Misery Central
A Story Every Day in 2024 August 2nd 215/366
"Hello! Misery Central! How can I help?" Deirdre's trial for the call operator job was on and she desperately wanted to make a good impression. Adopting a cheerful phone voice, she hoped it would show that she was the best person for the job.
"No! No! NO!! You never answer the phone like that! Never! Hang up! Hang up now!"
Before Deirdre had a chance to react, Mr Jenkins had pressed "End Call".
Deirdre looked at her potential new boss, his face puce with apoplexy and wondered what she had done wrong. She asked, which only encouraged Jenkins' unnatural colour. He took a few breaths before answering.
"Misery Central is the name of this place." He paused. "But we don't tell them that. We just dish it out."
Deirdre looked dumbly at Jenkins. What help centre doesn't help?
"This isn't a place of service; this is a place of disservice. We don't help; we hinder. We don't provide; we prevaricate, postpone, procrastinate. Do you understand?"
Deirdre didn't but she nodded anyway.
Jenkins looked at her. This girl didn't have the bitterness to be uncooperative or the spite to enjoy making someone else's life a chore. He sighed. He could lie to her and keep her on, or he could tell her the truth and send her on her way.
He chose the latter.
*
Ten months later
"Help Centre."
The voice answered with no welcoming inflection to invite confidence nor assistance.
"Could you help with..."
"Probably not."
"Pardon?"
"Is it something you want dealt with quickly?"
"Yes."
"You'll have to call back."
"But I've been waiting for hours!"
Deirdre ended the call, saw Jenkins smiling at her and scowled. She'd left disheartened that trial day and it had set in motion a whole load of negative events resulting in lack of hope. This morphed into cynicism enough for her to turn up at Misery Central again, paradoxically with optimism.
Her despondency, sarcasm and general disillusionment with life meant that she was hired straightaway. Deirdre had been "Most Miserable Employee of the Month" eight months in a row, unheard of. She gained nothing for this accolade except underwhelming dissatisfaction.
Jenkins, the miserable bastard, had never been more proud.
***
366 words
I hate ringing call centres. You just never know what you're going to get and some people can be deliberately obtuse or useless.
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Comments (13)
Bahahah! I missed this one. Very ironic and irreverent! When she rocked up “paradoxically with optimism.” 😄😆 Felt a bit spoiled in this one, it was twice the length so double the fun.. I mean misery!
I just featured your masterpiece in https://shopping-feedback.today/writers/angie-s-artefacts-it-s-springtime%3C/span%3E%3C/span%3E%3C/span%3E%3C/a%3E 🤩
This is so brilliantly amusing and sadly accurate of some customer service staff😂.
This is both hilarious and hopelessly sad. Well done, Rachel!
We all hate calling the damned call centers. Every now and then I get a really helpful kind super intelligent person. The story reminds me of the commercials that we have for Mr. mayhem on auto insurance. He makes peoples cars crash. He does all sorts of things and he says you need to get …. (Name of insurance) insurance so you won’t run into people like me, Mr. Mayhem. Telling them to call back was hilarious!
Rachel! You’re back and on cracking form! Feel like I have spoken to this company and the exact employee! Great stuff!
Haha. This is fun. All the years I worked in customer service, having to be nice. I would have loved this. 🤣
I think I know the company! Their latest move has been to use the multitude of their employees' accents to make the callers' lives even more miserable. I have to say it was a masterful move to throw some particularly tricky Pakistani English at me last time I called. My personal favourite so far!
Fiendishly clever, Rachel!
"Most Miserable Employee of the Month" I assume this is based on the traditional "Victor Hugo" index of miserabléness. Great story. Welcome back.
Well-wrought! If there is anything that will turn AI against us, it will be saddling it with the unfortunate task of call center operator... I surmise the entire purpose of the hopeless endeavor is to put a buffer between the corporate crooks and the customer that will simply wear us into complacency so we give up trying to address the problem...
"Puce with apoplexy" is a remarkable phrase. Deftly done!
Oh my! And I thought I was a miserable person! I'd cry if someone like Deidre answered my call hahahahaha