Stage 10
Post Telecom Daydream

I used to work at a technical support call center. I was fresh out of high school and thought the idea of being a disembodied voice helping another disembodied voice would be the best thing for me. I could offer my support and in the end, hang up and never hear from them again.
Tragically, the same thing did not apply to my co-workers.

I sat in a long line of desks with large CRT-based monitors with a revolving door of people. Every other week I would have to introduce myself to someone new and go through the rigmarole of introductions. Except for when Marc arrived.

Marc was, how to describe him…would the correct term be ‘alpha male’ or narcissistic jerk? At the end of our third day working side by side he looked at my desktop, which was a picture of a young opera singer, and laughed.
“You like them young, don’t you?”
“What?”
“I’m kidding.”
“She’s just a singer. I like her voice.”
“So if she was some fatso, you’d still have a picture of her on your desktop?”
“If she has the same voice, yes.”
“Whatever you say.”

Now, when he said this, it made me feel a little apprehensive. Was I wrong to have the picture on my desktop? I mean, Jacob, three rows down, had a picture of five bare-chested firemen on his monitor and no one ever gave him any flack that I knew of. I shrugged it off. I didn’t even bother to mention it when I got home.

However, the next day I received an e-mail from HR to come and see them. My manager was in the conference room with a man from HR and they started to go down a list of violations I had done with my computer:
I had installed AOL Instant Messenger on my PC; which I had not done so, I only had the installation software on my desktop. Everyone else around me, had messenger.

My call-monitoring software was off-line—yes, because it needed to be re-installed and I didn’t have the files to do. My manager was aware of this, but for some reason he agreed with HR.

I had pictures on my desktop that were not “work friendly”. I offered to show them everything on my computer at that given moment in order to prove I had nothing to hide and had done nothing wrong but, instead I was told to sign my name at the bottom of a form.

I refused to do it, so I was told to leave the building—they fired me on the spot.

“Are you kidding me?” Aylese yelled as I sat in the corner of the couch.
I could only shake my head.
“Someone set you up,” Skully said as he blew out a smoke ring.
“I know. I have a good idea who did to.”
“We need to something about it.” Aylese said and then stomped her foot.
“Agreed,” Skully replied
“I was thinking about hiring a lawyer.”
“Lawyers won’t help in this case, Stephen. We need to take a dignified stand.” Aylese said as she reached for my hands and pulled me up from the couch. “Let’s go meet Marc.”
“Okay.”

We drove back to the office. It was about five-thirty and everyone was getting off of work.
I had parked in the far end of lot.
“Do you know what car he drives?” Skully asked.
“Nope.”
“We’re going to wait for him to come out, find his car, and follow him.”
“Why not just get his attention and we’ll just talk to him?”
“Because, Boneface, all that will do is give him bragging rights over Stephen.”
“I wouldn’t particularly mind just talking to him. Maybe yell a few obscenities.”
“He’ll just laugh them off,” Aylese replied.
I nodded as the three of us kept a watch on the front door.
“There he is,” I said as I pointed to Marc. He briskly walked to what looked like a new model Honda and climbed into the driver’s seat.
“Okay, we need to follow him at a bit of a distance.” Skully said.
“Hold that thought,” Aylese said as she got out of the car.
“Where are you going?”
“One moment.”
Aylese ran across the parking lot and over to Marc’s car. She tapped on the window and drew her knife.
“Is she going to-?” I asked,
“Yep. She stole my idea.”