Misery Central

"Hello! Misery Central! How can I help?" Deirdre's trial for the call operator job was on and she desperately wanted to make a good impression. Adopting a cheerful phone voice, she hoped it would show that she was the best person for the job.

"No! No! NO!! You never answer the phone like that! Never! Hang up! Hang up now!"

Before Deirdre had a chance to react, Mr Jenkins had pressed "End Call".

Deirdre looked at her potential new boss, his face puce with apoplexy and wondered what she had done wrong. She asked, which only encouraged Jenkins' unnatural colour. He took a few breaths before answering.

"Misery Central is the name of this place." He paused. "But we don't tell them that. We just dish it out."

Deirdre looked dumbly at Jenkins. What help centre doesn't help?

"This isn't a place of service; this is a place of disservice. We don't help; we hinder. We don't provide; we prevaricate, postpone, procrastinate. Do you understand?"

Deirdre didn't but she nodded anyway.

Jenkins looked at her. This girl didn't have the bitterness to be uncooperative or the spite to enjoy making someone else's life a chore. He sighed. He could lie to her and keep her on, or he could tell her the truth and send her on her way.

He chose the latter.

*

Ten months later

"Help Centre."

The voice answered with no welcoming inflection to invite confidence nor assistance.

"Could you help with..."

"Probably not."

"Pardon?"

"Is it something you want dealt with quickly?"

"Yes."

"You'll have to call back."

"But I've been waiting for hours!"

Deirdre ended the call, saw Jenkins smiling at her and scowled. She'd left disheartened that trial day and it had set in motion a whole load of negative events resulting in lack of hope. This morphed into cynicism enough for her to turn up at Misery Central again, paradoxically with optimism.

Her despondency, sarcasm and general disillusionment with life meant that she was hired straightaway. Deirdre had been "Most Miserable Employee of the Month" eight months in a row, unheard of. She gained nothing for this accolade except underwhelming dissatisfaction.

Jenkins, the miserable bastard, had never been more proud.

***

366 words

I hate ringing call centres. You just never know what you're going to get and some people can be deliberately obtuse or useless.

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