My head was a mess, hangover compounding the stress I had suddenly found myself under. That was fucking stupid, Jake. Far too careless. I might not have been as worried were I not already in the process of being bent over the barrel by management for a culmination of minor infractions that I still maintain were totally Jeremy’s fault. While the idea of being subject to yet another of Susan’s vitriolic tirades didn’t thrill me, up until this point I’d yet to leave evidence enough of my indiscretions to give her a solid reason to see me fired. This, however, could well be the straw that broke the camel’s back.
Perhaps it was the stress making me stupid but I laughed out loud as the thought flitted through my mind of Susan being the metaphoric camel in question. The mental image of her braying and spitting in consternation was disturbingly close to the real thing, although the comparison probably did serious disservice to camels as a species. For one, I imagined they smelled better, lacking the digital dexterity to overdose themselves with Tommy Girl or whatever the hell it was Susan wore. Secondly, and don’t quote me on this, but I’m pretty certain that camels are considerably less lumpy.
The momentary mirth was quickly followed by uncharacteristic remorse.
Of course she’s a bitter, angry bitch, I thought. The poor woman has been dealing with this kind of bullshit her entire career. That’s enough to turn even Mother Therasa into Oscar the goddamn Grouch.
The phone on my desk started ringing, the shrill tone sending a shock of panic through my limbs. A moment of terror threatened to undo me completely as my body refused to respond to my brain’s desperate desire to be absolutely anywhere else.
Rebecca leaned over the cubicle wall separating our workstations. “Are you going to get that?” she asked casually.
I shook my head, took a deep breath to put myself back in charge of my mutinous extremities, and pressed the ‘reject call’ button. Hands still trembling, I disconnected the line from the phone for good measure. The situation was bad, but there had to be a way to mitigate the damage.
Think, damn you!
The humidity was oppressive. The sounds of the office were getting under my skin. Telephones ringing, murmured conversations, a photocopier dutifully reproducing whatever it was being fed with rhythmic clicking and whirring. Inside my mind it was building to a thunderous crescendo. I needed to think, I needed air.
“I’m stepping out for a moment,” I said, more to myself than anyone, sliding my chair from under my desk and snatching my cigarettes from the desk. Rebecca raised an eyebrow and made to say something but was interrupted as her phone rang.
The walk to the elevator felt much longer than usual for the paranoid sensation that every eye in the office was watching my retreat. I could feel every bead of sweat on my brow, was acutely aware of the hot air in my lungs. I expected to be stopped at any moment by Susan with another grilling about ‘acceptable break times’ but a furtive glance towards her workstation revealed her absence. Thank God for small mercies, eh?
Before long I found myself alone in the little outdoor gazebo that was the Designated Smoking Area. Outside, and along something of a meandering path whose distance from the main building was likely calculated to discourage smoking breaks by virtue of it bordering on expeditionary length, it was in spite of its inconvenience quite a peaceful little spot. I sat with my head in my hands, staring at the concrete through lidded eyes, cigarette lazily burning along its length. Wisps of smoke trailed away, caught on the gentle breeze moving through the slatted walls of the enclosure.
I had no idea, I was grudgingly admitting to myself, how to un-fuck the present situation. Where do you even begin? Hurling abuse at a customer, intentional or not, was definitely a dismissible offence. The phone calls were recorded, so it was pretty open and shut if Raquel Fucking Finley decided to take issue with it which, harpy that she was, was almost a certainty. Shit, I probably even deserved it if I was honest. Was I better off beating her to the punch and quitting before they fired me? Quitting might look better on my resume, but I could hardly expect a stellar reference from them after this, in any case.
“Rough day?”
“You don’t know the half of it,” I responded, shaking my head.
“Why don’t you tell me about it?”
I lifted my head, my eyes widening slightly in surprise. Standing at the gazebo entrance was the CEO, Gabrielle Messiner, sucking back on her cigarette like cancer was a competitive sport and she’d stop at nothing less than a gold medal. Short in stature, dressed in expensive-looking corporate wear; on the few occasions that I’d seen her about she was brusque and businesslike, embodying the mannerisms of somebody whose time was infinitely more valuable than mine. She appraised me with one slightly raised eyebrow. I couldn’t have been more of a counterpoint to her deliberately sharp grooming, dressed as I was in my single pair of ill-fitted slacks, heavily scuffed boots and creased white dress shirt whose fabric had thinned to an almost translucent state. Soaked in sweat and probably smelling faintly of alcohol, I must have been a sorry sight. She’d probably thrown change at hobos better presented than I was at that moment.
I hesitated, weighing my options before continuing. On the one hand, telling the CEO of your company about how you just committed a serious act of misconduct would more than likely get me dismissed on the spot. On the other hand, that’s pretty much exactly what I was staring down the barrel of anyways; perhaps it was stacking the odds slightly more in my favour by getting in first before she heard it from anybody else. It was the slimmest of chances, I knew, but I was running pretty short on viable courses of action. What else could I do?
“Well,” I began, pausing to take a deep lungful of smoke. “I think I’ve fucked up royally.”
She nodded impassively for me to continue, stomping out the butt of her cigarette and lighting another.
I took another breath and elaborated. “I’ve got this customer, right? She’s a horrific pain in the arse, although that’s something of an understatement. Constantly trying to trap me with words, ignoring anything I say that she doesn’t care for, and one time she made me explain, at length, the exact legal definitions of three pages of the disclosure statement that had absolutely nothing to do with her claim. I’m sure that was out of spite. There’s definitely something fishy with her claim though, but for the life of me I can’t figure out what it is.
“In any case, she calls today right? Suddenly she’s decided she’s Ghengis Kahn on a warpath, screeching at me and belittling my ability to do my job, threatening to take everything to the ombudsman and A Current Affair and anyone who’ll listen to the shrieking of a banshee. So anyways, she demands to be put through to my manager.” I hesitated, steadying my breath. “I put her on hold, and as I’m about to transfer her, I just have to vent. She’s gotten me so riled up I can’t think straight. So basically I’m letting loose to Rebecca, she’s the girl in the cubicle opposite, getting it off my chest. Except... well, turns out the woman isn’t on hold after all.”
Gabrielle’s expression had remained inscrutable throughout my tale, giving away nothing of her thoughts. She surveyed me for a long, tense moment, before the corner of her lip twitched and broke into a grin. I allowed myself a moment of relief as she burst into laughter, still unsure of how it was going to play out but willing to take this as a good sign. I felt my mouth curling into something of a smile in response to her amusement.
“Oh come on, laugh!” she grinned at me. “That’s pretty fucking funny.”
I allowed myself to chuckle at the absurdity of the situation in its entirety. Say one thing for Jake Mannon, I get myself into some interesting situations.
“It’s pretty serious though, right?” I asked. “I’m pretty sure I’m going to lose my job over this, you know?”
She waved a dismissive hand, cackling. “Oh I wouldn’t worry about that. She sounds like she was pretty antagonistic.”
“She’s almost certainly going to complain though, and we record all the conversations”
“Jake, is it?” she queried, taking another lengthy blast of smoke. I was surprised she actually knew who I was, and a little unnerved that my no doubt questionable reputation had made it that far up the channels.
She continued. “There’s been plenty of times in my career when I’ve wanted to scream at a client, slap some sense into them. There’s definitely been times when I’ve lost it, giving them a piece of my mind. Sometimes there’s only so much stupid you can take. It happens, it’s really not that big of a deal.” She shrugged.
I wasn’t sure whether to feel relieved or concerned by Gabrielle’s nonchalant attitude, but I was definitely leaning towards the former. If you get thrown a lifeline you take it, regardless of appearances.
“Listen,” she continued, “when she calls up to complain, it will turn out that the conversation wasn’t recorded for some reason. Maybe I.T accidentally deleted the audio file, maybe it was just a technical fault. Either way, the conversation doesn’t exist.” She smiled at me, her eyes softening with the expression. “How does that sound?”
“Um..” I stammered. “Yeah, that sounds amazing. But..”
Gabrielle held up a hand to silence me. “You gave me a pretty good laugh, so I consider it a fair trade. Don’t make a habit of that, mind you; I’m not giving you carte blanche to just go about abusing everybody that pisses you off. I’m just saying that if this woman is half the piece of work you just described, then you could fill a stadium with all the fucks I don’t give about her complaining.” She stomped her second smoke out on the ground and gave me a wink.
“Now, cheer up and get back to work.”
She turned and strode purposefully back up the meandering trail towards the offices.
I went to take one last drag on my smoke before realising it had burned itself out. I shrugged, flicked it at the ashtray/bin at the back of the gazebo with perfect aim, and pumped my fist in celebration.
Well, I thought to myself, that was unexpected.
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