One Night at the Call Center Read online

  “He's copied in everyone. Senior management in Boston in the ‘To’ field, and India senior management in the ‘Cc’ field,” I said.

  “And yet somehow he forgot to copy us in,” Vroom said.

  I read out the contents of his short mail:

  Dear All,

  Attached please find the much-awaited user manual of the customer service website that has altered the parameters of customer service at Western Appliances. I have only just completed this and would love to discuss it further on my imminent trip to …

  I let out a silent whistle.

  “Boston? Why is that ass going to Boston?” Vroom said. The girls heard us.

  “What are you talking about?” Priyanka said.

  “Bakshi's going to Boston,” Vroom said. “Any of you ladies want to tag along?”

  “What?” Esha said. “What's he going to Boston for?”

  “To talk about our website. Must have swung a trip for himself,” I said.

  “What the hell is going on here anyway? On the one hand we're downsizing to save costs, on the other hand there's cash to send idiots like Bakshi on trips to the U.S.?” Vroom said and threw his stress ball on the table. It hit the pen stand, spilling the contents.

  “Careful,” Esha said, sounding irritated as a few pens rolled toward her. She had her mobile phone in her hand; she was probably still trying to call someone.

  “Madness, that is what this place is. Boston!” Priyanka said and shook her head. She was surfing the Internet. I wondered which sites she was looking at: wedding dresses, lifestyle in the U.S., or the official Lexus website?

  I was about to close Bakshi's message when Vroom stopped me.

  “Open the document,” Vroom said, “just open the file he sent.”

  “It's the same file we sent him. The user manual,” I said.

  “Have you opened it?”

  “No, what's the point?”

  “Just open it,” he roared so loudly that Esha looked at us. I wondered who she was calling this late.

  I opened the file containing our user manual.

  “Here, it's exactly the same,” I said and scrolled down.

  As I reached the bottom of the first page, my jaw dropped, partly in horror and partly in preparation for some major cursing.

  Western Computers Troubleshooting Website

  Project Details and User Manual

  Developed by Connections, Delhi

  Subhash Bakshi Manager, Connections

  “Like fuck it's the same,” Vroom said and threw the pens he'd picked up back on the table. One landed on Esha's lap, who by this time had tried to connect to a number at least twenty times. She threw an angry look at Vroom and hurled the pen back at him. He ignored her, his eyes fixed on my screen.

  “It says it's by fucking Subhash Bakshi,” Vroom said, tapping his finger hard on my monitor. “Check this out. Mr. Moron, who can't tell a computer from a piano, has created this website and this manual. Like crap he has.”

  Vroom banged his fists on the table. In a mini-fit, he violently swept the table with his hands. Now the pens were on the floor.

  “What is wrong with you?” Esha said and pulled her chair away. She got up and went to the conference room, desperately shaking the phone to get a connection.

  “He passed off our work as his, Shyam. Do you realize that?” he said and shook my shoulder hard.

  I stared numbly at the first page of our, or rather Bakshi's, manual. This time Bakshi had surpassed himself. My head felt dizzy and I fought to breathe.

  “Six months of work on this manual alone,” I said and closed the file. “I never thought he'd stoop this low.”

  “And?” Vroom said.

  “And what? I don't really know what to do. I'm in shock. And on top of all this, there's the fear he may downsize us,” I said.

  “Downsize us?” Vroom said and stood up. “We've worked on it for six months, man. And all you can say is we can't do anything ‘as he may downsize us?’ That fucking loser Baskhi is turning you into a loser. Mr. Shyam, you are turning into a mousepad, people are rolling over you every day. Priyanka, tell him to say something. Go to Bakshi's office and have it out with him.”

  Priyanka looked up at us, and for the second time that night our eyes met. She had that look; that same gaze that used to make me feel so small. Like what was the point of even shouting at me.

  She shook her head and gave a wry smile. I knew that wry smile, too, like she'd known this was coming all along. I had the urge to shake her. It's frigging easy to give those looks when you have a Lexus waiting for you, I wanted to say. But I didn't say anything. Bakshi's move had hurt me—it wasn't just the six months of toil, but that the prospects for my promotion were gone. And that meant—poof!—Priyanka was gone, too. But right now the people around me just wanted to see me get angry. People see you as weak if you express hurt. They always want to see you strong, as in a raging temper. Maybe I don't have it in me? That's why I'm not a team leader, that's why no girls distribute sweets in the office for me.

  “Are you there, Mr. Shyam?” Vroom said. “Let's e-mail all the recipients of this message and tell them what's going on.”

  “lust cool down, Vroom. There's no need to act like a hero,” I snapped.

  “Oh really? So, who should we act like? Losers? Tell us, Shyam, you should be the expert on that,” Vroom said.

  A surge of anger choked me. “lust shut up and sit down,” I said. “What do you want to do? Send another e-mail to the whites and tell them about the infighting going on here? Who are they going to believe? Someone who's on his way to Boston for a meeting or some frustrated agent who claims he did all the work? Get real, Mr. Varun. You'll get fired and that's it. Bakshi is management, but all he manages is only his own career, not us.” I was so caught up in the argument I didn't even notice Radhika, who was standing next to me with a bottle of water in her hand.

  “Thanks,” I said and took a few noisy sips.

  “Feeling better?” Radhika said.

  I raised my hand to stop her from saying more. “I don't want to talk about this any more. This is between Bakshi and us. And I don't need the opinions of random people whose life is just one big party.” I sat down and glared at Vroom.

  He opened a notepad and drew a 2x2 matrix.

  “What the fuck is that?” I said.

  “I think I've finally figured Bakshi out. Let me explain with the help of a diagram,” Vroom said.

  “I'm not in the mood for diagrams,” I said.

  “Just listen,” Vroom said as he labeled the matrix.

  On the horizontal axis he wrote “good” and “evil” next to each box. On the vertical axis, he wrote “smart” and “stupid.”

  “OK, here is my theory about people like Bakshi,” Vroom said and pointed at the matrix with his pen. “There are four kinds of bosses in this world, based on two dimensions: a) how smart or stupid they are, and b) whether they are good or evil. Only with extreme good luck do you get a boss who is smart and a good human being. However, Bakshi falls into the most dangerous and common category. He is stupid, as we all know, but he is evil, too,” Vroom said, tapping his pen in the relevant quadrant of the matrix.

  “Stupid and evil,” I echoed.

  “Yes, we've underestimated him. He is frightening. He's like a blind snake: you feel sorry for it, but it still has a poisonous bite. You can see it—he is stupid, hence the call center is so mismanaged, but he is also evil, so he'll make sure all of us go down instead of him.”

  I shook my head.

  “Forget it. Destiny has put an asshole in my path. What can I say?”

  Radhika took the bottle from my desk. “Sorry to interrupt your discussion, guys, but I hope you weren't talking about me when you mentioned people whose lives are one big party. My life is not a party, my friend. It really isnt—

  “It wasn't you, Radhika. Shyam most clearly meant me,” Priyanka interrupted.

  “Oh forget it,” I said and stood up. I