AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Killian was a philanthropist, and his main focus was humanitarian efforts. Not only did he own three different call centers, but he also partnered with many homeless shelters, orphanages, and women’s programs. The man was a modern-day saint and there were very few of those these days.
However, he also came off as an asshole sometimes.
I straightened my shoulders as I addressed him. “We never needed to have the first one,” I replied, trying to remind myself that he was my boss.
“I disagree,” he said, sliding his hands into his suit pockets. “There’s no denying that you’re one of my best call specialists, but my opinion of you and this job has not changed.”
Two years ago, I’d gotten a call from a woman in college that had been drugged, then raped by the majority of the college’s lacrosse team. It had hit a trigger that I hadn’t been prepared for, and I had become a mess. It had taken me over an hour to get my bearings, and since our calls were all monitored, Killian had notice how I’d been away from my lines way past what was an acceptable break time.
While I’d been aware that it being a young college girl was what had set me off, I hadn’t gone into detail with Killian, so that had led him to believe that I wasn’t strong enough for this job. Some days, he was right. However, most days, he wasn’t.
“If I couldn’t do this job, then I wouldn’t be one of your top specialists,” I argued. “I do this four days a week, which is something that not a lot of people could stomach.”
“Which is why I haven’t fired you yet,” he replied easily, and that just pissed me off.
Once upon a time, I would have curled into myself before bowing out gracefully, but those days were over. That Posie Tinley only existed in private. That Posie Tinley only existed when the world got too loud, and her emotions became too heavy.
This Posie Tinley was much stronger, though still weaker than most. While I wasn’t a Lennon Marlow-Prince, no one was. However, I’d come a long way from that girl that used to look for boogiemen in the shadows. Once upon a time, even the sun couldn’t cast out all the shadows that housed the evil of mankind. There were no creatures more inhumane, vile, or vicious than the human person.
“People have bad days, Mr. Warrick,” I said. “They have them all the time. A bad day shouldn’t be a reflection of their ability to do their jobs the rest of the time.”
He stepped closer to me as he peered down at me. “I can’t afford for my specialists to have bad days, Ms. Tinley,” he said. “Your voice is the difference between someone getting help, calling back, or ending their life.” My stomach roiled at his directness. “So, while I can understand bad days, someone having a bad day doesn’t mean more to me than the person on the other line of these calls.”
“You don’t think that I know that?” I snapped, forgetting all about how this man was my boss. Sure, if he fired me, I wouldn’t end up homeless, but I wasn’t working here for the money. I was working here for my sanity. “I know better than most people how important my job is.”
“Then save your emotional meltdowns for your off-time, Ms. Tinley,” he snapped back. “I have neither the time nor desire to hold your hand through this.”
“No one’s asking you to,” I hissed. “I just needed a moment, Mr. Warrick. That’s it, that’s all.”
“If that’s the case, then why weren’t you in any of the care rooms?”
Killian Warrick owned three call centers: two for abuse victims and one for drug addicts. His call centers were like on-the-go support groups if you will. You could call twenty-four hours a day and someone would answer. While his call center for drug addicts wasn’t as big as his abuse call centers, all three call centers were state-of-the-art.
Our call center was five-stories high and came with everything. The first floor housed a gym, personal lockers, a break room, a small cafeteria, restrooms, and it even had a half-court basketball area near the gym.
The second floor housed another break room, more restrooms, a prayer room, a nursing room, a massage room, three care rooms, and a state-of-the-art vending miracle. While the cafeteria had working people to run the place, the vending machine miracle was all automated and it carried the good stuff. No stale chips in this building.
The third and fourth floors were where we worked. Each floor had a break room and two sets of restrooms, but that was about it. With the exception of two vending machines on either side of the room, it was all high-partitioned cubicles for the center’s specialists. Though no one had any private offices, the partition material was soundproofed, so that helped a lot with drowning out any excess noise around you.
We were also sectioned off by specialty. If you had a degree in psychology, sociology, or any of the ologies that focused on what we did here, then you worked in the blue section of the floor. This helped us support our callers better. If we received a call that we felt we weren’t helping with, we could always transfer the call to someone with a degree in the matter, and the colored-cubicles helped us identify who those specialists were.
The fifth floor was divided into two different sections. One half of the floor was dedicated to the call center’s management, which included human resources, payroll, accounts payable, and things like that. The offices weren’t that big, but it was my understanding that the fifth-floor offices were just sub-divisions of Killian’s entire enterprise. There wasn’t a whole lot of administrative issues handled at this level. All that was handled at Birdwing’s head offices.
The second half of the floor was dedicated to Killian’s office, plus a small, private, loft-style apartment. It was rumored that all his offices had been designed with a mini-apartment because the man never not worked. Supposedly, he was always on the go, so it helped to have this luxury available to him whenever he needed it.
So, back to the care rooms. The care rooms were like meditation rooms with the option of violence. They were there for whenever someone needed some time to collect themselves. There were no windows, and they were also soundproof, so there was nothing stopping you from having a nervous breakdown in there. There was a lone chair in there, but the rooms also came equipped with a baseball bat, and random box crates that you could smash to pieces if you felt the need.
Very therapeutic.
“Because I just needed a moment,” I repeated. “I didn’t need to go downstairs.” I worked on the third floor, so the care rooms were just one floor below me.
“If that’s the case, then your eyes wouldn’t still be looking so troubled,” he argued. “You’re not a very good liar, Ms. Tinley. So, I’d advise against it.”
That had my jaw clenching. I was already having a bad day, so I didn’t need his judgements on top of that. “I’m not lying,” I semi-lied. “Maybe I don’t look troubled. Maybe I just look like crap.” He arched a dark brow at that. “Maybe I didn’t get any sleep last night and that’s why my eyes look less than sparkly.”
“Sparkly? Really?” he deadpanned.
“That’s not the point,” I bit out. “The point is that you don’t know anything about me. You have no idea what I look like when I’m genuinely troubled. You don’t know me well enough to judge if I can do my job or not. You have no right to be judge, jury, and executioner with me.”
