Escape from Coolville. Sherman Sutherland

      “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?”