Confessions of a Call Center Gal: a novel

by Lisa Lim

  “You’re a goose.” I smirk. “A goose disguised as a duck.”

  “What’s good for the goose is good for the gander,” she quips.

  And she’s right. If she snags the lead position, it will surely bode well for all us goslings. She’ll be the Mother Goose, looking out for her feisty flock.

  Kars interrupts my thoughts. “The smoking part is easy. The hardest part for me is acting like a complete flooze ball, flirting and slutting myself out, stroking all these managers’ egos.”

  That very second, Richard Just-Call-Me-Dick Jones ambles by, and Kars completely transforms herself.

  “Oooooh, Diiiiiiiiiiiiiickkkk,” she coos in a high pitched, whiny, nails-on-chalkboard voice. “That tip you gave us on selling, you know, asking the callers ‘What is your hesitation?’ Well it’s been working wonders for me! My sales have practically quadrupled!”

  Dick puffs his chest out like a puffer fish. “Well, I am so glad that’s been working for you. Back in the day, when I was in the trenches like you, that sales pitch of mine sealed plenty of deals for me. I was the top sales performer for Fanny Farm Insurance.”

  Karsynn’s eyes widen like hard boiled eggs. She emits a gay, tinkling laugh. “You were?” she enthuses, suddenly becoming buoyant, tossing her hair this way and that. “Wow! You’re so amaaaazzzzzzzzzzzing.”

  Dick straightens himself, his eyes shining with self-importance. He addresses Kars, “And what is your name again?”

  “I’m Kars,” she breathes evocatively. “Karsynn Higginbotham, and I recently applied for the team lead position,” she adds in a syrupy voice.

  “Well I’m glad to see that we’ve got some good candidates.” He gives her a big fat wink and plods off.

  I blink. Err...did that just happen?

  Karsynn wheezes and collapses into a ball. “Whoa! It ain’t easy being an airhead.”

  I mimic Karsynn by using a nasally, helium-filled, cat claws-scraping-car-hood voice, “Ooooooooooo, Diiiiiiiiiiick, my sales have practically quadrupled. You’re so amaaaazzzzzzzzzzzing.”

  Kars delivers a solid punch to my arm. “It’s politics baby. Plus I’ve got no choice. You should see the real Call Center Termites that I’m up against for the team lead position.”

  I shoot her a quizzical look. “Call Center Termites?”

  “Yeah, these incompetent bimbos who chew on the managers’ wood. And you know what? They don’t stop there! They chew on everybody’s wood—the team leads, the supervisors, the directors, anyone and everyone who can help them get ahead. Soon we’ll have such a severe infestation of these completely inept termites who haven’t the foggiest idea how to do their jobs once they’re promoted, that this whole friggin’ structure will be on the brink of collapse!” She flings her arms, gesturing wildly as she finishes off her tirade.

  “Okay, Kars, calm down now. Take a deep breath.”

  She stops and catches her breath. “You worry about scoring the techie position, and I’ll worry about securing the lead position. Now,” she tuts, “have you got all your ducks in a row?”

  “I’ve got all my ducks in a row,” I say indignantly.

  “Well make sure they’re in a perfect row. You’ve got some stiff competition yourself.”

  “Who?” My interest is piqued for obvious reasons.

  “Mika!” she exclaims, thumping my back.

  I curse under my breath, “Dammit!”

  “Don’t worry, Maddy! You, me and Mika will be going places. We’re the unstoppable trio of musketeers, and we shall sally forth and conquer this call center!” Raising an imaginary sword, she bellows, “ALL FOR ONE, AND ONE FOR ALL!”

  My head is still reeling from the fact that I’ll be up against Mika for the techie position.

  “Well, Maddy, I’ve got plenty more schmoozing to do, and I’ve got to keep a close eye on my competition. Like they say, keep your enemies close, but keep the Call Center Termites closer.” Bouncing away with the buoyancy of a cheerleader, she wields an imaginary sword and bellows once more, “Remember what I said—ALL FOR ONE, AND ONE FOR ALL!”

  I stare after her open-mouthed.

  What is the world coming to? Rambo Girl has morphed into Barbie Musketeer, and she reeks of Marlboro and mints.

  Oy Vey! Several weeks later, I’m still waiting with bated breath. Did I get the job? Did I not get it? I just want to know.

  Nothing. Not a peep.

  I start ticking off the days in my head. I need that job. It’s my one-way ticket out of this Hell hole. It’s my pot of gold at the end of a rainbow that’s quickly fading away.

  Finally, right before I leave for work, I get the call from HR.

  A huge wave of euphoria washes over me and I almost have to pinch myself twice. Is this a mockery or is this a dream?

  Overcome by the news, I decide to keep it all to myself. I’m a trifle worried that the evil fairies will swoop in and snatch my dream away if I utter a word.

  Sometime later, I float into the office through a fuzzy haze of disbelief. Dazedly, I pull up Outlook and check my email.

  It’s official.

  This announcement was sent out to the floor:

  From: Human Resources

  To: All Employees

  Subject: Promotions

  We would like to congratulate January Jones, April Flowers, Jewel De’Nyle, Wendy D. Whoppers, Pamela Pornero, Karsynn Higginbotham, Amy E. Areola and Kylie K. Kleevage, who have all accepted positions as team leads.

  Madison Lee and Jamal Jackson have both accepted positions as Second Level Technicians.

  Mika Harket has accepted the Third Level Technician position.

  Each of these individuals brings a wealth of knowledge and experience to their jobs. Please join us in congratulating them.

  Linda Parker,

  Human Resources

  It’s for real! And it’s finally sinking in. I’m simply giddy with happiness and relief. The test I had to take was semi-difficult, yet I somehow managed to score an eighty-five percent—a pass.

  Mika, I found out, scored a perfect one hundred. Although when I’d asked him how he fared, his face twitched uneasily, almost like he was half embarrassed to tell me. But I’m not in the least bit surprised that he aced the test; it simply attests to his brilliance. And allegedly, because of Mika’s perfect score, they offered him the Third Level Technician post.

  “I got the job!” I smother a triumphant grin and pinch myself yet again. I’m now officially a Second Level Techie and the proud owner of a wireless headset. Ahhhh, it feels downright euphoric. It’s the most wonderful and exhilarating feeling in the world.

  Linda from HR shuffles by and thrusts a wireless headset into my hands. “Here you go, Maddy. You report to Douglas Gomez tomorrow.”

  I stare at Linda wide-eyed, like she just dropped a bejeweled Fabergé egg into my waiting palms.

  “I’ve had Scheduling Ops take you off the phone for twenty minutes so you can test out your new headset. Now don’t have too much fun.” She winks and disappears on her rounds.

  Slowly and almost reverentially, I turn the headset around in my hands, marveling at its exquisiteness.

  Yeah! I need to test this baby out!

  Let’s see how far this baby can go! I can’t wait to gloat about my new headset. I’m going to rub it and smear it in Truong’s face.

  It’s just too bad he’s nowhere to be found.

  I poke my head over my cubicle wall. “Hey, Tiny, have you seen Truong?”

  “Yeah,” he grunts. “I think he ran to the break room to store his food. Oh and by the way girl, congrats on your promotion!”

  “Thank you, Tiny.” I flash him a bright smile and adjust my headset so it sits comfortably in my ear.

  Strutting to the break room, I fetch plenty of stares. All the lowly minions eye my wireless headset with a mixture of envy and admiration. Hahahahaha. Look at me everybody.

  Look at me!

  It’s like kindergarten all over again and I have the shiny
toy that all the other kids covet.

  After swanning around for a bit, I waltz into the break room. “Oh, Truooonnnng,” I coo. “Look what I’ve got!” I toss my hair over my shoulder so my headset is in full view, in all its crowning glory.

  “Wassup traitor?” He shoots me a smile of inconvenience and slams the fridge with deliberate force.

  “Oh get over it, will you!” I say with a laugh. “Quit ruining my mojo! C’mon, I want to test the range on this thing.”

  Truong blatantly stares at my headset. After Oooooohhhh-ing and Ahhhhhhhhhhh-ing, he says, “It looks a helluva lot better than mine. It’s like a Bluetooth headset.”

  “I know!” I twirl merrily. “See, no wires!”

  “Mmmm. I like how you don’t have a nasty looking metal band wrapped over your head,” he says in a quiet voice.

  “You like?” I taunt.

  He begins circling around me like a shark.

  Truong is such a glamour queen. He is all about fashion and hair, and he thinks more mousse is better than less mousse, hence his hair is like an elaborate concrete coiffure.

  I strike an elegant pose. “If you had one of these babies, your spiky hair wouldn’t be squished in the middle.”

  Suddenly, Truong pounces on me like a panther. He mauls me and paws me, making a desperate lunge for my headset.

  Like a sabre-toothed tiger, I fiercely fight him off.

  “Hah! You can have my headset when you pry it out of my cold dead hands!” I huff and hustle.

  After a mad scramble and scuffle, he graciously gives up.

  “This baby is mine, mine, mine,” I sing triumphantly. “Okay, I’ll dial your extension and we’ll test this baby out. You on?”

  “I’m on,” he says gamely.

  We dart back to our cubicles and I dial his extension. “Truong, are you there?”

  “Hey, Dum Dum, I’m here. Looking right at you,” he sniggers from the cubicle next to me.

  “Well enjoy my company while it lasts you Ding-a-Ling. I’ll be moving desks tomorrow. Okay, now I’m heading back to the break room,” I say in a giddy voice.

  Upon setting foot in the break room, I check in with Truong.

  “Can you hear me now?”

  “Loud and clear,” he says, giggling in my ear.

  Next, I head for the restroom. “Can you hear me now?”

  “Sure can. But don’t stay in the toilet!” he shrieks. “I don’t want to hear you doing your nasty bizzznessss.”

  “Already out the door,” I tweet. “Now I’m taking the stairs all the way down to the cafeteria.”

  “Yes!” he cheers and fires out his orders, “Get me a diet coke from the fountain. If they’re still serving tater tots, get me some! And don’t forget to get me a fork, some ketchup and a couple of napkins. Thanks, doll .”

  “Truong, I’m not your maid. Plus I don’t have time. Linda only gave me twenty minutes off the bleepin’ phones to test out this headset.”

  He clears his throat. “Um, when Linda asked you to test it out, I’m pretty sure she didn’t have this in mind.”

  “I know. And no tater tots! I really don’t want to deal with Miss Tropicana Orange Juice right now.”

  “Girrrrl, that bitch doesn’t deserve to be called Tropicana OJ. She’s that cheap, generic Wal-Mart brand. You know, the fake frozen concentrates that you get in a can, and you have to mix it all up with water.”

  “Ugh, those things are nasty.”

  He snickers. “She’s nasty!”

  “Okay, I’m in the cafeteria. Can you hear me now?”

  “I can, but you’re starting to sound a little faint.”

  “Stay with me, Truong. I’m heading out to the parking lot now,” I wheeze as I jog out of the building.

  Minutes later, I check back with Truong. “What about now? Can you hear me now?” I ask, leaning against my rust bucket Subaru.

  “Holy Crapanoly!” he squeals. “I can! It’s a bit staticky, but I can still hear you!”

  I’m standing in the middle of the parking lot with my wireless headset glued to my ear and a silly grin pasted on my face.

  Arms outstretched, I twirl around and around and around, feeling a rush of thrilling emotions.

  In this rare and lucid moment, the iconic image of Julie Andrews pops in my head, the image that still gives me goose bumps. The image that captured her glowing rapture as the cameras panned and swooped through cotton clouds and across the snow covered Swiss Alps.

  Flapping my arms like a bird, I burst into song, “The hills are alive, with the sound of muuuuuuuuuuuusic.”

  I feel invigorated and liberated, much like Fraulein Maria on that lush, green mountain top.

  FREEEEEEEEEEEEEDOM!!!

  Merrily, I’m moseying about the Lightning Speed parking lot as if I were in Salzburg, Austria. Without a care in the world, I’m flouncing and romping along my imaginary hillside. Suddenly, I hear Truong’s scratchy voice crackling in my ear.

  “Quit futzing around, you have exactly five minutes left.”

  I race back into the building with surprising speed.

  Sprinting up the stairs, I slam straight into Mika and almost topple backward in the process.

  He slides his arms around to steady me. “You okay?”

  “I think so.” My voice is wobbly.

  Gosh. His abs are rock hard. I feel like I’ve just slammed into a freight truck. I’m still seeing stars when Mika startles me with his outburst. “Maddy! Congrats! I told you you’d get it.”

  I flick my hand in a yeah-whatever gesture. “I was up against you, so I wasn’t so sure.”

  He shucks, “C’mon, there were two postings; I knew we’d both get it.”

  I elbow him playfully. “Congrats to you too, Mister Big Shot! You’re a Third Level Techie now. A bona fide star. Me? I’m just a pitiful low level tech. And when I don’t know what the heck I’m doing, I’ll be calling you round the clock.”

  He tips an imaginary top hat and executes a gallant bow, Fitzwilliam Darcy style. “And I will be at your service.”

  Hmm, no wonder they just called him Darcy. Fitzwilliam?

  I’m still laughing at Mika’s theatrics when I hear Truong’s voice crackling in my ear. “You’ve got exactly two minutes left, Miss Flirty Pants.”

  “I have to run,” I say at once.

  “Wait a sec.” He halts me. “How come you didn’t call me when you found out about the job? I got the call from HR this morning, so I’m sure you got it too.”

  I cast him a meaningful look. “I wanted to tell you in person.” I don’t know why, but I tell him this because I want him to feel special. And he does.

  His face breaks into a glorious grin.

  I clear my throat and turn the tables on him. “Ahem, and why didn’t you call me when you found out?”

  “Same reason,” he says, holding my gaze for far longer than necessary.

  I palm my face. It feels warm. Very warm.

  “I really must go! Otherwise there’ll be a fatwa on my head.”

  He steps aside. “I’ll call you tonight?”

  “K’, later,” I say and fly up the stairs, this time with my chin up, to avoid any more head on collisions.

  Twenty Three

  The next several months pass without incident and I throw myself into my work with fierce determination. Being a second level technician has its definite perks, especially when I have an awesome supervisor. Thank the Lord I no longer answer to The Führer. I’ve finally escaped her Gulag camp and I still, to this precise moment, feel a heady sense of freedom.

  My new supervisor, Douglas Gomez, is known as the Yoda in this call center, and I can see why. He is a brilliant mentor and guide. He is my maestro, and I blossom under his tutelage.

  The instant I expressed my ardor for writing, Douglas put me on a special project. And so a large part of my job now consists of writing user guidelines for our knowledge base.

  I’ve since learned that this style of writing is called te
chnical writing. Just like poetry writing, technical writing is an art form in and of itself. Instead of the speaker-audience relationship that I am used to, this style of writing tends to be more of a teacher-student relationship. Consequently, there is a fine line I have to toe. On one hand, I have to be careful not to dumb down to my readers, and on the other hand, I don’t want to leave out too much info to the point that my documentation hardly makes any sense at all.

  Tech writing was a bit daunting at first, but I dove right into it and honed my skills every day, learning to develop my own bare bones style of writing and define my own voice.

  A lot of my time is spent organizing complex material in a logical manner, and I’ve even picked up Visio, which is a great tool for creating diagrams. Whenever I include graphics in my documentation, I immediately score a hundred points with my readers.

  Another part of my job involves interacting with third level engineers, and my go-to tech is Mika. This is the fun part as I get to play the role of journalist slash investigative reporter and extract as much information from him as possible.

  Mika has been beyond helpful and patient with me, but he occasionally slips and starts speaking in code, and I find myself having to ask him all the ‘dumb’ technical questions. But truly, that is the only way I can thoroughly understand a subject. After all, I can’t write about something I only half understand. And with Mika as my faithful guide, and with me constantly poking and prodding him for more, there is no stone, rock or pebble left unturned.

  Still, I am a rookie in this field of writing, and when Douglas is not satisfied with my work, he sends me back to the drawing board where I’ll have to rewrite a second, third, sometimes even a fourth draft. But I love the challenge, I love sinking my teeth into a juicy project; and most of all, I love writing again.