Escape from Coolville. Sherman Sutherland

suck even more!

      “Trainer Tim reads everything on the screen word for word!”

      Word for word!

      “If he misses one, he goes back and rereads the whole line!”

      The whole entire line!

      “Company policies!”

      Boring.

      “Telephone etiquette!”

      Common sense.

      “Rules and regulations!”

      Stupid.

      “Monday, Monday, Monday!”

      That’s right! Three straight Mondays!

      “Thru Friday, Friday, Friday!”

      Eight hours a day!

      “With a half hour for lunch!”

      And two fifteen-minute breaks!

      “Appalachian—”

      whoosh

      “TeleServices—”

      whoosh

      “Telephone—”

      whoosh

      “Sales—”

      whoosh

      “Representative—”

      whoosh

      “Orientation—”

      whoosh

      “and—”

      whoosh

      “Training—”

      whoosh-oosh-oosh.

      “You’ll curse Bill Gates.”

      Or whatever evil assface invented PowerPoint.

      “You’ll question your life choices.”

      Why are you here?

      “You’ll beg for death”

      Kill me, please.

      “Monday, Monday, Monday!”

      Thru Friday, Friday, Friday.

      “You’ll be here!”

      Nine a.m.

      “Because you need the money!”

      Rent! Credit cards! Student loans! You’ve got it all!

      “You’re screwed, screwed, screwed.”

      Bend over!

      * * *

      Why is it that, in every single classroom in the whole entire world, there has to be at least one person who asks the most incredibly stupid, obvious, off-topic, waste-of-time questions the world has ever known? Is there some super-secret underground society of stupid question askers that I don’t know about? Like the Masons for dumbasses?

      Today there’s two of them somewhere behind me—Douche One and Douche Two—and I swear they’re competing for the grand prize of stupid question asking.

      Everything started off okay. We did the introductions. Welcome to ATS. What brings you to ATS? That sort of thing.

      Nobody was saying much, which was good, because hopefully we’ll be done faster.

      Then Tim asked if any of us or anybody we know ever called a telephone psychic, and that got a couple people talking.

      Some lady said, “I call one once a month,” like she was totally proud of it, and then some guy said, “My ex-fiancée used to call one all the time,” and then a couple other people might have said something. I kind of tuned out for a while, or maybe I fell asleep.

      Then Tim went through the PowerPoint with all the company policies, which make the job sound like it’s the most awesome job in the whole entire universe.

      You get to set your own hours, Yea!

      You can take your breaks and lunch whenever you want, Yea!

      We have an Open Door Policy (whatever that means), Yea!

      We offer tuition assistance to qualified employees, Yea!

      We pay cash rewards for your suggestions that we use, Yea!

      Multiple absences for the same illness only count as one absence, Yea!

      Then he started in on the “Please wear your I.D. badge at all times” stuff, and “Use the East entrance since you work on the third floor. Emergency exits are located at the North and South ends of the building.”

      Then, about half-way through the dress code, Douche One says, “What if you don’t wear socks?”

      Tim was just like, “Excuse me?”

      “What if you don’t wear socks? I never wear socks—shoes, either—they’re oppressive to the feet.”

      So Tim read again what he’d just read: “Socks must be worn at all times.”

      “Why?”

      “What?”

      “Why do we have to wear socks at all times?”

      “I don’t know. I think it’s probably a health issue.”

      And then Douche Two’s like, “But your feet are actually less healthy when you wear shoes and socks. They did a study that found that the Zulu people in Africa had the healthiest feet in the world. Better circulation, stronger toes, no flat—”

       “I’m just telling you what the policy says,” Tim said.

      “I know that’s what it says,” Douche One says, “but what if I don’t wear them?”

      “If you don’t follow the dress code, you won’t be allowed to clock in and you’ll incur any absence or attendance points associated with you not clocking in.”

      “So if I forget to wear socks when I come in to work, and I have to go out to my car or to a store somewhere to get some socks, and then I clock in late because of that, I’ll get two attendance points?”

      “Only if it takes you more than fifteen minutes. Remember, you only get one attendance point if you’re tardy, which is less than fifteen minutes late, two points if you’re late late or if you leave early, four if you’re absent but you call the front desk to let them know you’ll be absent, and eight if you’re absent and you don’t call.”

      “So if I have to go buy socks, I can only do that eight times before you fire me?”

      “I’m not sure I understand.”

      Then Douche Two takes over again and he talks real annoyingly slow, like Tim is the one who’s the idiot, and he says, “If he has to buy socks before work and, as a result, he clocks in more than fifteen minutes late—resulting in two attendance points, correct?—he can only do that eight times every ninety days, otherwise he’s fired?”

      “Actually, he can only do it seven times. Once you accumulate sixteen attendance points during an attendance quarter, you’re automatically terminated.”

      “Daaaaaamn!” Douche One said, like it’s some super-oppressive policy that must’ve been concocted by Stalin or somebody.

      “ATS recognizes the need for an occasional absence or tardy,” Tim said. “But, keep in mind: you were hired to fulfill a need and so they expect you to be here when you’re scheduled.”

      I totally wanted to say, “if you think the attendance policy sucks, wait till they give you a PIN for asking somebody their age before their date of birth.”