It never fails.
The call before you go home. The call that happens, when you prematurely, closed down a few of your applications, and you can just almost taste that long awaited dinner in your mouth. The last call that happens when you have your keys in your hand, bag on your shoulder, and you are in standing up mode, ready to push that chair in. One minute before clocking out, “RING!”
You might as well put that bag down, place those keys in your pocket, and have a seat. You’re going to be here for a while.
It’s that one call everyone dreads. That one where they don’t have their routing number, they have no idea what date, what time, the where, but they have the who. If you’re lucky, it’s the partial who, as well. In the back of you’re mind, you know she’s probably a hard worker as you are, and this is totally last minute. She’s probably doing five things at once, and you are just one of her little multi-tasks. Now, in the back of your mind, you are annoyed with this, as if it’s one more thing that can go wrong, but you know, she had no idea you were about to leave for the day.
As you are thinking that, she retorts “I am so glad to catch you. I didn’t know if you were closed or not. Someone had told me you close around this time.”
You bitch! you think to yourself. She KNEW we were closing, and she didn’t think at closing time, we’d be so anxious to get home to our families. And you’re going to stand there, take the whole call through, and you put on an act. Like, this is your first call of the day, and you love your job so much, you’re willing to sacrifice eating your meal cold.
You get a message through your email from one of your supervisors, asking why you haven’t left yet, and they realize, you are on a phone call. Now you have double the pressure to get out of there. The whole guilt trip that you know they have kids, and you’re holding them back from seeing them. Great. Now you have even more pressure to “Wrap it up.”
Not only do you have to bring up the applications that you just closed down, but you have to get something unlocked. While you place them on hold, you call tech support, and an equally eager person who wants to go home answers, and they too, tell you, in a friendly, yet sarcastic way, “So, YOUR the reason I can’t leave yet.” Feeling confident that they aren’t in the same office area as you are, you retort back, “No, there’s a few people still here.” You hear this deafening silence, and then ”Not in the last ten minutes. You’re it.” They do you the favor of unlocking whatever program you needed unlock, and you thank them graciously for their time. Part of you wants to tell them “Like, I’m not the ONLY person to delay you,” but you bite your lip. However, you do hear the snarky comment for you to hurry it up, he’s missing his son’s ball game.
It’s not like, you are doing this on purpose.
Your supervisor walks over, and gives you that look of “I want to go, can you hurry it up.”
At that time, you are requested to be put on hold. Great. She knows, and you know, you can’t just, release the call. This call is probably being monitored. You have patience, to a point. The supervisor wants you to release the call, but they too, know the chances of you being monitored right now, is extremely high, so the decide, no, not a good idea.
After hearing possibly the most obnoxious elevator music over the phone, she comes back on, as perky as ever, and you start to wrap up the call. And as soon as you feel, that you are about done with her, she asks those magic words.
“Can I have your extension? I want to get you back again. You’ve been so nice and so patient.”
I give them my neighbor’s extension. Kelly, Carrie, we sound the same over the phone.
But shhh….don’t tell anyone…..
