complaints.” Gosh, I was doing so well to remember everything!
Gary looked a little confused. “So what sort of concern wouldn’t be a complaint? Can you give me an example?”
“Well, if a customer is just telling us about a complaint, I mean, a concern.” I laughed as Gary continued to look mystified. “It is confusing, isn’t it? I thought so too when I first joined the department. However, a customer might just be telling us we’ve done something wrong, but they’re not actually complaining.”
“Hmmm,” Gary rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “So that call I heard you take just before lunch - I happened to be standing behind you - a Mrs Thomas, I think it was? She sounded terribly upset! I could hear her screaming when you held your headset away from your ears for a bit. Did you load her details onto the database?”
“Oh no, she was simply informing me that we’d misquoted her. And that stuff she said about tearing me a second arsehole, well, I think that was just her hormones speaking. I’ve been reading about hormones you know, and they do sound like frightful things.” I noticed that Tim had returned from lunch; when I looked over at him, he ran his finger across his throat as if slicing it open - perhaps he’d been speaking to Mrs Thomas too.
Gary was making lots of notes. “So, you’re not loading all the complaints onto the database, then... what percentage of the calls do you load, would you say? Roughly?”
“Um, let me think-”
“Fifty per cent?”
“Oh, much less than that, we can’t load too many, can we? Perypils would look awful - just think of the trouble we’d be in with our shareholders and er, our regulators!”
I didn’t know who our regulators were, but Joy was always talking about them so I knew they were important and I’d obviously made a great point as Gary nodded vigorously in agreement. He asked me a few questions about my process maps, but as I couldn’t find them he decided he already had enough to go on. He shook my hand and said I’d been ‘pure gold’ - how lovely to be appreciated! I beamed proudly over at Tim who grinned back at me. I didn’t like to show-off but I really hoped he’d tell Joy how well I’d done - she was going to be absolutely stunned!
Whistle Blowing
I passed a very smartly dressed man coming out of our drive when I arrived home. Unfortunately, he got hit on the back of his dove-grey suit jacket by an empty tin of spaghetti hoops when he failed to duck as quickly as I did. Mrs Ryder screamed, “Spawns of the devil!” at us as we scurried in opposite directions. She was definitely getting worse.
Mum was listening to her ‘Now That’s What I Call Christmas’ playlist and flicking through the Next Directory at the kitchen table. “Hi Granny!” I joked, as she turned down Mariah Carey. “Just given someone another lesson? He looked very nice, lovely suit. Well, it was.”
“Yes, Mr Gates. He works in IT, so I asked him to set up a website for my business. As payment for my services.”
“Oh great!” I entered www.overthekitchentable.com into my phone and up sprung a picture of Mum standing in our kitchen. Mum was on the World Wide Web! I read: ‘Whatever your pleasure, cakes or shakes, a happy ending is always guaranteed!’ I looked more closely at the picture. “Oh Mum, how funny! You must have been wearing a very short dress when that photo was taken - you look like you’re naked under your apron! Just got your high heels on! Ha ha ha!”
“Oh, er, yes, very funny.”
“What do you want for Christmas, Mum? Some equipment for your business, perhaps?”
“Just get me a giftcard, son. Majestic Wine.”
“Same as last year, then. Look what I ordered today, as a surprise for Myra.”
I showed Mum, on my phone, the babygro I’d found on eBay; it had a green elf design on the front with ‘Santa’s Little Helper’ written on it. “It’s just a bit of fun! She’ll love it, won’t she?”
Mum frowned. “But the baby won’t be born until July, Morto. It’ll look a bit silly wearing a Christmas outfit in the middle of summer.”
“Oh.” I hadn’t thought of that. “I’ll have to send it back. If I can. What do you think I should get Myra?”
“Now, don’t go spending too much, son - remember you’ve got to give me a bit extra for the house-keeping over the next few weeks to cover the cost of Christmas lunch. It’s really expensive entertaining, you know.”
“I thought you were getting everything free from the food bank? Didn’t that nice man say he could get you a massive turkey if you gave him one of your lessons?”
“I’ve already given him one! And it turned out he didn’t work there at all - no one actually knew who he was!” Mum sniffed. “Anyway, we did have that lovely chocolate cake last week, didn’t we? I told them it was your tenth birthday and you weren’t getting any presents, so they got it in for me specially.”
“Wow, free chocolate cake – this country is really amazing.”
There was another rehearsal at the Jubilee Hall tonight and this time, I was involved! I had to award a diploma to the Scarecrow, a clockwork heart to the Tin Man and I tried to pin a medal onto the Lion, but Frankie put me off by growling in my face, “I bet you’re enjoying fondling my tits, aren’t you, bender?” which made my fingers all fumbly.
Tom the Director yelled, “The bloody audience will be covered in cobwebs by the time you’ve finished!” I then had to practise stepping into a large cardboard box with Myra, pretending it was a hot air balloon, but our heads clashed as we bent down to get in and she snapped, “For fucks sake, you clumsy sodding oaf!”
“Myra!” I gasped, shocked. “The baby can hear everything you say, you know! I’ve been reading up about it; you mustn’t swear in front of it - you’ll stunt its vocabulary.”
There was a stunned silence. “Nice one Foggy,” Myra muttered.
“What was that?” asked Tom.
“Ignore Foggy,” Myra told him, shooting me a ferocious look. “He’s the one that’s stunted - in the head.”
“What was that about a baby?” Tom persisted.
“Myra and I are expecting a baby,” I said proudly, putting my arm as far around Myra as I could and giving her a big squeeze. She shrugged me off and glared defiantly at Tom, who’d gone white. “Don’t worry, Tom!” I laughed. “The baby’s not due for ages. Myra didn’t want anyone to know yet, but I seem to have let the cat out of the bag! Well, no one need be concerned - Myra’s condition won’t affect her wonderful performance as Dorothy. In fact, all those extra hormones will probably enhance it.”
Tom didn’t seem to know what to say and the rest of the cast were staring at us, too surprised to offer congratulations. Thin Lizzie eventually broke the silence.
“Well I never, Dorothy’s up the duff! Don’t remember that from the film. Still, we could use it to our advantage, couldn’t we, Tom? Bring this production bang up to date, so to speak - perhaps we could say the Cowardly Lion got Dorothy pregnant - that would take a real show of courage, wouldn’t it? To shag that, I mean.”
Myra shrieked and launched herself at Thin Lizzie. I tried to grab hold of her arm, but she brushed me off, sending me sprawling across the cardboard box, completely flattening it. “Stop them Tom!” I cried, as the two girls started fighting again, but Tom had sunk onto his haunches at the edge of stage, looking somewhat shattered. I struggled to my feet and edged hesitantly towards the girls, taking care to dodge the blows.
Luckily, I was on the late shift today, so I had time to pop into Superdrug before work to get some Savlon to put on the scratches. Only the very deepest ones were still bleeding. When I got into the office and approached my desk, I saw, to my astonishment, that there was the outline of a figure marked in chalk on the carpet, right by my chair. Oh my God! Had someone been killed in the office? Why had they died at my desk? Surely they couldn’t have tripped over my ergonomic tilting footrest, could they – I kept it next to my chair so I could sit sideways and read Derek’s Auto Trader during calls - but what if they had, what if th
ey’d fallen over it and banged their head? I’d murdered someone, or manslaughtered them, at the very least. I could go to prison, I’d never see my child, and they’d grow up to think their father was a notorious jailbird, like Peter Sutcliff or Jeffrey Archer. Oh God.
“What happened?” I mouthed across the desk to Sky, who was on a call. She shrugged at me. “Look, all I’m trying to do is help you, Mr Caple. Oh, right, Mrs Caple. There’s no need to be so aggressive. I’m sorry you’re having to live in a caravan in your back garden, but why don’t you look at it as a kind of holiday? You know, find the positives-”
I went over to Gay Ray and tapped him urgently on the shoulder. He was reading an article on premature ejaculation. “Ray, what on earth’s happened? Who died at my desk?”
“You’d better ask Tim,” he said, without looking up. “I’ve got issues of my own to deal with.” I turned to face Tim, who was grinning very broadly in my direction. How could he possibly think this was funny? Why was he smiling like that? Unless ... oh, of course - it was a joke! No one had actually died, it was just another of the team’s little pranks. Thank goodness. Weak with relief, I sank into my chair and switched my workstation on with trembling hands. I should have been better prepared; those on the late shift often arrived to some jolly jape or other - Alan still hadn’t noticed the word “Prick” written in Tippex on the bottom of