Confessions of a Call Center Gal - By Lisa Lim Page 0,47

was a very convincing Chinese accent. I got all the way down to #10: This is a tow away zone. Altering my voice and channeling Jackie Chan, I said, “No Pah King.”

It worked! Karsynn keeled over laughing.

And she got in on the action too. While I recited #12: Staying out of sight = Lei Ying Lo, Kars channeled Chow Yuen Fatt, Jet Li and Kung Fu Panda by whipping out the Kung Fu Crane Stance, followed by a drop kick, and finishing off with a Kung Fu Reverse Punch.

I laughed so hard my stomach hurt.

Kars looked like a Shaolin Panda monk.

It was all quite harmless fun, and comical really, speaking Chinese while Karsynn whipped out more kung fu moves. Until The Führer came along.

Very quietly, she stood behind us and cleared her throat.

My back shot up! Ramrod straight!

Kars froze in the midst of a Kung Fu Lotus Stance.

“What were you doing?” Hillary snarled in an eerily low voice.

My blood ran cold, terror ripping through my nerves. I tried to open my mouth and speak, but it had gone bone dry.

“WHAT WERE YOU DOING?” The Führer screamed and I jumped out of my skin. “ANSWER ME!” she roared like a lion.

“Err...I…was...um…speaking Chinese?” I squeaked like an overwrought mouse.

Kars released a nervous laugh. “Um yeah, Mandarin is one of the hardest languages to learn.”

Hillary made a vicious sound of protest. “YOU WERE NOT SPEAKING MANDARIN!”

Kars and I blinked.

Hillary seethed. “Is that all you two were doing?”

“I think so.” I scratched my head, pretending to be foggy on the exact details.

At this point, Kars had completely lost it. Hugging herself tightly, she rocked back and forth, babbling on like a crazed homeless woman. In the midst of muttering something indistinct, she darted me a look, and I instantly realized that it was all a ploy to throw Hillary off the scent. But it didn’t work.

Hillary snarled, “Let me just see for myself.”

I lurched forward. “There is nothing to see,” I said in a sudden panic.

Like a raging lunatic, Hillary elbowed me aside and planted herself in front of Karsynn’s computer. We shrunk back in a corner as Hillary read the entire email. To add insult to injury, she read each line out loud in a dry monotone, without a Chinese accent, and with no sense of humor whatsoever. It was painful, like hearing Chairman Mao tell a joke.

Then Hillary flew into a blinding rage and launched into this huge tirade about the political incorrectness of our actions.

“My niece is Chinese! And I don’t appreciate you mocking her language,” she shrilled.

I stood there, paralyzed.

Hillary threw Kars a vicious glare. “Or her culture!”

Kars mumbled, “I was merely celebrating it.”

“WHAT?” yelled The Führer.

“N-nothing,” Kars stammered, the tremor in her voice unmistakable.

Hillary continued giving us an earful, and we quickly learned that her sister had adopted a little girl from China, hence, she took what we had done very personally. In fact, Hillary was so incensed by the implication and so fueled with outrage that she marched us straight to the HR office.

Fast forward to now…the air is zinged with tension and Linda from Human Resources stares down her hawkish nose through her bifocals at us, looking like a ferret faced Judge Judy.

Linda glances from me to Kars, and then back to me. Pursing her thin lips, she shakes her head reproachfully.

My stomach lurches. I hope we don’t get fired.

While we sit and stew in our seats, Linda consults the thick Employee Handbook. Her lips tighten, and there is an increased intensity in the lines around her mouth. The more she studies the handbook, the deeper the lines and creases become. The seconds tick by, the tension crackles and mounts, the silence seems too heavy to bear.

I don’t want to lose my job over this. I need to do something.

Before Judge Linda has a chance to pass her verdict, I jump in and blurt out, “In our defense, Linda, just because we find a racist joke funny, that doesn’t make us racists. And, also, I happen to be half Chinese.”

My sudden outburst emboldens Kars to speak. “Yeah, I think it’s important to be able to laugh at yourself. That movie Borat had me in stitches, but it doesn’t make me anti-Semitic. I’m Jewish for crying out loud.”

“I know,” I pipe in. “I thought the movie Bruno was hilarious, but that doesn’t make me homophobic.”

Karsynn adds fiercely, “Yes. I’m all for the LGBTs!”

Linda shoots us a puzzled look. “BLT sandwiches?”

“No,” I rush to explain, “LGBTs means Lesbians, Gays,