1.f.
When Dale
picked up the phone a robotic voice politely asked him to hold. His jaw flexed, grinding his teeth
together. The hold music started. Poppy, boy-band drivel. A grunting sound escaped through his nostrils
and his eyes flared.
“Thank you for
holding. We do appreciate your patience
and will be with you shortly. Your
approximate hold time is four minutes.”
Dale
considered smashing the phone against the wall. Repeatedly.
After two
minutes, the message repeated. His
expected hold time was now two minutes.
Another two
minutes passed.
“Thank you for
holding. I am Lisa with Type-N-Talk
relay service. May I have your name
please?”
“Dale.”
“Thank you
Dale. Would you please verify your last
name for me?”
Again his jaw
flexed.
“Breaker.”
He hated that
name. The corporation had decided that
his name should reflect his position.
This brilliant decision came about after a public opinion survey
discovered that 72% of those polled enjoyed it when a person’s name matched his
or her occupation. His real name was
Donald but thanks to public opinion he was forced to change it to Dale Breaker,
The Deal Breaker.
Stupid.
“Thank you Mr.
Breaker. Have you ever used relay
before?”
“Yeah, I think
so. This is where someone on the other
line is deaf, or maybe a lazy computer geek with no social skills, right?”
“Pretty
much. Just pretend I’m not here and
speak as though your are talking directly to the person on the other end and
say the word ‘over’ where you’ve finished.
Do you understand?”
“Yeah.”
“Mr. Breaker,
we are in need of your services. Over.”
“What’s the
job? Over.” Dale could hear a flurry of
keystrokes on the other end of the line.
“The bull has
been spotted outside the china shop. It
is time to break this deal. Over.”
“How did this
happen? Over.”
Typing sounds.
“Irrelevant. But if you must know, there were some
unforeseen budget cuts at his corral. Over.”
“Maybe if you
didn’t waste time and money with this relay service crap and called me
directly, the budget would not have been compromised.”
Keyboard
clacking sounds, followed by a long pause.
Then the operator said, “Is that an over?”
“What?”
“Were you
finished? You need to say ‘over.’”
“Uh,
yeah. Over.”
A few more
keystrokes.
“I’ll assemble
a committee to look over your proposal.
Meanwhile, keep me informed. I
want to know when the deal is broken.”
Dale winced at
the blatant corporate jargon.
“The caller
has disconnected,” Lisa said.
