Rose Garden Sanatorium

Chapter 6 - Taylor

Taylor

"Yes, I understood you!" Taylor breathed irritably into the microphone, while rubbing her face, her headache screaming at her to get off the phone.

She had been on the phone to this customer for the past twenty minutes and she was starting to lose the will to live. She had a headset over her head; the speaker in one ear and the microphone positioned deliberately in front of her face. A typical day at work. Until this customer rang and she was unfortunate to answer the call.

It wasn't Taylor's ideal job, working in a call centre for a bank, but it paid the bills. Although, right now she was starting to regret taking the job at all. In fact, she had actually been considering quitting for a while.

Usually her job went by relatively easily, albeit boringly. Most customers would only ring for simple questions; 'How do I transfer money to my sister's account?', 'I've lost my card, how do I get a new one?' or 'I've forgotten my PIN can you tell me what it is?' She would, of course, get the odd customer ringing in complaining about a fee that had been taken from their account, it usually ended up being that they went overdrawn without an overdraft set up on their account and they'd either forgotten or would complain at the fact they were only overdrawn by a few pence. Although, it would take a lot not to snap at most of the idiots that would call in.

But today she had a rather disgruntled customer who decided to ring up and just complain about the fact that he was exempt from a particular deal. She found him particularly defensive and arrogant. It was wearing her already limited patience thin.

She wished she could have a drink.

Paul peered past his computer screen to look at her, somehow knowing that she had a difficult customer. "You okay?" he whispered.

Taylor impatiently nodded in reply, not wanting him to get involved.

Paul worked on the same team as Taylor. The way the desks were laid out in their team resulted in Paul's computer being opposite Taylor's. Their computer screens had their backs to each other on the same row of desks, but they themselves faced each other across the desk. If the computers weren't in the way, Taylor and Paul would be staring at each other.

"No, sir, I'm not trying to be difficult. I am just trying to explain that that deal is for new customers only," she sighed into the microphone. "Not existing customers, I'm afraid."

"Do you want me to take the call?" Taylor heard Paul. She looked up to see Paul was looking at her again, past his computer screen, she shook her head angrily and frowned at him. He put up his hands in defence and went back to his computer, just as another call came through which he thankfully picked up.

Taylor had noticed that ever since lunch, Paul had been keeping an eye on her and being particularly and rather annoyingly helpful. It annoyed her.

"What kind of company only gives out deals to new customers and forgets loyal customers?" the angry voice shouted down the earpiece at her while she picked up her mug of tea and took a sip, allowing him to shout into the receiver after pushing the ear piece away from her ear slightly. "That is what I am! I've been with your bank for forty years, since I turned eighteen! And in case you can't count, that makes me fifty eight now!"

Taylor closed her eyes and held back the temptation to shout back at the obvious dig. She was used to people shouting at her, being the first point of contact for the bank—although the amount of times she had to refrain from saying it wasn't her that made up the rules, she was just Customer Service agent—but the last comment she'd taken to heart. Did he think she was stupid? Or did he think she was some teenager working her first job? Taylor felt sorry for the real teenagers having to deal with these types of people in their first jobs, fresh out of school or college and then into this hell. Although she certainly wasn't a teenager, her real age was a sensitive subject. Thankfully resisting the urge to yell, she instead allowed him to continue his rant while her hand clasped her mug tightly, hoping the energy would release through the mug instead.