The Gods of the Terminal

By Malcolm Harden

Mindy is just another wage-slave, working for a large bank as a technician supporting credit card terminals. Her days are filled with ignorant end users and unappreciative managers who judge her value only by how fast she ends telephone calls with customers. Little wonder then she is tempted to do something highly unethical. A very light-hearted look at modern corporate America.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Malcolm Harden
• Release date: Jul 11, 2010
• ISBN: 9781452315386

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The Gods of the Terminal

Malcolm Harden

Published by: Smashwords

The Gods of the Terminal

Copyright (c) 2010 by Malcolm Harden

All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.

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Part the First: Countdown

45 seconds and counting Mindy thought to herself, without giving her customer any verbal cue of the approaching apocalypse. In her highly practiced, professional voice, she spoke into the phone microphone hanging near her mouth. Then press and hold the asterisk key until the display tells you that it has rebooted, which should resolve your problem, sir.

That voice had everything; it radiated confidence, showed a level of concern which would have put a nurse to shame and yet seemed to secretly promise a degree of personal interest and customer care which couldn't have been surpassed if she had ultimately sucked the poor scmuck's cock. Not that she ever saw her customers, let alone slept with them but she had found just the right tone to make them listen in rapt attention, their tongue hanging out, to every word she said. Of course, in situations like this, where the moron had no idea what the symbols on a keypad were she had no choice but to take drastic action.

She pushed her chair in deeper to the table she was seated at to better hide what she was doing... and with an ease that could only come from practice positioned her feet either side of the phone cord and pulled. Sir? she said loudly into the microphone... Are you there sir? Her face shifted into a look of horror and despair which would have befitted the funeral of her parents. Damn she muttered inconsolably, Another dropped call.

Mulligatawny however was not fooled. He knew exactly what she had done, why she had done it and he overlooked it. He couldn't however condone it. That would be against company policy and he was a company man. However his monthly performance bonus depended on the overall ART achieved by his team and he had no wish to see it suddenly diminish.

The ART was an artificial measure of achievement devised by a bureaucrat somewhere within the corporate office of the bank. To be precise the ART was the theoretical average time taken between disgruntled customer picking up the phone and dialing the helpdesk and them finally putting the phone back down with a semi-orgasmic sigh of satisfaction. The company calculation determined that optimal performance was under 5 minutes, at 7 minutes an operator was sailing into dangerous waters, at 10 minutes they would be called in for a formal reprimand and if they hit 15 minutes they would be fired.

The ART was