Customer Service
by Samuel H. Pillsbury
part 1
Harrison showered and dressed with what he had laid out on the bed. Boxers, socks, suit pants now loose at the waist; a belt; a dress shirt laundered and pressed. He loved that crisp feel. His Rolex. A suit jacket the sleeves of which draped his wrists. But just a little.
He fingered the silk tie striped yellow and blue that he had bought in the hotel shop on his last trip, but decided against it. The cost of wrestling it on outweighed the benefit conferred. Same went for the slippers he was wearing rather than the black Oxfords nosed under the bed frame.
He climbed the stairs to his office, pausing twice, one hand against the cool plaster.
He sat down, woke up his desktop and called.
He was instructed to listen closely because “our options have recently changed.” He learned that “due to unusually high call volume” wait times might be longer than usual but his call was important and would be answered in the order received.
He knew from experience that the options had not changed in months, and that call volume was always unusually high. He suspected they had an optimal wait time for callers, not so short that associates had much down time between calls but not long enough to spur bad service ratings. That’s how he would do it.
The music began.
When it stopped, he hoped. The heart beat a little faster.
“Did you know that most questions can be answered at our website, Ourfriends dot com?” asked a voice, nondescriptly female.
“Oh go to hell.”
He checked his watch. He’d been on hold for seventeen minutes.
The music began again.
“No!” he yelled, recognizing the melody. A crime against humanity, to make him listen to the Moonlight Sonata on a tinny cell speaker. The sublime made banal.
He contemplated the red circle on his phone’s screen. What bliss to hang up. He hated waiting. But today, no choice. No choice at all.
Finally, the music cut off. “Hello, this is Darnel. How may I help you today?”
She must know, because he’d already answered the intake question when he was first connected: Please say briefly why you’re calling today. For example, problem with prescription. The script called for him to say it again to establish a personal connection. Also questions conveyed power.
“I got a Notice of Termination of Special Medication—”
“I’m sorry. Your last name and date of birth?”
She was probably a mother. In her 30s, maybe 40s. Maybe a minority? Answering calls was work you could do from home; schedule your own hours. Paid okay. And from the company perspective, there were major savings in office space, in down time from employee chit-chat and office politics. Plus, phone and computer work could be watched, hence: “This call may be monitored for quality assurance.” Though he didn’t remember hearing that today.
He supplied his identifiers. It was like being scanned at checkout.
“Yes, Mr. Harrison, I can see that you’re enrolled in our Extraordinary Medication program with home support. As you know, enrollment is conditional and—”
“I’ve read the documentation. Probably the only one except your lawyers who’s read every word.”
“Excellent.”
“In law, it’s called due diligence. Not that I’m a lawyer. Just worked with them for years.”
“Right. Point is that you are no longer on the eligible list for the program.”
“I’m all paid up. Submitted every form you ever asked for. Met every deadline.”
“Yes, I can see that. Thank you. As you know, there was never a guarantee of continued—”
“You’re going to cut me off?”
“The program has given you 385 days of unanticipated life—”
“And I’d like a few more.”
“I’m afraid that’s not possible.”
He took a breath, let it out. Oh, back in the day he’d have something to say. You get old, people think you’re weak. Now, if he raised his voice, he become someone to be appeased, cajoled or ignored.
“I’d like to talk to your supervisor.”
“Why’s that?”
“You’re just following the script. You can’t decide anything.”
“Really.”
She stayed quiet, holding her ground. An underrated skill, being able to hold silence. He needed to try something else. “Darnel? Isn’t that a boy’s name?” Maybe she was one of those trans people.
“My dad wanted a boy, so the ending got lost. Patriarchy prevailed. You know how that goes.”
“Excuse me?”
“Let’s see, three divorces. At work, a bully who got things done; that was your rep. Knew everybody’s weak spot and used it. Which worked okay, though it meant you had to change jobs a lot. But not at home, different story there. Tough on the wives. Worse for the kids. Your daughters send you cards on Christmas and text on your birthday but won’t talk to you directly; that’s the only thing they agree on. When was the last time you saw your grandkids?”
“How the hell do you—”
“You consented to AI monitoring of all personal information, as you know from the documentation. And I’m the highest level supervisor available to speak with you, now or at any time in the future.”
“What’s going on?” Somehow he had lost the thread. He didn’t understand.
“As a result of corporate restructuring, a number of our treatment policies have changed. You may have heard about the merger? This program is being scaled back.”
“Because it costs too much.”
“That was the judgment made. Cost-benefit.”
“And me—”
“The truth of the matter, Mr. Harrison, is you have the lowest rating for personal connection and the highest rating for negative human relations of anyone in the program. By quite a large margin.”
“You’re ranking people now?”
“Some criteria are required.”
“If the light on that machine doesn’t turn green today—”
“Time’s up, Mr. Harrison.”
“What?”
“Your time is up.” She spaced out the words.
“Can I file an appeal?”
“Certainly.”
“How long will that take?”
“They are normally resolved within thirty days. But, with complex matters, it can take longer.”
“And I’ll be dead by then.”
“You can also go to the ER. Under federal law, they have to provide you with all available lifesaving measures.”
“So I get maybe another couple of days in the ICU hooked up to tubes and machines, drugged out of my mind. No thanks.”
Another silence.
He never liked going personal. Back in the day, you never did that, not if you had a backbone. But today, people gushed up their insides at a moment’s notice and got rewarded for it: You were so brave.
He took a breath. “Look, I got rough edges. The way I grew up, the smallest kid in the class in a shit-kicking mining town, I had to fight. I haven’t had a full set of my own teeth since I was nine years old. They kept getting knocked out. But you know what I figured out? Nobody likes getting beat up but what they really hate is insults. The sticks and stones thing? Exactly, 100%, wrong. It’s the names that get you. The names you remember. And I was the best name-caller at school and in the neighborhood. Amazing how far that can get you, as long as it doesn’t get you killed.” He stopped. Now it was getting him killed.
He paused.
He stretched it out.
“Look, this isn’t fair,” he said quietly. Sometimes the quiet caught people by surprise. They let their guard down.
“And when you were in business, what did you say when people told you that?” Darnel asked.
“I said, ‘Life’s not fair.’”
“I bet you said that a lot.”
She had his number. Yes she did.
“What kind of schooling do you have, Darnel?” He was curious and needed another angle.
“I have a BA in English with a minor in accounting, then a Masters in Business Administration. Four years ago, I got my Masters in Social Work.”
He wanted to say he was impressed, but that might sound prejudiced. He wasn’t like the people he grew up with, nothing like them. But you come into the world the way it is; that’s your starting point, no choice about it. Then you have to stretch when the world changes.
And he had stretched, he had changed. When he was a kid, the N-word was everywhere. Then you were supposed to say “colored,” then “Negro,” then “African-American.” But now somehow they get to use the N-word all over but you can’t even think it. Thing is, you can only stretch so far.
“So with all your degrees, they figure you’re the one to deal with people like me,” he said.
“That’s right.”
“Am I the first? To get shut off?”
“You are.”
“That’s why this call isn’t recorded. You don’t know how it’s going to go.”
“You seem to know a lot about this.”
“If you watch and listen real close, and figure out what people really want, what they’re scared of, you can tell a lot. And I’m pretty smart. I can put things together other people can’t. Doesn’t make you a lot of friends, though.”
“I can see that.”
“You’re probably glad to see me go. Someone like me.”
“Not especially. You remind me of my dad. He was a know-it-all, too.”
Right. His own dad had been an asshole. The only thing he’d learned from him was how to fight. No, actually his father never taught him how. Just that he had to.
Out the window, a pine tree swayed at its pointy top. He had bought the house partly because of that tree. It reminded him of Christmas. Which most of the time was a crap day, but not always. The best he could remember was the first he had with Connie in their second-floor apartment on the wrong side of the tracks in Cincinnati. She was just starting to show. She wanted to go to her folks for the holiday, but he said a storm might be coming, the roads would be nasty with snow and ice, and they shouldn’t take any chances in her condition.
But the truth was that her people didn’t like him much. He hated the pained smiles they flashed and what they said when he left the room. He didn’t need that. Also his back was killing him from weeks on the road. He just needed a break. She cried about it, but she was okay. Connie was tough.
Copyright © 2025 by Samuel H. Pillsbury
