Around the turn of the century (I’ve decided to call the time period between 1999-2001 the turn of the century), I worked in customer service. The job was thankless but I met a bunch of great people — BFK, Al, the cutest girl on Earth™, and Michelle. We had a lot of fun.
But it was a big group and we had a coworker we particularly didn’t like. We’ve all had them. This particular coworker was short and kind of squat. She had the yellowy hair you get when you use peroxide to go blonde instead of something classy like Nice & Easy. She was fond of stirrup pants, smoking, and making other people feel bad about themselves. Even though our job was to take orders for software, she would often take her calls to, well, the next level. Or some level. I’m not even sure what that level would be called. This coworker would often get gifts from the people she took calls from. And not nice thank yous or anything like that, people who called to order software would send her flowers or Victoria’s Secret gift cards. No lie. This happened more than once.
I’m not sure what kind of customer service you have to deliver to get that kind of stuff. I do know that I didn’t deliver that kind of service because no customer ever sent me anything. I’m okay with that.
All these things weren’t even the worst thing about her. The worst thing about her is that she liked to smoke. A lot. Which is fine and dandy, but when she would walk to the back of the building where the smokers went she would whistle. Yes, whistle. And she’d always whistle “Yellow Submarine.” She was a loud whistler, and no matter where you were in the office you could hear her. Without fail you’d find yourself singing “Yellow Submarine” within minutes of her passing by. It was awful.
Right around now, I wish I still worked with her. This way I could con one of the tech doofs to rig up her computer so that whenever she moved her mouse the “Give me back that Filet O’Fish” jingle would pour from her speakers. And if there is any justice in this world, she spends most of March with that fucking jingle stuck in her head. If there’s any truth about energy and juju and vibes and what not, every time that song gets stuck in my head I send it zinging through the universe to her, wherever she might be now.
This post is particularly amusing to me, because yesterday while out shopping for a bedding set for my daughter (she’s 17 and is moving into her older brother’s now-vacant room), ShopKo had a whole assload of those “Bigmouth Billy Bass” fish on the clearance aisle, only they weren’t bass, they were some other kind of fish and when you pressed the button to make them do their little singing routine they sang that goddamned filet-o-fish song.
My daughter’s friend pressed ALL of their buttons as fast as she could, so it was like the Mormon Tabernacle Cod Choir singing about filets-o-fish and now a whole day later the song is STILL stuck in my head and what an odd coincidence that I would read this post right now.
Also I am now super-tempted to go back to ShopKo and buy one and send it to you.