News from the Cubicle

By Nathan Dawn

I am the Man - personified. A Maniac Manipulator locked in an empty shell with all the power in the world and not a clue on how to use it. For the moment, I had the Private Banking Society fooled, but my guts churned every time we touched and I didnt know if I could resist from telling these vampires to stop sucking on each other. Any second now, sharp insults and dull curses might just burst from my lips like so many sticks and stones breaking their bones as the truth rightfully should. At last, this was going to be my time to shine. To explode like a nuclear bomb and melt the lobby with radioactive words. After all these years spent serving their drinks, massaging their skin, dealing and blocking their cards - after all this wasted time, at last revenge was mine.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Nov 30, 2012
• ISBN: 9781479735303

Book preview

1

After picking up the phone for over a year at this emergency call center, I know more about credit cards than I ever wanted to. They’re 85.60 by 53.98 millimeter plastic rectangles and .03 inch thick as specified by the international standard ID-1. Most cards are made of Polyvinyl chloride (PVC) or Acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS) for durability and cost purposes. Nowadays, your typical debit, credit, electron, prepaid, charge or cash card has a two track magnetic strip, alphanumerical metallic embossing, a 128-bit encrypted chip, a hologram, a signature pad and a double card verification code. For all practical purposes, it is an electronic fortress, but the reason you need all this security, is because it’s so easy to breach. Visa, MasterCard, Amex or Discover, they all operate on the same network, this great financial web called the Visanet. A single electronic currency exchange system connecting every bank, government and merchant in the world, but no one is really in control. The stream of data is too large to analyze - we’re talking millions of transactions per second across international borders, so it should be no surprise that credit card fraud alone cost hundred of billions of dollars each year to issuers and merchants across the globe.

When some nameless hacker hijacks your account in the middle of your honeymoon, I’m the guy you call. Twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, our emergency center will listen to you whine in twelve languages - free of charge. We’ll pick up the phone and block your card if you get robbed in Barcelona or Bangkok. I’m sorry to hear that you’re going through this, sir, ma’am, officer. Military personnel in butt-fuck Iraq call collect to request a replacement card, teenage kids in Amsterdam get cash wired as if it was a matter of life and death, lonely housewives from Key West to Anchorage call us to complain about their interest rate while their husbands try to dispute charges made at a strip-club in downtown Vegas.

The saddest thing about working in an emergency center, is just how rarely we’re actually faced with an emergency. Perhaps if that word meant - the unbearable incapacity to shop, or - the urgent need for gambling cash, perhaps even - the imminent peril of living without money for more than twenty-four hours, then - yea, sure, we’ve got tons of emergencies and I’m Superman.

The next call is fed through our dispatch and the whisper in my headphones says, English - Follow-up Inquiry - I get a pen and paper ready. A woman’s voice politely states. For quality assurance, please be advised that this call may be recorded or monitored - then it’s my cue. "Thank you for calling the follow-up department, my name is Anton, may I please have your case number?

– Hello? Is this a person?" It’s 3AM EST, I might have sounded a little robotic.

– Yes, sir. How may I help you?

– Listen, stop the whole customer service act right now. I don’t need to be pampered, I need some goddamn help! I could hear gusts of wind blowing in the background, filling my headphones with snowflakes and static. What sounded like trucks or airplanes kept passing right behind him over the white noise of rain. I could picture my customer standing under a light post along some deserted highway in the midwestern winter. Do you understand? Hello?" he repeated.

– Yes, sir. I’m listening," that’s what makes you a good agent. The phone line quality tells me this customer is calling from a booth - his number starts with 701. That’s North Dakota, the Grand Forks area I think.

– Good, then I need you to contact Steven Bradford from Chase Private Banking. You got that? I’m on interstate 75 right outside Fargo and I need 15,000 USD in the next hour," ordered the voice from North Dakota as if he was ordering a sub. Nevertheless, he dropped a name which is supposed to chill my spine and trigger my panic alarm just because he’s got a multimillion account with our top customer.

There was a time when I still had a certain reverence for our premium-VIP-boutique-clientele, those successful bastards who own our banks and governments, our schools, mortgages and debts. Then of course I learned better. I had to. After listening to a thousand so-called emergencies each month for over a year, you’re bound to loose empathy. Especially because you’re constantly helping the top one percent on their endless cruise around the world from the confines of a cubicle furnished in beige. With a click of my mouse, I can make or break their peaceful vacation in a bungalow along the coast of Bali. I’m here to confirm their ticket reservation for their next flight between New York and Beijing. Their purchase on SkyMall. Their room at the Hilton. Their limo rental. Their first-rate dinner table at the Blue Lobster for a fund-raising-Gala to benefit Third-World hunger and their flight back to New York. For twelve bucks per hour, I’m paid to be their invisible travel companion, that caring voice over the phone who will help them more than their best friend ever could. Some of these people depend so badly on our services, it makes you wonder if they have any friends at all. For benefits and a 401K, I’m paid just enough to sound caring, but the simple fact that I’ve come home to write this story tonight should tell you that I’m not paid enough to care.

Of course, sir. I’ll be more than happy to help you with this transfer. May I first ask for your name and card number, please? The tone of my voice remains upbeat and all you can hear is my smile.

– I don’t have a card number, fuck wad - that’s why I need cash! My name is Gene Kelly, what else do you need? My social? My birthday? My pet’s name?" vociferates my signature-preferred-infinite customer on the other end.

Being part of the exclusive Chase Private Banking society, Mr Kelly has the right to be nasty - I understand. He’s not used to making this kind of phone calls himself and he’s been listening to soft jazz for twelve minutes in the frozen rain. Rumor has it - the entrance fee to become an elite member of Chase Private Banking is twenty-five million dollars, but tonight Mr Kelly is just a man without a buck. That should help me empathize, but it doesn’t. Just to piss him off a little more, I follow protocol and ask,

"Was your card lost or stolen, sir?

– None of your business, kid. Just call Steven...

– Bradford I cut him short so he wouldn’t repeat himself. I will, sir, but I will also have to provide him with this information.

– Listen, what’s your name, again?

– Anton

– Anton, what?

– Bergerac.

– Are you French of something?

– Yes, I am.

– Is the economy so bad in France that we have our calls center there instead of India?

– We’re located in Florida, sir.

– Well, I’m glad you are, frenchy because I’m in the goddamn blizzard, now are you going to make that call or what?

– Please hold." I press a button and Mr Kelly stays in the rain while Sinatra sings Softly As I Leave You. I sing along and waltz to his languidly charming voice in my cubicle for a minute or two, then I open a second line and call Mr Bradford. He could be anywhere in the world, at any time, the phone never rings more than twice.

Bradford, speaking. This guy never sleeps.

– Hello sir. Anton from emergency services. I have Mr Gene Kelly requesting an immediate wire to Fargo, North Dakota.

– Put him through.

– Please hold"

I patch them together. Make introductions and release the line. Next.

English - Follow-up Inquiry.

2

The disclaimer at the beginning of our calls should say, For your own sake, please be advised that you’re better off hanging up right now and helping yourself. I’m sure we’d get just as many calls, but at least our customers would be warned. Besides, what kind of society do we live in when folks depend on complete strangers to bail them out in time of need? Shouldn’t they have a plan B in case they get robbed or stranded in the middle of nowhere? I mean - other than their credit card company. Sure, we’ll pick up the phone night and day, but we’re not your mom, nor your banker, so unless you’re Mr Kelly or one of his privileged pals - you’re on your own, buddy.

The truth is, just because I have a certain access to the network, it doesn’t mean that I can make miracles happen. To create a credit card, it takes two agents with three security passwords just to process the card information. Then, it takes two more agents to enter the embossing room which can only be opened with two set of finger prints and their seven digit codes. Within the room, it takes four passwords to transform a simple piece of plastic into an electronic payment device, but it’s not over yet. Somewhere across the country, agents from the financial institution on whose behalf we’re going through all this trouble, also had to generate and activate the card number following their own security procedure, but despite all these efforts to create the safest currency in the history of mankind, we just put this card in an envelope and hand it to the UPS guy.

This package will be carried across the world, touched by dozens of people until it reaches its rightful owner - if it ever does. Our eccentric philanthropists and their charitable wives are often off-roading in the Peruvian mountains or in the uncharted territories of Tanzania. For no apparent reason, these billionaires request thousands of dollars in cash and multiple credit cards to be sent via express mail to the most extravagant destinations. Sometimes it’s just the continental hotels of Paris and Sydney, but more often than not, our platinum-elite find themselves stranded in camel country between two nameless deserts on a road to nowhere. Instead of an address, a cardholder once gave me his latitude and longitude, expecting us to drop off his package from an airplane with a parachute and a homing device, I guess.

Our disclaimer should say, For lack of insurance, please hope for the best and get ready for the worst. Even if their electronic wallet is loaded with rare and precious plastic cards, even if they own the airlines and courier companies which will transport their package across timezones while they play golf in the Seychelles, no matter who their private banker is and what their expectations are, all our customers are limited by the reality of transit times and lost mail. They’re in denial by the Nile in the middle of national protests, but somehow, we’re supposed to make a package magically appear at the door of their barricaded villa - all so they can shop on Amazon and iTunes. They’ll scream and threaten to sue whenever it takes more than twelve hours to deliver their sealed-wrapped cash or credit card - that’s why our disclaimer should be - For redundancy’s sake, please be advised that we’re still constrained by the laws of physics and the course of human events. Our clients travel for several days into far off regions of the Amazon and Nepal, but they don’t seem to understand why it takes just as long for a package to reach them. Moreover, cardholders have this misconstrued idea that we have control over any ATM on the planet or that we can arrange for them to walk into any bank and pick up a card on-demand. For your information, please be advised that ignorance isn’t always bliss.

When they asked Billy the Kid why he robbed banks, he replied, Coz that’s where the money’s at. Banks always hold the money. We’ve got the network and merchants have the goods. It could be a nice merry-go-round where customers provide services to each other and all profit from an ever-growing economy under the watchful eye of the government, but in the modern capitalist model, all these lines are blurred. The government owns the bank, the banks own the corporations, the corporations own the merchants, the goods and by the same token, the poor customers who owes them all. We’re doped with cash, hooked on credit and withdrawal makes my customers spit mouthful of insults through the phone line. They convulse from the fear of financial uncertainty while tanning on the poolside of some exotic resort along the tropic of Cancer. From Riyadh to Rio and Borneo, they bathe in the warmth of an eternal summer and shiver at the thought of being broke. Then they call 9-1-1. Emergency Services.

For the sake of honesty, please be advised that I still don’t care.

Thank you for calling the follow-up department. My name is Anton, how may I assist you?

– Steven Bradford from Chase Private Banking, another red alert is triggered. I have a client on the other line, how fast can you wire 15,000 USD to Fargo?"

It strangely feels like he’s trying to send Mr Kelly back my way, but I’m used to it by now. Bradford always calls us to solve impossible cases in the middle of the night and if we fail, that’s someone’s bonus going out of the window. For a moment, my mind travels to the frozen desert of North Dakota where Mr Kelly might soon be running out of quarters. Such magnificent landscapes always remind me of the Judeo-Christian God, this severe old gentleman sitting in his throne of clouds. In a way, it’s perfectly fitting for our VVVIP client to be trapped in a blizzard as great and white as the Creator in whose image the members of the Private Banking society were made. Despite their divine origins, both Gene and Steven are at my mercy tonight. For practical reasons, please be advised that I’ll be off duty in the next thirty minutes.

I could tell Mr Bradford that I already solved his problem, but playing with his nerves is about the only fun I can have in this office.

Sir, in order to disburse such a large amount in cash, I started to explain, "we would need to wait for a local branch to open.

– Not acceptable, could you mail it out?

– Mail cash? I asked in disbelief, No, sir.

– Not acceptable," he repeated.

This is the part when I’m supposed to explain that inside Hector International Airport, there’s a currency exchange center opened 24/7. That’s about forty miles south on Interstate 75 from where Mr Kelly is still listening to hold-music. With a few clicks on my desktop, I can send a request form to release fifteen