This is a story about an unfortunately common monster that is rarely talked about. I call it, The Call Center Caller.

            I traded hours with someone once when I used to work at the call center. Usually I would come in during the mornings, but since I traded, it was night when I started my shift. Peculiar Planet Phone Services or PPP was the name of the center and it proved to be a small world. Too small…

            After my first couple of calls that evening, I received a call that set me on edge. A gruff voice spoke, ‘Are you satisfied, yet?’ Asking if a patron is satisfied with our service is how we employees had to end all calls at the center and only if the answer was a ‘yes’, so I knew this voice was mocking the company or me. I’d been the top performing agent for months at that point. The tasks of the job came easy, so I knew this caller was probably an angry customer and that I needed to keep calm.

             I ignored his mockery and said in an agreeable voice, as I had practiced every day, ‘Thank you for calling Peculiar Planet Phone Services. How may I assist you today?’

            This pleasantry was met only with heavy breathing and then after a moment of this, and it was a long moment, the voice said, ‘No. I don’t want your help.’ The caller hung up, and I became distinctly aware that someone was watching me. A crawling feeling climbed up my spine and spread out through my stomach, shoulder, and neck. A chill. I turned in my swivel chair slowly, afraid of what I might see. I had to turn completely around before I saw the figure. A tall and looming thing dressed up in an ill-fitting suit and with a red-brown stain dried on a dingy dress shirt. My boss stood at the entrance of my cubicle. He sipped at his coffee and after laughing at a text he got on his cell phone, he looked at me and nurtured a frown.

            ‘Joe Miller,’ he said and with a tone of detest. ‘How the mighty have fallen. Night shift.’

            ‘Actually, I just traded shifts—’ I tried to explain, but I was cut off.

            ‘And a dissatisfied customer, too, from the sound of it… I’m going to have to write you up.’

            And so I got in trouble. The night boss seemed to take enjoyment at the horror that consumed face. I held the slip of paper that pretty much said I was a bad employee and tried not to cry. He walked away only after an employee came up to him and whispered something in his ear. They both looked at me and snickered, then walked away together to the boss’s office. I could hear them laughing every so often and they laughed so loudly it was hard to concentrate my next couple of callers. I wondered how that employee could get away with not working like the rest of us. A short while later, the boss came out with an announcement.

            ‘You’re a sorry lot,’ he said to the entire office of drained employees with such enthusiasm it was almost as if he thought it was a compliment. A smirk peaked out from beneath his mustache and the employee that had snickered at me earlier let a smile display proudly on his face behind the boss. He breathed heavily judging by the heaving of his large chest and belly. Excited or exhausted, I couldn’t be sure. The night boss continued, ‘You’re nightshift for a reason and I have come to expect very little in your performances, but we aren’t meeting the bottom line. You’ll all need to take double the calls from now on.’

We were all confused. We already took as many calls as we could. It wasn’t our choice of when we could end a call. The customer had to say they were satisfied. One employee spoke up, ‘We’re already doing our best, sir. Plus, how can we take twice the number of  calls if we’re receiving all the night time callers already?’

            ‘Oh,’ the boss said. ‘You won’t be. You’re fired. Same goes for all the employees on your half of the office. The other half will take your calls. Thus double the calls. Now get out.’

            With that, half of the office grumbled as they dragged their feet and made their way out of the call center with their last paychecks. I heard the boss whisper something to the snickering employee about a new horse for his ranch and a vacation to the Bahamas. The remaining half of the office was scared. Scared of being fired and jobless and starving with no money. We tried our best to keep up with the doubling of calls but we couldn’t. As punishment we all got a slip of paper, a second warning for me, the first for others. Three warnings and we’d be fired. This of course, I took personally. I had gone from employee-of-the-month several times running to one on the verge of being fired. All in one night!

            Then I got the call…

             The voice on the line croaked, ‘Are you satisfied, yet?’

            ‘Who are you?’ I asked in a panic. ‘You’re going to get me fired! What do you want?’

            ‘I want you to stand up,’ the voice said. I did so without thinking, used to following directions. ‘Good.’ The voice laughed and after breathing heavily for a moment added, ‘Now, I can see you.’ My heart sank. The voice was calling from inside the call center!

            ‘Where are you?’ I demanded and several other employees looked up from their cubicles. They tried their best to concentrate on their calls. All their lips were moving when I heard the voice say, ‘Are you satisfied, yet?’ once more, so I couldn’t tell who if any of them it was prank calling me. There was nothing my coworkers could do for me.

            ‘Come to the break room,’ the voice said.

            Shaking head to foot I moved towards the break room. I had to take a moment to work up the courage to walk inside. All the while I heard the heavy breathing on the phone. My cubicle’s phone line was fully extended. A took a breath and after putting the phone down, for it could stretch no further, I stepped into the break room. There I saw my boss and the snickering employee who was breathing heavily.

            ‘Off your phone while on the clock,’ the boss said and then tsk, tsk, tsked. ‘I’m afraid that’s your third write up. You’re fired, Mr. Miller.’

            ‘Are you satisfied, yet?’ the employee next to the boss said and laughed. ‘I am.’

            Turning to the employee beside him, the boss said, ‘I guess that makes you the new employee of the month. Congratulations, friend.’

            I had had a run in with a pair of monsters.  While these aren’t the types of monsters you usually hear about around a campfire, they are the most common. So beware!  Anyway, I made my way out of the call center after collecting my final paycheck. I couldn’t afford rent and I lived on the cold street until I could find a new job. I was not satisfied with Peculiar Planet Phone Services, but that didn’t matter to them. As I could no longer afford their service, I was no longer a customer. As I wasn’t a customer, they stopped asking if I was satisfied…

THE END