The Call Center

12.

Belko had felt a little different after Janet's departure but Jay kept his mind focused with sale after sale. Tony had been making decent sales as of late, yet like the majority of the others from their training class, Tony sailed far behind Jay in that category.

In this particular day Tony had been struggling to make any sale at all as Jay demolished an impressive amount of sales. The top sellers, including Kyle, didn't seem to be taking note in Jays success and it really seemed to bother Jay more than he expected.

Jay wasn't looking for their approval, he thought. He was looking for Kyle's approval and knew that the top sellers were an extension to that. Cole used to talk to him every now and again but not on this afternoon.

Finally, Tony made a sale. A few moments later, he landed another one. Cole walked up with anther top seller to congratulate Tony and Jay found himself bothered deeper than before.

Maybe he did want their approval, Jay thought. And so what if he did? What's so wrong about that? It didn't matter anyway because for some reason Jay found himself to be the invisible man despite his success.

Kyle walked past Jay and Tony on his way to he bathroom but never took his eyes off his phone, completely avoiding Jay. Jay started to feel slightly paranoid. He began to think that his co-workers were upset with him for some reason but Jay couldn't decide why that would be.

A few of the top sellers, including Vanessa began to speak from a loud speaker, standing on top a desk on the sales floor. "Attention!" they called out before informing all employees to not continue making calls after their current calls. It seemed that there was going to be some sort of meeting or an announcement. Jay glanced across the room and saw one of the floor managers that hung out with the top sellers, he was in a heated debate with Doug and Doug really seemed to be sweating.

   Just then a tap came over the back of one of Jays shoulders. It was Cole. Jay smiled and hung up the phone.

     "Hey, Cole. How's it g-" Jay started.

     "Hey they want to talk to you in the main office." Cole said, avoiding eye contact.

    "Who wants to talk to me in the main office?"

   "They do. Manager, I don't know. You know where it is, right?" Cole said, pointing it out, as it stood upstairs, looking out the sales floor.

    "Okay. Am I in trouble?" Jay asked nervously.

    Cole walked away, not responding to Jay. Jay took a deep breath and made his way across the sales, up the stairs and into the main office where he was met by one of the managers, Mark. Mark was the quiet one, rarely seen downstairs on the sales floor, and always seeming to be lurking in the background overseeing everything.

    "Sit down." Mark said to Jay, as he closed the blinds to the office.

   "Am in trouble?" Jay laughed.

   "You've been making a lot of sales, Jay. Almost right out of training. Isn't that right?" Mark asked, in his quiet, raspy voice, sitting down in the large blue chair behind his desk.

   "Yeah I made my first sale pretty quickly out of training. I enjoy it. I actually think it's fun and challeng-"

   "You made many sales actually."

    "Have I?" Jay asked, humbly.

    "It seems that... it seems that a good bulk of your sales didn't end up going through." Mark stated.

   "What does that mean exactly?" Jay asked, his heart pounding in his chest.

  "It means that you made the sale initially, yes. However, later down the line, for whatever reason- the sales didn't hold. Now this could be for numerous reasons- it could be that they changed their mind, that they felt they were purchasing something different than discovered otherwise."

   "What do you mean?"

   "Maybe thy did some research after the call and felt lied to, I don't know. Maybe the sales weren't made to real people?"

   "Who else would they be to?"

   "I don't know. I'm not making any accusations, you see. But there have been cases in the past where maybe an employee whom wasn't such a great seller, suddenly became a great seller. Sometimes it does just happens that way and it randomly clicks for some people but that's sometimes that's a sign of foul play- not always. Sometimes."

   "I hope you don't think-"
 
   "I have no opinion, Mr. Jay." Mark said. "Im not saying this is something you do. I'm saying this is sometimes the case... sometimes an outside party, a friend of an employee, that act as a seller and pretends to buy the product over the phone. Now, the seller gets the commission upfront and if the sale doesn't go through, later that commission comes out of the check. Problem is, these people tend to quit before then. So Jay, I'm not doing any detective work here. Im simply letting you know, that for whatever reason, your sales have failed to go through. So I'm going to have to let you go, unfortunately, as you are not meeting our sales quota. Unfortunately, there will not be a final check, as we have to deduct for past commissions and we may even find that you owe us a sum but we will deal with that accordingly. We will have our lawyer write you. So... I hate to see you go and I wish you well in your future career. Take care. You can leave now."

   Jay was stunned as he walked down the stairs from the main office. There was a sort of impromptu assembly going on over the sales floor. They were announcing new top sellers. Right before Jay made it to the front door, he heard Tony being rewarded with top seller status as they placed a beautiful golden watch over his right wrist.