Confessions of a Call Center Gal - By Lisa Lim Page 0,64
who is trying to convert to the female species, and he hasn’t yet begun hormone therapy. Hence the manly voice.
Or, the transgender could very well be a female converting to a male, who is on hormone therapy. Hence the manly voice.
Hmm, something to think about.
I whip out my BlackBerry and text Kars a message:
If you don’t quit smoking, you’ll end up sounding like a dude or a shemale transgender. xoxo M
Then I turn off my phone and briskly stow it away.
I don’t want Hillary breathing down my neck about the ‘No Cell Phones on the Floor’ policy.
“No,” says the caller. “The light on the modem is not on.”
“Okay Miss Heinz, now I need you to—”
Truong interrupts. “Err, did you just call her Miss Hind? Like Miss Ass? And are you sure you’re not really talking to a dude named Mister Hind?” he implores with a sense of urgency.
Studiously ignoring him, I continue assisting my caller. “Miss Heinz, can you unplug your modem and then plug it back in?”
While she takes care of that task, I push MUTE once again and address Truong’s pressing question. “No, not Mister Hind. Her name is Miss Heinz, like the ketchup.”
“Oh,” he says, clearly disenchanted.
Truong once shared an overtly sexual dream of his. In this fantasy dream, he was marooned on a magical island where it rained nothing but asses all day long. Butts just fell from the sky, nonstop, pouring down on him. He confessed that he never wanted that dream to end.
“Sorry to rain on your parade, Truong. The next time I’m talking to a Mister Ass, Arse, Anus, Buttocks, Backside, Bum, Tush or Hind, I promise I’ll let you know, okay?”
He shoots back a winsome smile.
Within minutes, I determine that the modem is faulty and inform Miss Heinz that I’ll need to send out a new one. “Ma’am, can you please confirm your mailing address and email address?”
She rattles off her mailing address and I compare it against our records. Everything matches and is up to date. Then the manly voice startles me when he-she says, “My email address is [email protected]”
“[email protected]?” I repeat just to be sure. “That is your email address?”
At this point, Truong is beside himself.
“Yes, that is my email address,” Miss Heinz concurs.
I can’t help it. This is just too much fun.
“Um sir, sorry, ma’am, just to clarify, your email address once again is [email protected]?”
The shemale concurs yet again, “Yes it is!”
“Great!” I exclaim. “We’ll shoot you an email with the tracking number once the modem is shipped out.”
After the caller disconnects, Truong squeals with delight. “See! I told you she was really a dude.”
Several days later, I slug into work, set my things on my desk and glance over at Mika’s cubicle. It’s still empty.
Mika has caught the flu bug and he has been MIA for the past two days. When we talked over the phone last night, he sounded terrible. I insisted that he go see a doctor, but he flat out refused.
I kept pestering him about it and he kept dodging the subject until I was so fed up that I demanded, “Well why not?”
His huffy response to that was, “Why should I see a doctor when I have WebMD?”
He’s so stubborn. The type of guy who won’t see a doctor unless his femoral artery is gashed, his intestines ruptured, and his skull cracked open, blood spraying out of every orifice.
Even then, I’m not sure if he would.
Beep!
“Thanks for calling Lightning Speed Communications, this is Maddy, how can I be of service today?”
“My name is Doctor Frederic Feingold Wood the Third,” comes a dry and pompous voice, “and I am having some major issues with your website.”
A doctor cometh knocking on my door. An image of George Clooney pops in my head; he’s on the ER set, suited up in scrubs with a stethoscope dangling effortlessly around his neck.
“Well, Mister Wood, I’d be happy to assist you with—”
“You will address me as Doctor Wood,” he snaps in a sharp, cutting, almost cruel voice.
“Okay, Doctor Wood,” I say apologetically.
Sheesh! Clooney evaporates, only to be replaced by Doctor Evil.
“As I’ve mentioned earlier on, I am a doctor. Hence, I prefer to be addressed as such. Now, I want Doctor to be prefixed to my name on all your records. This is paramount! If it is not already stated so, I suggest you update it right now,” he demands self-importantly.
“Okay, Mister, um—I mean—Doctor,” I quickly catch myself.
Whoopsie! I’m so conditioned to use words like mister and sir that I