Читать книгу Escape from Coolville - Sherman Sutherland - Страница 2

I barely got a chance to say, “Thanks for calling your psychic adviser,” before the guy started freaking out in my headset: “You’re going to hell, Antonio, if that’s your real name. You’re going to hell!”

He spent his whole twenty minutes reading me Bible verses and telling me how evil I am for daring to divine God’s will, or some crap like that. On and on and on and on.

“Woe unto the foolish prophets, that follow their own spirit, and have seen nothing.”

What is that even supposed to mean?

I used to love it when the callers did all the talking. You don’t have to worry about saying the right thing to keep them on the line, or the wrong thing that’ll make them hang up. All you have to do is kick back and say, “Mmm hmm, mmm hmm,” every few minutes while you space off about unicorns or whatever. But now, not so much.

I tried to tell Angry Bible Guy that it’s just a job and, besides, it says FOR ENTERTAINMENT ONLY on the bottom of all the ads, but that just made him more pissed. How dare I use that as an excuse? That’s what the Nazis did. That’s what those idiots in Washington are doing.

The only time he shut up is when he thought I went to look for my Bible. I told him I was going to mark down all those passages as soon as we hung up and he was like, “Why don’t you do it now?”

“It might take me a while to find it.”

He said, “I can wait,” which is the absolute worst thing to say to somebody whose job is to keep you on the phone for as long as possible.

Like a dumbass, I said, “Really?” which is negative, instead of, “Okay,” which is affirmative.

But he still said, “Of course, son. I’m tryin’ to save yer soul.”

The last thing I really wanted to do was defend Appalachian TeleServices, but, I mean, what did that guy expect? It’s not like I can quit my job and forget about my credit card bills and my student loans and my rent and everything else. I’m already buying the cheap bags of fake cereal and the generic Toaster Pastries because I can’t afford the real Frosted Flakes and the real Pop Tarts. If I could find another job that paid me eleven bucks an hour to sit on my ass all day, I’d take it. But it’s not like people are pounding on my door every day, telling me, “L.J! We need you to come answer the phones for us at NASA!”

So, yeah, I’m pretty much stuck here being an abomination unto the Lord. Taking verbal abuse from religious jerkoffs who say they want to save me from God’s everlasting reproach and perpetual shame.

By the way, dude, here’s a tip: if you really want to save somebody’s soul, try being something other than a complete ass about it.

About fifteen minutes into my next call, or maybe it was the call after that, Smeagol put my phone on MAKE BUSY—ATS code for, “Come back to my office after this call.”

So I was all psyched, right? All I could think about was how he was going to tell me he liked the way I handled that angry caller, following the LEF steps—Listen, Empathize, Fraternize—and now he was ready to make me the new Floor Supervisor. All those months of clocking in on time and laughing at his stupid jokes and pretending to care about soccer have finally paid off. Before I know it, they’ll move me up to QA. A few months after that, they’ll make me a trainer and, maybe a year or two after that, I can be a Floor Manager and then an Operations Manager. I totally had this little I’m-going-to-get-promoted happy dance going on in my head.

When I got back to his office, though, Smeagol didn’t want to talk about the Floor Supervisor job.

He started in with the twenty questions: “Lucas, how long have you worked here? Are you still in college? Are you planning to go back and finish? What made you decide on Antonio as your telephone alias?”

I was just like, “It’ll be a year next week.

“No.

“Yes.

“I guess Antonio just sounded more psychic-y than L.J. or Lucas.”

Then Smeagol was like, “The reason I called you in here is to discuss your performance on the call floor.”

So I was thinking, All right, here it comes! Two more dollars an hour and no more taking crap from callers all night.

But then he said, “Your score on this last Quality Assurance evaluation is well below the standard we expect from our TSRs.”

I was just like, “What? Seriously?” I figured he must’ve been joking, but when I looked up, he was still all serious.

I said, “But I always have good AHTs.”

“I believe your average handle times have been more than adequate, but you just scored a forty-eight on this last QA. You received PINs for Greeting, Verification and Sincerity.”

Okay, first of all: “more than adequate”? What’s that about? I had the top AHT of the whole entire floor last month, and I’ve been in the top five almost every week since I started working here. Out of two hundred people, I’d say that’s way better than “more than adequate.” That kind of pisses me off, the more I think about it.

But I didn’t say anything. I just sat there like an idiot while he read my whole DAF all the way through.

“Lucas J. Davenport, the purpose of this Disciplinary Action Form is to advise you, as a Telephone Sales Representative of Appalachian TeleServices, that you have been assessed either three Step One or two Step Two Professional Improvement Notifications within one consecutive sixty-day period, blah blah blah.” Like I wouldn’t be able to read my own pink copy on my own time. And then he made me initial the little line on my DAF every single time he finished a paragraph.

When he finally finished, he asked if I had any questions.

I said, more to myself than anything, “I don’t understand how I could’ve scored so low. I thought I was doing good.”

Like a total douche, he read the whole paragraph about Sincerity again.

But why is Sincerity even one of the PIN options, anyway? That’s my question. I mean, we read people their Tarot cards over the phone for $5.99 or $Whatever-they-charge-in-Canada.99 a minute. There’s nothing about this job that’s sincere. They’re always telling us that we’re not supposed to “impede the illusion” that we’re sitting alone in a candlelit room in front of our crystal ball or whatever, but downstairs, we’ve got people selling the ShamWow and the Shake Weight and doing tech support for DirecTV.

What’s sincere about that?

“Sincerity,” Smeagol said, “refers to your tone of voice. According to your evaluation, you were PINed for “sarcasm during your close.”

How is that even possible? Seriously, how can anybody sarcastically say, “That beep you just heard is to advise us that this call is about to end. Company policy requires that these calls not last longer than twenty minutes and we’re almost there”?

And now that I think about it, I didn’t even have a close on that call. I remember I heard the beep and I kept trying to do my close, but that guy wouldn’t shut up with his Ezekiel this and his Ecclesiastes that. So how could I have been sarcastic when I didn’t even say anything? And I couldn’t interrupt him—interrupting the caller is an automatic Step Two—so I don’t know what they expect me to do.

Then I asked what the problem with my greeting was.

Smeagol sighed like it was some big annoying question. “The correct opening is, ‘Thank you for calling your psychic advisor. This is’—and then you give your name. Then you say, ‘May I have your first name and date of birth, please?’ When they give you that, then you ask, ‘And may I have your age, please?’”

“Yeah,” I said. “I do that. Every call.”

“According to this, you asked for their age before their date of birth.”

Seriously?

Seriously.

First of all, when you do it with the date of birth first, as soon as you ask the caller their age, they always say, “You’re the psychic, you tell me,” like instant subtraction is an essential psychic skill. They’re always total dicks about it, too. “You’re the psychic, you tell me.” “You’re the psychic, you tell me.” After hearing that for the eighteen millionth time, you can’t help but give somebody a reading that involves an exploding apartment or a career in porn or whatever.

But when you ask them their age first, they just tell you their date of birth, no problem, and then you move right into a normal call. Which is why every single person on the floor does it that way.

I tried to explain all that to Smeagol, how it’s better for hold times to do it my way, and then I said, “What difference does it make, anyway?”

“Exactly,” he said. “What difference indeed?” like that was the end of the conversation.

I just sat there like an idiot.

After a while, he was like, “Is that it?”

I wanted to ask him about the Verification PIN, but it seemed like he was getting sick of talking to me. I mean, I understand that we’re supposed to verify that the callers are at least eighteen before we give them a reading, but they told us in training that we can still talk to them if they’re not old enough—there’s no law against that—we just can’t give them a reading. If we hung up right away on every fourteen-year-old girl who called, our AHTs would suck.

And it’s not like I didn’t try to get that guy’s information, anyway. When I asked him his name, he was like, “Why do you need my name when you’ve already got all that information on the big computer in North Dakota?”

I need it because I’m supposed to address you by name at least three times, buttface.

Smeagol told me, out of the goodness of his heart, apparently, that he’d give me the option to go back to training. Two weeks in the classroom and then one week of on-the-job training. Or maybe it was one week in the classroom and two of OJT.

I’d get to spend some of that time sitting next to “more-qualified TSRs,” double-jacked into their phones, listening to their calls and looking like a total douche who can’t do the easiest job in the whole entire world. Or I can stay on the call floor and make sure I don’t get another Step Two PIN for the next two months.

Then he told me, if I choose training, my pay rate will go back down to the eight dollars an hour they pay trainees.

“Can I have some time to think about it?”

“Of course,” he said. “Next training class starts Monday. Just make sure you don’t get any PINs in the meantime.”

Fucktard.

That’s been my day so far. In twenty minutes, I went from being the perfect employee to being one wrong inflection away from getting fired.

Oh, and the worst part—I almost forgot: Smeagol gave the Floor Supervisor job to Liz. Liz! What the hell? She’s never had an AHT above twelve minutes since she’s been here. I’d be surprised if she’s even had one call longer than twelve minutes. Seriously. If I would’ve known I’d have to stoop to her level of brownnosing to get the job, I never would’ve gotten my hopes up in the first place.

It doesn’t matter. I’m probably going to get fired after this call, anyway. This lady on the phone now still hasn’t given me her age or date of birth. When she finally told me her name, I was like, “And, Samantha, how old are you?”

“Samantha, let me get your age and date of birth.”

“Samantha, can you tell me your age and date of birth so I can mark it down on my sheet here?”

Instead of answering, she just keeps talking talking talking about how my advice last year saved her life and how she thought I was crazy when I told her she needed to pack up all her stuff and move across the country that night, but she did it because I sounded so serious and so worried about her and, when she saw her ex on the news the next day, talking about the big gas explosion that blew up their apartment, she knew I was the most awesome telephone psychic ever and she’s been trying to call me back ever since and when it was always somebody else who answered, she started to think that I wasn’t real, that I was an angel or something, especially after she did some research on Tarot cards and found out that all the supposed experts said that the Star card represents hope and inspiration, not danger like I said, but now she’s really talking to me and I’m really real and now she can really thank me, for real.

Normally I’d be all about a call like this—Look! in that tiny cubicle!

It’s a bird!

It’s a plane!

It’s Superpsychic!

Unintentionally saving people’s lives one phone call at a time.

But right now I’m too paranoid to enjoy it, wondering if the QA’s listening, all prepared to give me another verifica­tion PIN.

I totally liked this job earlier today, too. I mean, it wasn’t like I was all thinking, Golly gee, I can’t wait to spend the next eight hours in this two-foot box, telling peo­ple what to do with their lives, but I rushed to work to make sure I clocked in on time. That’s got to mean some­thing.

What sucks is, if I would’ve logged into my phone just thirty seconds later, I would’ve been deeper down in the queue and somebody else would’ve gotten that call from An­gry Bible Guy and I would’ve gotten a caller who would’ve given me their name and age and date of birth.

I totally had my chance to get here later, too.

When I stopped by the Cool Spot to get my CornNuts, this gorgeous girl—dark hair up in a librarian bun thing, tight black business-y dress that went down to her knees, designer-type sunglasses—parked right beside me and walked in right behind me. I could hear her walking be­hind me and I wanted to turn around and get a better look at her but I didn’t. Then, when I got to the door, I opened it and turned around and looked right at her as I turned around—but I didn’t let her go first—and she looked at me through those big-ass sunglasses.

By the time I got up to the checkout line with my Corn­Nuts and my Sobe Green Tea—which they moved all the way down to the other end of the cooler—the girl was right in front of me. And she had a bag of CornNuts, too.

I totally could’ve, I don’t know, talked to her or some­thing. At least said, “Hey. CornNuts. Yeah,” or something.

But no-o-o-o-o.

I was all worried about clocking in by three o’clock. All so I can keep getting that awesome quarter-an-hour per­fect attendance bonus.

I’m such an idiot.

Samantha’s still talking. She’s starting to worry about her ex. She wishes he could talk to me. He used to be so into his job, especially the data analysis part, but now, when she calls him, he sounds weirder and weirder all the time, talking about righting wrongs and putting the uni­verse in balance.

“Like Batman?” I ask.

“Huh?”

“Nothing.”

Mike leans around the cubicle partition and whispers in my ear, “I know what you’re thinking: from this angle, those vertical blinds look just like prison bars.”

They sort of do, when you think about it.