by Lisa Lim
“What do you want, Carter?” I asked impatiently. “I am very busy and can’t waste time in idle chatter.”
The sound of inelegant snorting wafted over from the direction of Truong’s cubicle.
Carter spoke briskly, “Will you please see me in my office in fifteen minutes?”
Well shiz! I thought as apprehension filled my chest. It’s never good news when your boss wants to see you first thing in the morning.
I gave a silent salute. “Ja wohl, mein Führer.”
“What?” Carter shot me a savage look.
“Nothing.” I gave him my practiced machete smile. “I’ll be there. But first,” I added complacently, “I’ll have to attend to the backlog of issues awaiting my attention.”
“All right,” he said, studying me with a glint of amusement. “Come see me in an hour then.”
“Will do.” I turned from him and proceeded to log into my computer, tapping loudly at my keyboard, looking fearsomely efficient.
Slowly, the tension that had taken up residence between my shoulder blades began to ease as I whiled away the minutes sifting through emails from Groupon, Living Social, Plum District, Eversave, Savemore and Saveology.
What can I say? I’m a sucker for a good deal and I wasn’t quite ready to delve into the real work of the day. Next, I found myself clicking through and deleting over a hundred emails. Goodness. My inbox was flooded from being CC’ed on every little thing, even projects that I had no attachment to, just to keep me “in the loop.”
Really. I wanted out. Of the loop.
“Hey, Kars!” called Rick. “Come over here a sec.”
I pushed my chair back and walked over to Rick’s cubicle. “C’mon, Astley!” I chided. “You need to quit watching these stupid YouTube videos.”
“But you gotta check out this video.” He was staring at his monitor, utterly mesmerized. “This friggin’ hamster is levitating. And it’s reciting the Gettysburg Address. Mid-air!”
“Seriously?” I peered over his shoulder. “PWHOAR!”
Ten minutes later, I was still standing there, open-mouthed and enthralled.
David Blaine and David Copperfield had nothing on this hamster.
Eventually, I said, “OK, Rick. No more YouTube videos. You can get in trouble if Carter catches you.”
Then I heard my stomach growl. A girl’s gotta eat, so I wandered off in search of nourishment. I stopped by the cafeteria and ordered another cup of coffee along with a short stack of pancakes to fortify me. Then I sat by a window and allowed myself the luxury of a leisurely breakfast. Afterward, fully nourished, I headed out to the duck pond for a cigarette break.
The sun broke through the clouds and I was bathed in the warmth of organic vitamin D. I sat at my usual corner, soaking up the rays, looking out at the view, allowing my mind to do its usual morning jog.
One of the mama ducks, Svetlana Zakharova (named after a Prima ballerina from the Bolshoi Ballet) waddled over to me. “QUACK!” she quacked.
“QUACK!” I quacked back. “Guess what Svetlana? I’ve brought you a little treat.”
Before long, a whole squadron of ducklings came paddling furiously toward me. “Calm down my little ducklings. There’s plenty of food to go around.”
Stepping back, I began showering my mallard friends with bread crumbs.
Later, after the duck feeding frenzy had died down, I bid adieu to my feathered friends and walked back into the building. As I picked my way back to my cubicle, I made a stop at the water cooler and exchanged pleasantries with my coworkers, Mateo and Alfredo.
“Hey Kars! What are you going to watch until the next installment of Game of Thrones?”
“I don’t know, Mateo,” I said gravely. “I really don’t know.”
“Winter is coming …” proffered Mateo like he was the Lord of freakin’ Winterfell.
In Game of Thrones, the meaning behind those words is one of warning and constant vigilance. To which I responded, “I am your Khaleesi. Where are my dragons?”
It was another GOT (Game of Thrones) in-joke shared amongst us resident geeks. I know. We’re weird like that.
I filled my paper cup and took a reviving gulp, casually glancing around the office while nodding after Mateo and Alfredo. They were still discussing their favorite HBO shows in intimate detail. We were all filling time, I realized, reaching for any triviality before having to confront doing actual work. After downing a gallon of water, I checked my watch. Oh! It’s time.
Where did the hour go?
“See ya later guys. I’ve got a meeting with Gaddafi.”
Sitting across Carter’s desk, I smoothed down my skirt, removing invisible lint with a light, flitting hand.
“How are you?” he asked in a particularly friendly voice.
“Fine, I guess.” I sighed dramatically. “My work day is just starting.”
“Good thing it’s an easy job then,” he said patronizingly.
I couldn’t tell what I wanted to do most, smile serenely at Carter or deck him.
“So …” Carter studied me with a glint of amusement. “Did you manage to take care of your backlog of issues?”
I nodded sagely. “I did.”
“If you ask me, it looked like Procrastination Station out there. But that’s not why I wanted to see you.”
“Oh.”
“It’s been brought to my attention that your team swears too much.”
“So?” I gave a careless shrug. “I accept swearing as part of our workplace culture. In fact, studies have shown that swearing can offer pain relief. It serves as a simple form of emotional self-management and it triggers an emotional response that leads to stress-induced analgesia.”
“Stress-induced what?”
“Stress-induced analgesia,” I said slowly. “It’s a numbness to pain that the body generates as a protective mechanism in response to mental anxiety and trauma. And,” I added meaningfully, “you know how traumatic it can be on the phones.”
I felt a sharp pang of annoyance with Carter who said nothing but simply sat there with a deeply skeptical expression on his face that spoke volumes. Finally he said, “So you’re asking me to advocate swearing in this call center because it’s healthy? Why not make cursing a part of our health care system? And should there be a recommended daily swearing allowance?”
“What’s the harm in it? It’s harmless venting and social bonding. And sometimes bad language can be good for you.”
“Really?” said Carter with a certain degree of cynicism.
“Really. I even have the science to back it up.” My face, alive with the energy of a true enthusiast, explained, “There was this study done on how long a bunch of college students could keep their hands in cold water. The students could either repeat a curse word they chose or a non-swear word. And guess what? The students who swore lasted an average of forty seconds longer than the students who did not swear. So you see,” I said triumphantly, “swearing really does decrease your sensitivity to pain.”
“And you read about this, where?”
“In The Journal of Pain,” I informed him loftily. “I did some research on this subject for a term paper.” I leaned back with a thoroughly self-satisfied grin on my face. “Don’t you love it when research backs up unacceptable behavior?”
Carter gave an amused half-smile.
“Besides,” I went on, “my agents don’t curse at the callers. Mostly, they just joke amongst themselves and if they need to vent, they always place the callers on MUTE. And if cursing helps them manage their stress levels, then why stop it?”
“Because,” said Carter in a level voice, “this is a call center and the customers can hear it when agents are dropping profanities in the background.”
“OK,” I conceded. “I see your point and I’ll see what I can do about it.”
“Thank you.”
I drummed my fingers on the arm of the chair, then crossed and uncrossed my ankles. “Is that all?”
“No. It
isn’t.” He said it with such contempt I got annoyed again. “I’ve got a complaint from HR. One of your agents claims that you harassed her.”
My guard instantly went up. “If it was Shoshanna who filed that grievance, she was thirty minutes late and she gave me the lamest excuse. And I did not harass her! All I did was call her an idiot.”
“Please use some tact next time,” he said shortly.
Tact, sadly, was not my middle name.
Oh, and I knew it was Shoshanna.
It had to be her. That cow! That notoriously pampered, spoiled and impossible cow! Always coming in late, wandering around, disrupting other agents who were on the phones.
Humph. I’d show her. I’d put a stop to her bovine wanderings.
Carter cut into my thoughts. “It’s the first grievance filed against you. If there are more than three, then we’ll need to talk some more.”
I sat there fuming to myself.
“Don’t get all bent out of shape. Listen, everyone makes errors. It’s when those errors are repeated that it becomes a mistake. Got it?”
I nodded, not feeling capable of saying anything else.
“Right now, I’d like you to send an email to your team informing them that they can no longer curse on the floor.”
“All right.” I stood up to leave and said with a resigned forbearance, “I’ll take care of that.”
When I was halfway out the door, Carter called after my disappearing back. “And copy me on that email.”
Without a backward glance, I raised my hand weakly in acknowledgment.
I sat down heavily at my desk, gripped my pen and frowned in concentration. This was a delicate subject with the staff, and I had to approach it, well, delicately. If I put a stop to the swearing, then I had to give my team an alternative, some sort of outlet …
With a deep sigh, I hung my head and idly spun the globe on my desk, watching it rotate on its axis. Suddenly, I had a flash of inspiration.
“BOO-YAH! I’ve got it!”
Galvanized into action, I pulled up Outlook and began fervently tapping away at my keyboard.
From: [email protected]
To: All team members
Subject: Swearing at the workplace
Team, this PSA comes to you at Carter Lockwood’s behest. I regret to inform you that as of right now, swearing is no longer allowed on the floor. I know this will be difficult for you. I know that you constantly struggle to assert control over your environment in any little way you can and I understand that cursing is an outlet for you … a way to keep your emotions in check when you’re about to lose it on the phones.
So, I have come up with a solution. Whenever you have the urge to drop a cuss word, simply replace the expletive with any place on the map. A country, a city, a provincial town, a place … be creative! Expand your geography!
To kick things off, here are some places in Greenland:
Nuuk
Qaqortoq
Iginniarfik
Uummannaq
Qasigiannguit
Upernavik
Qeqertarsuatsiaat
Sarfannguit
Ikerasaarsuk
See how fun this can be? And, you’ve just learned something new today.
p/s Inuulluarit!
It means goodbye in Greenlandic (it is an Eskimo-Aleut language). And yes, I speak Eskimo!
If you have any questions or concerns, don’t hesitate to come and see me.
Karsynn A. Higginbotham
Supervisor at Lightning Speed Comm.
Quote of the day: Tell me what you need and I’ll tell you how to get along without it.
With a flourish, I clicked ‘Send,’ and soon after, I heard the raging sounds of protest.
“Nooo!” Truong exploded. “Bangkok!”
Nate yelled, “Machu Picchu!”
Jenn screamed, “Timbuktu!”
And then more protests: “Amsterdam!”
“Bombay! Bolivia! Baghdad! Beirut!”
“Madagascar!”
“Kandahar!”
“Dusseldorf!”
“Hey, Kars!” Truong’s voice broke through the cacophony. “There’s a town in Austria called Fucking, a city in Germany called Rimsting and in the Bavarian Alps you can go skiing on the white slopes of Wank. There’s also a place in India called Dikshit, in Australia there’s Tittybong and in Scotland there’s Lord Berkeley’s Knob. Would you consider those places acceptable?”
“Nope,” I said at once. “That would defeat the whole purpose, wouldn’t it?”
“Ffffffffffuuuuuu …” Truong caught himself before lambasting, “Ffffukushima Daiichi!”
Chapter Four
My diet. It swings like a pendulum.
Ghetto. Gourmet. Ghetto.
For the past week, my diet had consisted of Flamin’ Hot Cheetos and Diet Coke (lunch), Gruyère cheese paired with a bottle of Riesling (dinner) and Pop-Tarts (breakfast). So when Truong had invited me over to dinner at his mom’s place, it was an easy yes. I’d heard that his mom, Mrs. Nguyen, was a goddess in the kitchen. A wok queen, so to speak. I’d fully expected dinner to be nothing short of amazing. A culinary explosion. Well, I was sort of right.
Can your stomach explode from eating too much?
You bet-cha.
“More?”
“No thanks, Mrs. Nguyen,” I politely declined her offer to scoop me up a third helping. After all, I’d just inhaled two cows and three piglets.
“OW!” I squawked as Truong kicked me hard under the table. “You never say no to my mom,” he hissed. “She’s an old battle-axe! The minute she moved into this house, the mice hurled themselves onto the traps.”
I hissed back, “I am not a kamikaze mouse.”
Smiling placidly, I added, “Oh, I’m so stuffed, Mrs. Nguyen. I really don’t think I could take another bite.”
“What?” Her eyes suddenly flashed. “You don’t like my cơm tấm?”
“No, no. I do,” I insisted. “I love your grilled pork.”
“Good!” She gave a crisp nod of satisfaction and plopped another piglet onto my plate. “Here, have more.”
After the feast to end all feasts, I began clearing the plates when Truong pulled me aside and whispered, “My mom says you didn’t enjoy the meal.”
“What? Why in the name of Saigon would she say that?” I groaned, clutching my gut. “I ate so much it hurts to even breathe.”
Truong gave me his signature Truong look. “The second you savored that first bite of her cơm tấm, you were supposed to moan with ecstasy, declaring it the most delicious cơm tấm you’d ever tasted. There should’ve been lots of talk about the cơm tấm … how it’s robustly flavored, sophisticated yet simple. That’s how it should have played out and you my dear, Kars, failed to play your part as the satisfied dinner guest.”
“Well, I’m sorrrrry.”
“Didn’t you like it?”
“Of course,” I cried. “I mean, this is the first time I’ve ever had cơm tấm, so yes, it was the best cơm tấm I’d ever had.”
“Excellent!” Truong clapped my back. “Now why don’t you run along and tell that to my mom.”
I carried the dishes to the kitchen and found Mrs. Nguyen loading the dishwasher. “Mrs. Nguyen,” I said earnestly, “that was hands down the most delicious cơm tấm ever.”
“Really?” she asked anxiously, drying her hands on a kitchen towel.
“Yes! It was fantastic.” I gave her an endearing pat on her shoulder. “You are by far the best cook in town, Mrs. Nguyen.”
“Thank you, Karsynn.” She beamed at me like a beacon. “Now are you ready for some mango and sticky rice? It’s my specialty dessert.”
“Truong!” I hissed. “When you invited me over for dinner you should’ve told me what I was in for. Seriously. This was like an amateur competitive eating contest.”
“Urghh.” Truong crawled onto his bed and collapsed atop the duvet. “My stomach’s about to rupture.�
��
“Rupture? Mine’s about to detonate!”
“Lie down. It’ll make you feel better.”
“I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“I can’t move.” I sat on the floor, curling my feet up under me so I was sitting like a pretzel. “I’m going into a food coma.”
“Suit yourself, boss.”
“Don’t call me that,” I said reproachfully. “I may be your boss at work, but outside of work, I’m just Karsynn.”
“You know …” Truong emitted a gleeful chortle. “Sometimes I can’t believe you’re my supervisor. How did that even happen?”
“Well it happened,” I said complacently. “So you better recognize.”
Truong gazed up at the ceiling, reminiscing. “Do you remember when you were just a lowly minion with a superiority complex? A fresh-faced agent on the floor?”
I smiled fondly. “I remember …”
Truong went on, “I’d never seen someone work so hard at avoiding work.”
“How dare you!” I swatted him with a pillow. “I worked my ass off!”
“Stop!” he cried, half-laughing. “And in the middle of smoking a cigarette, you’d pause for another cigarette break. Do you remember that?”
“Oh yeah.” I bit back a smile. “Cigarette breaks during my cigarette breaks. What’s wrong with that?”
“Everything.” Truong snorted inelegantly. “It used to drive The Führer bat shit crazy!”
“The Führer,” I echoed. “I can’t believe we used to call Hillary that. She’s mellowed quite a bit since then, don’t you think?”
“Now she has. But back then, working under Hillary was like living in the Village of the Damned.”
“True … I guess the name we gave her was well deserved.”
Truong gave me a peculiar look. “Funny you should say that.”
“What?”
“About us … calling Hillary The Führer.”
I lifted a delicate brow. “And why is that funny?”
“Well,” Truong hedged.
“Well what?”
“Um, all the agents on your team have a nickname for you, too.”