AMP: Artists' Meeting Place and Resource Collective

For earlier Chapters and an explanation of this dreadful story, see full blog: The Cardiff Grandma. WARNING: This novel contains fake Welsh.
In the previous episode, the Snought-Smithy feud. Now...

The Cardiff Grandma Chapter 32

‘Good [afternoon]. You are now through to [Debbie] at [The Great Big Massive Huge Telephone Number Finding Centre]. For training and security purposes we may record this call, surreptitiously monitor your movements, follow you around, investigate your credit, police and dental records and interview close family members and work associates. This call is being charged at the [very reasonable] rate of [50p] per [second]. At this time I’d like to [waste]… sorry [take] a few minutes of your time to tell you about the other wonderful products and services we can supply to [you]. If you’d like to know more about our automated call handling system…press one followed by the hash symbol followed by your PIN. If you would like to hear the last message again...press two…’

She was clearly reading from a script… badly. He hadn’t been subjected to script reading this bad since they fired that blonde news anchor on Channel 12. This was atrocious, but then what could he expect? The poor sods doing this kind of ‘work’ had definitely drawn the short, barbed, shit covered straw when it came to gaining a slippery footing on the greased employment escalator.

‘Hello?’

The disembodied voice continued unabated. ‘If you are interested in European city breaks,’ it said, ‘…press three followed by the star button followed by seven and divide by the number you first thought of...’

‘HELLO!’

‘If you would like to talk to one of our trained hippo-therapists,’ it added, ‘…press four…’

‘Operator!!’ He began jabbing his fingers wildly at the keypad and swearing loudly. This seemed to have some kind of effect. A new voice began to talk at him. In his fury he’d managed to get himself diverted back to the head of the non existent ‘queue’.

‘Good [evening].’ It was a different voice this time. ‘You are now through to [Sanjita] at [The Great Huge Massive Telephone Number Big Funding Centre]. For training and security, porpoises may be used to suspiciously move your monitor…’

‘Stop!’ The Vice yelled, jabbing an angry finger, attached to an irate hand, on the end of an incensed arm on the left side of his furious body, hard into the keypad once more. ‘Just bloody stop!’

The new voice stopped. Compared to the last voice this one was clearly streets ahead in ‘the badly reading from a script’ stakes. ‘OK.’ The vice-chancellor felt a degree of control once more.

‘I’d like…hold on. You said Good [evening]?’

‘Yes sir. Good [evening] sir’

‘Where exactly are you exactly?’

She knew this one, no script was required. ‘22 degrees, 1 minute and 15 seconds North; 91 degrees, 7 and a half minutes West…’ This meant nothing to the Vice. Why would it. She continued, ‘…just outside Chittagong.’

She may have been stuck in a an open plan, air-conditioned, soul-less and overly strict call centre on the edge of Cardiff; she may be packed into a building with 449 other underpaid graduates and postgraduates, being constantly monitored and evaluated by a circling throng of under aged, over weight middle managers; but she hadn’t forgotten where she was from – she’d just forgotten where she was.

‘Chittagong’ – where had he heard that before?

Sanjita was new to the job, and the country, and she was still having trouble learning the scripts that all staff were compelled to recite, but she wasn’t stupid. Under the scowling watch of a supervisor, and the constant observation of the CCTV system in the building, she was quick to realize her error. ‘I’m sorry sir, I mean I am in Cardiff. I am from Chittagong.’

‘Yes, very interesting I am sure,’ the Vice added with all the sarcasm he could be bothered to muster. ‘May I fleetingly drag you back to you chosen career and obtain a number from you?’

Career, that was a joke. Not a very funny one either. The cost of long-haul flights had dropped so low, and the cost of long distances calls had risen so high, that it was now cheaper to fly in the foreign staff to staff the call centers. The government approved. It approved to the tune of several million pounds a year in fact. And that wasn’t the only way for the multi-internationals to get staff. The other way – that was the way Sanjita had found herself in a Cardiff call centre. No time for that now, there was work to be done…

‘How may I help you?’ she enquired, returning fleetingly to the script.

‘I want the Wong number’ he calmly requested.

‘I’m sorry sir?’ She wasn’t expecting that.

‘The Wong number.’

‘But sir, we only give correct numbers here. We have a very strict policy in place sir.’

‘Wong. Wong! WONG!!’ he yelled.

‘No sir, it is true. Only correct numbers…’

‘What is the problem? The Wong number! I just want the Wong number.’ It was a simple request. What was her problem. How many Wong’s could there be locally?

‘Who are you trying to reach sir? I cannot give you a number if you do not tell me who it is’

‘It’s very simple – listen: get me the Wong number!’

Sanjita was getting flustered. Flustered and flummoxed; and she didn’t even know what flummoxed meant! This hadn’t been in the twelve minute induction training session she’d had to pay to go on. Her anxious state had alerted a passing supervisor. He came over to see what the problem was.

‘What is the problem?’ he asked in a rather obvious, unoriginal and stupefying tone.

‘The caller says I have to give the wrong number. I told him we can’t do that.’

‘You gave him the wrong number? Why did you do that?’

‘No, no I didn’t. I told him I cannot give the wrong number but he keeps on asking me.’

‘Hello?’ enquired the Vice after a short silence from the other end of his line.

The supervisor plugged his headset into Sanjita’s console. ‘Good [morning] sir…’.
‘Where the hell was this one from?’ thought the Vice to himself. ‘…how may we help you today?’

‘I just want the Wong number. That’s all. It’s very simple, just like your staff. The Wong fucking number!’

‘Sir, do you have a complaint? If you have a complaint I will be happy to redirect you to our customer complaints department. They are very efficient..’

‘I just want the Wong number!’

The spotty faced supervisor continued, unable to stop himself from parroting out the script, ‘If you are unhappy with their service you can contact our complaints complaints department…’

The Vice interjected, ‘What’s you name sonny.’

‘Yes, yes it is. Sunny Quito sir. How did you know?’ That could have been a big mistake. He had been trained never to give his real name to customers.

‘And do you know who I am Sunny?’ shouted the Vice-chancellor completely ignoring the youths question.

‘No sir I…’

‘Good! So when I track you down, and eventually find you, you won’t know who it was that did what it is that I will do to you!’ With that, and the slamming down of the telephone handset, the Vice hung up. ‘Bloody fucking imbeciles!’ he shouted as he vented his frustration. The whole episode had left the Vice-chancellor feeling angry, annoyed and a little confused. They’d messed him about. He hadn’t gotten Wong’s number. He had probably spent £15 making the call. And what the hell was hippo-therapy anyway?

He was getting too old for all this.

The real Sunny Quito, if there was such a person, must be in a lot of trouble by now: that was the third time this shift the supervisor had used that name. He couldn’t help but think to himself - ‘I wouldn’t want to be in his shoes right now… (even if they were Red Italian leather ones, size 9)’. He looked down at his scowling watch and checked the time – only another 15 hours of the shift left. He did so love to pass the time by irritating the customers.