Unfortunately, the singing continued. The customer's voice fell in and out with whining dins that leapt into prolonged shrieks, forcing Warren to turn his ears away from the headset. The man’s information appeared, grew blank with a circling hourglass, then reappeared on the computer screen. It was a Texas address even though the customer had a French accent that was almost cartoonish, making the country tune he lazily wailed a farce. All tech support calls were bad calls. Even the easy ones with their banality and routine cheerfulness were miserable labors, but calls like this one were a Sock and Buskin. Lonely seniors always wanted a tiresome step-by-step tutorial on doing the arduous task of restarting their computer or—when in true distress—disabling pop-up ads.

“You have to just hit the power supply switch in the back, sir. It’s like a light switch on th—”

"Yewr cheatin’ hart will mah muh weepppp-ah."

“On the back right, usually.”

"But zleep wohntt come, zee 'ole night-uh throughhh. Oui."

Warren didn't know the song's name, he just had a vague familiarity with it. Later, when she would sing all the songs there were with all the voices of her sisters, he would know its name interminably. And he would never hear it again unless it was in her dreary contralto.

Note-taking was crucial to this stay-at-home tech support job. It was the only thing Warren was well-rated on consistently in his statistics for calls. So while he listened to the elderly customer's Franco-Dixie rendition of the country song, he did everything he could to type out the particulars: problems, solutions, callback numbers, recommendations, regrets, lyrics, length of the call.

32:23.


“A call should not be longer than eighteen minutes, Warren,” Whatever-her-name said.

Warren could see it in her face, his team manager, the third one in so many months.

Whatever-her-name bristled visibly at Warren's notations, and even if one of the customer surveys was green straight down she’d agitate her ruddy cheeks and vibrate her peach-shaped head as if she was lecturing a child. Clattering and clicks emanated from the desktop speakers and Warren gazed at the webcam that filmed him; at the bubble lens stretching his gauntness and shallow raccoon eyes across its dark curvature while the small red light flickered. He peered at his greyness, at the square glasses well out of fashion, and at the prickly hairs framing his thin lips. He wore a forced smile that was near rictus as he listened. She said what they always said—managers at the tech giant had been trained for this. They all had a surfeit of passive-aggressive vocabulary that naturally infiltrated their speech over time. Warren’s mask of attentiveness slid away; melting slowly, like a single sallow candle consumed by the flame of the disgustingly extroverted.

"Sorry…" Warren mumbled, his voice trailing as he tried to remember Whatever-her-name's name.

She flinched, her smile becoming taut on Warren's computer screen. "Warren, I understand you're a bit more...shy or quiet than other at-home-advisors, but that's okay. I'm a bit of a shy girl myself. Well, except on the weekends!"

Warren stared at his keyboard. At his weathered knuckles and his bitten nails. His fingers became distractingly sticky from the Midwest humidity that had invaded his small, dusty bedroom office.

A knot grew in his throat.

Despite the long silence the team manager valiantly held her bubbliness in her smile and in her tone but not in her venal baby blues.

"Anyway, these numbers need to be addressed," she stated with a low sigh, "and remember, we want a quick call filled with assuredness, professionalism, fun, and empathy. Remember what empathy means?"

Warren bristled. "Yes."

"So? What does it mean?"

"Understanding how the customer feels. Understanding their emotions."

"Exactly. Just like your training explained; knowing and understanding how the customer feels is important in a service call. Knowing and feeling their frustration with their product can lead to…"

What Warren saw was a pig when he looked at them. As Whatever-her-name droned on—the familiar rhythm of that patronizing corporate jargon turning into white noise—he saw all the pigs. Mind you, it was everyone he worked with, everyone he knew, and not just this modern company moll of a manager. All those faces he saw in the webcam windows during virtual team meetings; gazes colored a woeful hue that reminded one of stale Jewish rye. Pigs. Sus domesticus. Not as a derogatory or ad hominem, but rather to compare their contentment; their agreeableness.

They were wholly satisfied with their wallowing amongst the cold mud and hot stink. They had slop for plumping, a weathered but suitable shed for sleeping. They turned to tumescent technocrat employers for more feed and more mud, and the pork donned their brands like holy vestments. Votives were squealed dutifully. When the time came they were poked and pumped by their handler's organs brimming with thick liquid nonsense. Slogans. Baubles and t-shirts and Twitter contests. Advertisements and free tickets to listen to sonorous pleas for more of the nonsense filling their rectums and when that was done they were sewn up and all that corpulence would give out and their fat hearts would become diastolic and their snouts would vomit white lukewarm slurries of all that nothing—that cultural ejaculate devoid of seed—and only a fool would stick around and listen to their death-squeals.

And Warren knew he was a fool. A very tired fool living amongst the pigs and thus no better than them.

"...and that's why we always try to be empathetic. Isn't that right, Warren?"

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Pub: 02 Nov 2021 18:07 UTC
Views: 102