Thursday, October 27, 2005

Apropos of nada

A couple of years ago, when I was working in the customer service department* of my last job, our department was severely overloaded so our psycho freakjob of a boss hired a new girl... lady... person... whatever, and on her second day, I was given the distinct pleasure of assisting in her training**. First thing I notice is the lisp, a lisp extremely similar to his - this is where I tell you that in that job, 99% of contact with the customers is over the phone - we won't even get into why someone hires a person with an prominent lisp for a phone job - so, she's sitting at my desk, invading my personal space, nosing around everything displayed on my desk (good thing THAT'S not annoying) and she says "I notice you're not wearing a wedding ring."

Gosh, nosy much? I was taken aback, I would never say something like that to a stranger unless it was a guy and I was trying to get into his pants . "I, uh... it's complicated," I said shortly. Because, honestly, it was complicated and I wasn't getting into it with Lispy McStutter after only knowing her two days. ***

"You know," she says. "I really love Pier 1 Imports and the other day, I was going to the one near my house, but I couldn't get in there because for some reason it was all roped off with police tape. Later, I found out that a guy had tracked down his estranged wife there and shot her... to death... Oh, but I'm sure your situation will work out just fine."

Oddly enough, she didn't last at that job****, I can only assume that she's gone on to be some kind of professional counselor for suicidal teens.



*I know, I'm the LAST person you want in charge of your customers' satisfaction

** I know, I'm the LAST person you want in charge of your new employees' training

*** it's fine now, thanks for asking

**** on day 3, she left in the middle of the day to go get headache medicine and never came back