One Night at the Call Center

  Priyanka and I gave each other one final glare before we got up to leave.

  “Is Military Uncle needed?” Esha said.

  “No. Just the voice agents,” I said. I looked at Military Uncle at the end of the room. I could see he was busy at the chat helpline.

  “Let's go, Radhika,” Vroom said.

  “Do you think he loves her? Or is it just sex? Some good, wild sex that they share?” Radhika said.

  “You OK, Radhika?” I said.

  “Yes, I'm fine. I'm surprised that I am, actually. I think I must be in shock. Or maybe nobody has taught me an appropriate reaction for this situation. My husband is cheating on me. What am I supposed to do? Scream? Cry? What?”

  “Do nothing for now. Let's just go to the meeting,” Vroom said as we turned to go to Bakshi's room.

  My brain was still fumbling with Priyanka's words— “we had terms and conditions“—as if our breakup was a business contract. Every moment of our last date was replaying itself in my mind as I walked to Bakshi's office. We had gone to a Pizza Hut, and pizzas have never tasted the same since.

  Chapter 23

  My Past Dates with Priyanka—V

  Pizza Hut, Sahara Mall, Gurgaon

  Four months earlier

  SHE ARRIVED ON TIME THAT DAY. After all, she had a purpose. This wasn't a date: We were meeting to formally break up. Actually, there was nothing left in our relationship to break any more. Still, I had agreed, if only to see her face as she told me. She also wanted to discuss how we were to interact with each other and move forward. Discuss, interact, move forward—when you start using words like that, you know the relationship is dead.

  We chose Pizza Hut because it was, well, convenient. For breakups, location takes priority over ambience. She had come to shop in Sahara Mall, where half of Delhi descends whenever there's a public holiday.

  “Hi,” she said and looked at her watch. “Wow! Look, I'm actually on time today. How are you?” She held her shirt collar and shook it for ventilation. “I can't believe it's so hot in July.”

  Priyanka cannot tolerate awkward silences; she'll say anything to fill in the gaps. Cut the bullshit, I wanted to say but didn't.

  “It's Delhi. What else do you expect?” I said.

  “I think most people who come to malls just come for the air-conditioning—”

  “Can we do this quickly?” I said, interrupting her. Consumer motives of mall visitors did not interest me.

  “Huh?” she said, startled by my tone.

  The waiter came and took our order. I ordered two separate small cheese and mushroom pizzas. I did not want to share a large pizza with her, even though, per square inch, it works out cheaper.

  “I'm not good at this breakup stuff, so let's not drag this out,” I said. “We've met for a purpose. So now what? Is there a breakup line I'm supposed to sayr

  She stared at me for two seconds. I avoided looking at her nose. Her nose, I had always felt, belonged to me.

  “Well, I just thought we could do it in a pleasant manner. We can still be friends, right?” she said.

  What is it with women wanting to be friends forever? Why can't they make a clear decision between a boyfriend and no-friend?

  “I don't think so. Both of us have enough friends.”

  “See, this is what I don't like about you. That tone of voice,” she said.

  “I thought we decided not to discuss each other's flaws today. I have come here to break up, not to make a friend or get an in-depth analysis of my behavior.”

  She kept silent until the pizzas arrived on our table. I bit into a slice.

  “Perhaps you forget that we work together. That makes it a little more complicated,” Priyanka said.

  “Like how?”

  “Like if there's tension between us, it will make it difficult to focus on work—for us and for the others,” she said.

  “So what do you suggest? Should I resign?” I said.

  “I didn't say that. Anyway, I'm only going to be at Connections for another nine months. By next year I will have saved enough to fund my B.Ed, so the situation will automatically correct itself. But if we can agree to certain terms and conditions, like if we can remain friendly in the interim …”

  “I can't force myself to be friendly,” I interrupted her. “My approach to relationships is different. Sorry if it's not practical enough for you, but I can't fake it.”

  “I'm not telling you to fake it,” she said.

  “Good. Because you are past the stage of telling me what to do. Now, let's just get this over with. What are we supposed to say? I now pronounce us broken up?”

  I pushed my plate away. I'd completely lost my appetite and felt like tossing the pizza to the end of the room like a Frisbee.

  “What? Say something,” I said. She had gone silent for ten seconds.

  “I don't know what to say,” she said, her voice cracking.

  “Really? No words of advice, no last-minute preaching, no moral high ground in these final moments for your good-for-nothing unsettled boyfriend? Come on, Priyanka, don't lose your chance to slam the loser.”

  She collected her bag and stood up. She took out a hundred-rupee note and put it on the table—her contribution for the pizza.

  “OK, she leaves in silence again. Once again I get to be the prick,” I mumbled, loud enough for her to hear.

  “Shyam,” she said, slinging her bag onto her shoulder.

  “Yes?” I said.

  “You know how you always say you're not good at anything? I don't think that's true, because there is something you are very good at,” she said.

  “What?” I said. Perhaps she wanted to give me some last minute praise to make me feel better, I thought.

  “You are damn good at hurting people. Keep it up.”

  With that, my ex-girlfriend turned around and left.

  Chapter 24

  2:30 a.m.

  WE REACHED BAKSHI'S OFFICE AT 2:30 A.M. The size of a one-bedroom flat, it's probably the largest unproductive office in the world. His desk, on which he has a swanky flat-screen PC, is in one corner, and behind the desk is a bookshelf full of scarily thick management books. Some of them are so heavy you could use them as assault weapons. The thought of slamming one hard on Bakshi's head had often crossed my mind during previous team meetings. Apart from blond threesomes, I think beating up your boss is the ultimate Indian male fantasy.

  At another corner of the room is a conference table and six chairs, and in the center of the table is a speakerphone for multiparty calls with other offices.

  Bakshi was not in his office when we got there.

  “Where the hell is he?” Vroom said.

  “Maybe he's in the toilet?” I said.

  “Executive toilet, it's a different feeling,” Vroom said as I nodded in agreement.

  We sat around Bakshi's conference table. All of us had brought notebooks to the meeting. We never used them, but it always seems necessary to sit in meetings with an open notebook.

  “Where is he?” Priyanka asked.

  “I don't know. Who cares,” Vroom said and stood up. “Hey, Shyam, want to check out Bakshi's computer?” he said as he walked over to Bakshi's desk.

  “What?” I said. “Are you crazy? He'll be here any minute. What can you see so quickly anyway?”

  “Do you want to know what websites Bakshi visits?” Vroom said and leaned over so he could reach the keyboard. He opened up Internet Explorer and pressed Ctrl+H to pull out the history of visited websites.

  “Have you gone nuts? You'll get into trouble,” I said.

  “Come back Vroom,” Esha said.

  “OK, I've just fired a printout,” Vroom said and sprinted across the room to Bakshi's printer. He fetched the printout and leaped back to the conference table.

  “Are you stupid?” I said.

  “OK, guys, check this out,” Vroom said as he held the A4 sheet in front of him. “Timesofindia.com, rediff.com, and then we have Harvard business review
website, Boston weather website, Boston places to see, Boston real estate—”

  “What's with him and Boston?” Esha said.

  “He's going there on a business trip soon,” Radhika reminded her.

  “And what other websites?” I said.

  “There are more. Aha, here's what I was looking for: awesomeindia.com—the best porn site for Indian girls— adultfriendfinder.com—a sex personals site—cabaret-lounge.com—a strip club in Boston—porn-inspector.com —hello, the list goes on in this department.”

  “What's with him and Boston?” I repeated Esha's words.

  “Who knows?” Vroom said and laughed. “Hey, check this out: he visited the official website for Viagra six hours ago.”

  “I'll try and ask him about Boston,” Priyanka said.

  We heard Bakshi's footsteps and Vroom quickly folded up the sheet of paper. We turned quiet and opened our notebooks to fresh blank pages.

  Bakshi took quick steps as he entered his office.

  “Sorry, team. I had to visit the computers bay team leaders for some pertinent managerial affairs. So, how is everyone doing tonight?” Bakshi said as he took the last empty seat at his conference table.

  No one responded. I nodded my head to show I was doing fine, but Bakshi wasn't looking at me.

  “Team, I've called you today to tell you about a few changes that are about to take place at Connections. We need to rightsize people.”

  “So, people are getting fired; it wasn't a rumor,” Vroom said.

  Radhika's face turned white. Priyanka and Esha looked shocked.

  “We never want to fire people, Mr. Victor. But we have to rightsize sometimes.”

  “Why? Why are we firing people when clearly there are other things we can do?” Vroom said.

  “We have carefully evaluated all the plausible and feasible alternatives, I'm afraid,” Bakshi said and took out a pen. We retreated nervously. The last thing we needed was another Bakshi diagram.

  “Cost-cutting is the only alternative,” Bakshi said and began to draw something. However, his pen wasn't working. He tried to shake it into action, a pointless thing to do with a ball pen. The pen refused to cooperate, perhaps it, too, was sick of Bakshi's abuse.

  I was going to offer my own pen, but Esha, who was sitting at my side, sensed the movement and quickly pulled at my elbow to stop me. Bakshi continued to lecture us. He spoke nonstop for six minutes (or ninety-six breaths), going into various management philosophies, schools of thought, corporate governance methods and other deeply complicated stuff that I know nothing about. His point was that we should make the company more efficient. He just didn't have an efficient way to say it.

  Vroom had promised me he wouldn't mention the website to Bakshi that night, at least until the lay-offs were over. However, this didn't stop him from taking him on.

  “Sir, but cost-cutting is useless if we have no sales growth. We need more clients, not nonstop cuts until there's no company left,” Vroom said after Bakshi had finished his lecture. I guess somewhere within him was a diehard optimist who really thought Bakshi would listen to him.

  “We've thought of every alternative,” Bakshi said. “A sales force is too expensive.”

  “Sir, we can create a sales force. We have thousands of agents. I'm sure some of them are good at selling. We talk to customers every day, so we know what they want…”

  “But our clients are in the United States, we have to sell there.”

  “So what? Why don't we send some agents to the United States to try and increase our client base. Why not, guys?” Vroom said and looked at us, as if we would furiously nod our heads in approval. I was the only one listening, but I remained quiet.

  Radhika was doodling on her pad, drawing a pattern that looked like this:

  Priyanka was making a table of numbers on her notepad. I think she was making a calendar to figure out the day she was getting married. I felt like ripping her notebook to shreds. Esha was digging the nib of her pen deep into her notepad, so that it came out the other end.

  “Send agents to the United States? Move them to Boston?” Bakshi said and laughed.

  “Well, a few of them, at least on a trial basis. Some of them are really smart. Who knows, they may get that one client that could save a hundred jobs. Right, Shyam?” Vroom said.

  “Huh?” I said, startled to hear my name.

  “Mr. Victor, as a feedback-oriented manager I appreciate your input; however, I don't think it's such a good idea,” Bakshi said.

  “Why not?” Vroom demanded with the innocence of a primary school kid.

  “Because if it was such a good idea, someone would have thought of it before. Why didn't it strike me, for instance?” Bakshi said.

  “Huh?” Vroom said, completely flabbergasted. I'd heard it all before so it didn't move me. I was aware of every red, white, and black blood cell in Bakshi's body.

  “What's the plan, sir, when do we find out who gets fir—I mean rightsized?” I said.

  “Soon. We're finalizing the list, but we'll let you know by this morning or early tomorrow night,” Bakshi said, his forehead showing relief that I hadn't challenged him.

  “How many people will lose their job, sir? What percentage?” Radhika said, her first words in the meeting.

  “Thirty to forty is the plan, as of now,” Bakshi said in a practiced, calm voice as if he was announcing the temperature outside.

  “That's hundreds of people,” Vroom said. As if it was a difficult calculation.

  “Such is corporate life, my friend,” Bakshi said and got up, indicating that the meeting was over. “You know what they say: It's a jungle out there.” I don't know who said that, but when I looked at Bakshi, I realized there are buffoons in that jungle as well.

  The girls collected their notebooks primly and stood up. Vroom sat there for a few more seconds, then crushed the printout of websites visited by Bakshi in his hand and stuffed it in his pocket.

  “Thank you, sir,” Esha said.

  “You're welcome. As you know, I am an ever-approachable manager. Here or in Boston, you can contact me any time.”

  We were at the door when Priyanka asked a question.

  “Sir, are you going to Boston soon?”

  Bakshi was back at his desk and had picked up the telephone, but paused when he heard Priyanka's question. “Oh yes, I need to tell you, I'm transferring to Boston soon. Maybe in a month or so.”

  “Transferring to Boston?” Vroom, Radhika, Esha, Priyanka, and I all spoke together.

  “Yes. You see, I don't like to blow my own trumpet, but it seems they have recognized my contribution to the value-addition cycle of the company,” Bakshi said, a smug smile sliding across his shiny face. I thought of toppling the entire bookshelf onto his head.

  “But details will come later. Anyway, if you don't mind, I need to make a call. I'll keep you posted.”

  Bakshi signaled us to shut the door as we left. As I closed it, I felt like someone had slapped my face. We walked away from his office in slow motion.

  Chapter 25

  2:45 a.m.

  WHEN WE RETURNED TO WASG AFTER OUR MEETING with Bakshi, calls were flashing on the screen, but no one attended to them. I sat at my seat and opened my e-mail. I couldn't read anything—my mind was having a systems overload.

  I looked at the time, it was 2:45 a.m.

  Vroom sat at his desk and mumbled inaudible curses. He opened the internal web page of Connections on his computer. It had the map of the United States on it. He held up a pen and tapped at a point on the U.S. east coast.

  “This is Boston,” he said and clenched his fist tight around the pen. “This is where our boss will be while we are on the road looking for jobs.”

  Everyone stayed quiet.

  “Can I ask why everyone is so bloody quiet?” Vroom said.

  “I think we should start picking up a few calls,” I said and started fumbling with the controls on the telephone.

  “Like fuck we should,” Vro
om said and jabbed his pen hard at the monitor. A loud ping startled everyone on the desk. Shattered glass made a nine-inch wide spider's web pattern on Vroom's monitor, while the rest of his screen worked as if nothing had happened.

  “What happened?” the girls said and came around to Vroom's computer.

  “Damn it,” Vroom said and threw his pen hard on the ground so it broke into two pieces.

  “Oh no. The monitor is totally gone,” Esha said. She put her hand on Vroom's shoulder, “Are you OK?”

  “Don't you dare touch me, you slut,” Vroom said and pushed her hand away.

  “What?” Esha said. “What did you just say?”

  “Nothing. Just leave me alone, all right? Go and pray for your jobs or whatever. Bloody bitch will be a hooker soon.” He moved his chair away from Esha.

  For a few seconds the girls stood there, stunned. Then, slowly, they walked back to their seats.

  “What's wrong with him?” Priyanka asked Esha in a whisper audible to us.

  “I told you he proposed to me again. Maybe he's not taking my rejection so well,” Esha said to Priyanka.

  “Oh really?” Vroom shouted and stood up. “You think this is about the proposal? Like I don't know about your escapades. Everyone here knows about it—Shyam, Radhika, and Priyanka. You thought I wouldn't find out?

  I wish I'd known before I proposed to a certified slut who'll bang for bucks. I feel sick.”

  Esha looked at all of us, shocked, and tears appeared in her eyes. She started shaking and Radhika helped her sit down. It's way more elegant to cry sitting down than standing up.

  Priyanka went up to Vroom's seat and stared at him, her face red. Slap! She deposited a hand across Vroom's face.

  “Learn how to talk to women. You say one more nasty thing and I'll screw your happiness, understand?” Priyanka said.

  Vroom stared at Priyanka, his hand covering his cheek. He was too shocked to retaliate. I inserted myself between the two of them. “Guys, can we have some peace here?” I said. “Things are already messy. Please let's sit down and get some work done.”

  “I can't work. I don't know if I'll still have a job in a few hours,” Priyanka said and moved back to her seat.