shit and feel like shit.

  Pssh! I can’t go into work like this. No way in hell.

  I stagger out of the bathroom and rifle through my purse, in search of my PTO calendar.

  PTO stands for Paid Time Off. In short, my vacation time and sick time are lumped together in what call center lingo refers to as PTO days. Ultimately, what it all boils down to is this: when I call in sick, I am sacrificing a day of vacation.

  Fuck that. All of my vacation for next year has already been prescheduled. Two weeks in the summer, and another week for Thanksgiving. So that leaves me with zero PTO time for sick days. The reality of the situation slowly begins to sink in.

  I have to go into work. I bury my head in my hands and make a muffled cry of despair, “Noooooooooooo!”

  Hours later, looking bedraggled, like something an alley cat just dragged in for supper, I blunder to my cubicle and collapse into my chair with a weary sigh, as though all the strength has been leached from my body.

  “Oh, Maddy. My, my, my, you look like shit,” Truong remarks with a satisfied smirk.

  “You just shut yer swine face,” I snap.

  Summoning up all my energy, I hunch over my keyboard and sluggishly log in to all my apps.

  Dammit! What the hell is my password again? They make us change it so many friggin’ times that I can never keep track.

  I type ZacLevi88

  Your password is incorrect.

  Zac8Zac8Zac8

  Your password is incorrect.

  Efron888

  You are now locked out.

  Just great! I breathe in hard through my clogged up nose and cough up a hail storm. Hack, Hack, Kak, Hack. CrAcK.

  OWWWwwww! I think I’ve just cracked a rib.

  Like a cripple, I press one palm over my rib cage and hobble to The Führer’s desk. “Hillary?” I croak.

  Her eyes flash with irritation. “What?”

  “My password is locked. Can you submit a ticket?”

  She harrumphs. “I’ll get it taken care of in five minutes.”

  “Thanks,” I mutter and let out a whooping cough.

  “You’re sick too?” Her tone is angry, almost accusatory.

  “Yeah,” I grunt. “Isn’t everybody?”

  “I’m not sick,” she points out. “Only weak people get sick.”

  I muster a feeble smile and limp back to my desk.

  Sinking into my chair, I cover my forehead with both hands to quell the throbbing ache and skyrocketing temperature. For the rest of the day, I take calls in that exact catatonic position.

  It sure is a good thing that we don’t meet clients face to face. Truong is hunkered over his desk, arms sprawled out, taking calls with his head deeply burrowed in his scarf.

  Ingeborg is rolled up into a ball, both eyes tightly shut, but I know she’s not asleep because her lips are still moving.

  Tiny is slumped miserably in his chair, chin resting on his chest, a fuzzy blanket draped over his shoulders. Still, he’s shivering and quivering, like he’s about to go into labor.

  Lord help us, we’re a pretty darn pitiful, pathetic lot.

  When our shift finally ends, Truong stares at me with his sunken eyes and says in all-seriousness, “Next time you’re sick, Maddy, do me a favor and stay at home like you’re supposed to.”

  But Truong is incapable of keeping a straight face for longer than two seconds. He suppresses a loud snort, which triggers an intense hack fest.

  Swaying with exhaustion, I choke with laughter, hacking and hiccupping along. Eventually, I manage to stop coughing long enough to say, “And waste a day of vacation? Hells no!”

  He pats my arm and croaks hoarsely, “C’mon, Maddy, let’s go grab some coffee and Cinnabons.”

  Seventeen

  New Year’s Eve was another anticlimactic day, and January flew by in a frantic whir, by far the busiest month of the year. We were slammed with call after call, and February couldn’t creep in soon enough. And before I could even say, “Look out!” Valentine’s Day rears its ugly head.

  Someday, I need to do my civic duty and petition for Congress to have Valentine’s Day expunged from the calendar. Love Sucks Day is what they should call it. This dreadful and emotionally damaging day strikes me with fear...fear of being alone, fear of discovering that nobody loves me.

  Thinking back, I used to look forward to Valentine’s Day. My dad always had red roses and Godiva chocolates delivered to my classroom. His sweet gesture made all the other kids green with envy. The enclosed hand written card always said: “From your secret admirer,” but I recognized my dad’s spidery handwriting.

  Every Valentine morning, I have fond memories of waking up to the sound of his chipper voice singing this beautiful song:

  There is beauty all around, when there’s love at home;

  There is joy in ev’ry sound, when there’s love at home,

  Peace and plenty here abide, smiling sweet on ev’ry side;

  Time doth softly, sweetly glide, when there’s love at home.

  There was plenty of love in my home. But that was then. Now I’m just a miserable cow on V Day.

  As I drag myself into work, I pass by a repulsive bouquet of blood red roses at the front desk, waiting to be picked up by some lucky gal.

  I exhale sharply as I pass by one heart shaped balloon after another. Finally, I sink into my seat with a dramatic sigh.

  Oh! What’s this?

  A red gift box is sitting on my desk.

  Who could this be from?

  I glance furtively around.

  Very carefully, I untie the pretty sash and lift the lid open.

  Be still my beating heart...lying inside is the most romantic gift ever. Gush. I find myself gazing adoringly at a heart shaped cinnamon roll.

  There’s a card inside too. As I slide it out of the red envelope, a smile touches my lips. A cute little cinnamon stick waves at me with a gloved hand. I gently flip the card open and see Mika’s neat, cursive handwriting:

  A sweet treat for my sweet friend

  Yours, Mika

  Truong pops his head out of his cubicle. “Is that from my Mikquisha?” He points to the box and I nod.

  “You bitch!” he squeals, feigning outrage. But I can tell that he’s happy for me from the twinkle in his eye.

  I babble happily, “He signed the card ‘Yours, Mika’.”

  I know it’s silly. But I ascribe all sorts of meaning to it. Jason Mraz’s I’m Yours anthem replays in my lovesick head. I’m so elated that everything seems so rosy, so blissful.

  In a hazy love trance, I log in to my phone.

  Beep!

  “Thanks for calling Lightning Speed Communications. This is Maddy. How can I help?” I ask jubilantly.

  Tra La La. Valentine’s Day is such a wonderful day.

  I even remember to use the Telemarketing Sales Rule script, which is the Permissio
n to Sell Script, or the PiSS script, as I call it. Quite honestly, I often forget to mention that dreaded script, even though they drill it into my head to Sell, Sell, Sell!

  At first, the mere act of pitching a sales offer was terrifyingly painful. But over time...well, let’s just say I’m numb to the pain now. It’s do or die.

  So I do.

  Half the time at least, just enough so I don’t get myself fired.

  The caller informs me that she’s having problems accessing the internet.

  “Ma’am, I’d be happy to assist you with that. Now, while I’m pulling up your information, if I see a product or a service that may be beneficial to you, is it okay if I mention it at the end of the call?” I ask, cringing at the same time.

  Her response comes in a puzzled tone. “Whad’ya mean?”

  “Exactly what I just said,” I say, keeping poised. “If I see a product or a service that may be beneficial to you, is it okay if I mention it at the end of the call?”

  “Oh dear,” she apologizes, guilt co-mingling with frustration creeping into her voice. “Sugar, I still haven’t the slightest idea whatcha harping aboot.”

  I repeat the TSR script for the third time, but this time around, I word it a teeny bit differently. “Ma’am, if there is a product or a service that may help you save time and money, is it all right if I tell you about it later on?”

  “I’m sooo sooo sorry.” She releases a nervous laugh. “I still don’t understand whatcha going on aboot!”

  Something inside me becomes unhinged. “I WANT TO SELL YOU SOMETHING. DO I HAVE YOUR PERMISSION?”