Call Center Diaries: CASSIDY (Revamped)

three

John Carl Pelaez: Cass! Can I call you?

I was surprised by the sudden request, but I knew that he was working on something with our report, so I at least assumed that it was something work related.

I got an incoming call and even though I know that we might be talking about work, I consciously turned around to see if my colleagues were close by and sure enough, their headsets were on and were too busy listening to calls to notice me.

"Cass... good morning" I was glad then that my colleagues were not minding me because I couldn't help the earsplitting grin that just formed on my face at the sound of his voice.

"Cal! Good morning! What's up?" I tried to sound as casual as I can.

"I got your managers email and I'm a bit unsure on how to reply" he started to say. I was right, it was work-related then and I felt sorry for him when I remembered what the email was about.

"Yeah... sorry about that but she's been waiting for a response from your manager about the changes."

"I know... my boss asked me to send the reply" I heard him sigh on the other line.

It was a good thing that we had a briefing with my manager about that email before she sent it so I got the details on what she exactly needed and some additional information that was not mentioned so I told him what we were looking for so he would know how to respond.

"Got it... thanks. Lemme just get that ready then. Can I call you back if I need anything else?" he asked.

"Of course... anytime." I responded back. When he finally hanged up, I couldn't help but let out a sigh. I knew our conversation was nothing to pine about but just hearing his voice again since our last meeting a month ago, made me miss him and I had to remind myself to calm down and go back to work.

A few minutes later, my messenger rang. I was at least expecting his call this time.

"Hey... I'm back. I'm just about to save the next update that I would be making to the form and wanted to ask if this works for your department. Can I share my screen?"

"Oh okay." There were a few seconds of silence and suddenly, a pop-up message on my screen appeared, notifying me that he was about to show his monitor on his end and when it showed up after I clicked on 'confirm', I couldn't help but be curious at the display before me. His monitor was cluttered with several excel files that were opened one on top of another.

His work email was slightly visible on the side and his messenger was open and I could see the names of the people that he was chatting with including mine and I couldn't help but observe that most of the names there, were managers except for mine that he opened separately for the screen sharing.

Before I could focus on the form that he had already pulled up, I noticed something peeking out just behind an excel file on the right side of the screen. I squinted and realized that it was the company address book and there was a picture that was open but the excel file covered ninety percent of the picture so you wouldn't know what he was looking at, but I did. Even when only a very small part was visible, I recognized the background and the image of a bracelet that was sticking out, my bracelet.

My heart skipped a beat. He was looking at my picture. I was overwhelmed with a sudden sense of giddiness knowing that he had my picture up all the time so he can see.

"Cass? Are you still there?" His voice interrupted my own musings. I didn't realize that I was staring at the screen far longer than necessary.

"Yeah... I'm here. Ahm, what am I looking at?" I tried to hide the excitement that was trying to come out from my voice and went back to focus on why he was calling in the first place.