Nightshift II
Climbing the Corporate Ladder
"Jasper Whitlock," choked the wan silver-rooted brunette from the doorway of an office marked Human Resources.
Human resources. The irony wasn't lost on Jasper as he ambled across the lobby to her door. He didn't get a chance to turn on his vampire charms or his "powers of persuasion" before the woman started assessing his merits or lack thereof.
"Do you always move so slowly, Whitlock? I hope you type faster than you walk. It will do you to remember that personal breaks are logged from the last key stroke of the previous transaction to the first key stroke of the next. You'll want to pick up your pace if you expect to make it through your probationary period."
Getting jobs in the call center, taking reservations, complaints and inquiries, was Alice's idea. She thought it would be fun to be an adult who didn't have a curfew and carried the ID of someone who could legally get into a bar. Their parents and Rosalie weren't enthusiastic.
"Call me when you need a date to the company Christmas party," Rosalie said to Emmett, kissing him goodbye the morning he reported for orientation. Rosalie refused to participate; she found the whole idea abhorrent and elected to give an engine rebuild her exclusive attention for the time being.
Jasper tugged at his collared shirt and tie. He wished that he too had deferred the gratification Alice claimed would come from having jobs like these. Taking a last look at the family members seated behind him, Jasper entered the office and started to pull the door closed.
"Leave it open." The woman seated herself behind a cluttered desk. When Jasper didn't sit down too, she barked, "Need an invitation for the obvious?" and wrote 'lacks initiative' on the form in front of her.
What was obvious to Jasper was that Mrs. Cope (Jasper had taken the initiative to read the nameplate on the desk) was not a people person. Or maybe she didn't like people from Texas.
"You'll have to work on that accent, Whitlock. Customers don't want to hear any hint of an accent or they will think you're overseas or you are an illegal from Mexico."
Jasper assumed the woman wasn't concerned about his Spanish. He nodded, wondering what the customers would think about interacting with a vampire.
"We've found that agents who talk funny get twice the number of customer complaints. When you don't have calls, work on that. There's a program on your assigned computer."
By the time the other Cullen vampires, Alice Brandon, Emmett Hale and Edward Masen, had filtered through Mrs. Cope's office, it had become apparent that she didn't like anybody and had found serious defects in each of her new employees. She deemed Alice 'flighty' and Emmett a misogynist (She did catch him looking at her chest.), while Edward was judged 'most likely to tell a customer to screw themselves'. So much for supernatural powers.
Several new hires emerged from Mrs. Cope's office with eager butt-kisser smiles. Imagining them wagging and salivating on the floor was easy. When the mandatory training session got underway, the same people placed themselves in the front of the room and vied for the title of 'most likely to take it up the ass'.
The Cullens collected in the back two rows, pretending to be total strangers who were meeting for the very first time. Alice, Emmett and Jasper imitated the introductory conversations that were taking place in the room. Edward, typically, was keeping his own counsel and pretended to peruse his employment packet.
"You should pay more attention," said a lanky blonde who was passing out handouts when she noticed Alice doodling on the company handbook.
"What was that? I can't hear you?" Alice repeated until the girl was shouting her advisement.
"You really should move closer to the front if you can't hear."
Alice didn't respond, but instead turned to glare at Emmett threw a wad of paper. Jasper gave Emmett a thumbs up and laughed.
"Children," Alice observed, giving the blonde a sweet smile and the rolling eye. "I suppose you'll be compelled to report our lack of concern." Normally, Alice would have been extraordinarily nice to the human, but Jasper was sending out sex vibes and Alice wasn't sure what was behind that effort or what the outcome might be.
Finally, the blonde looked toward Edward. She had been looking for an excuse to talk to him all along and was pissed that her exchange with Alice had diverted her attention from the supply closet fantasy she intended to share with Edward. The poor girl didn't realize that developmentally, Edward was stuck in the girls-are-icky stage and was far less tolerant of human flirtation than either Jasper or Emmett.
"I'm Lauren Mallory," the girl told Edward. "There is a seat up front for someone who realizes that this isn't high school."
Without tilting his head, Edward looked up from his papers and vanquished the girl with a murderous scowl. She jumped back involuntarily, dropping handouts as she did, and fled without bothering to collect the paper from the floor.
When Mrs. Cope introduced herself and several ranking members of the company staff, she noted that only fifty percent of the new hires would survive their probationary period.
"So build your workplace associations carefully. Form alliances with long-term employees and seek mentors." Blah. Blah. Blah. "Chose friends wisely."
In a show of unity, the Cullens all pretended to sleep through the orientation video.
Mrs. Cope didn't notice; she really was sleeping.
After a couple of weeks, it became apparent to Mrs. Cope and the floor supervisors that the new hires working the midnight shift were excellent employees. They not only handled their quota of calls, but they did not take smoke or bathroom breaks.
The company had a strict policy limiting personal breaks, so the Cullens, who never sat foot in a company lavatory, received superior performance reviews and were given a measly fifty-cents an hour raise in reward. Even the butt-kissing Lauren and her new boyfriend, Mike Newton, who moved to the nightshift so they could do make-out in the copy room, didn't get raises.
Receiving company atta-boys should have made the Cullens pariahs, but most of the other employees on mids were college students, who attended classes during the day and had little time for developing an overt interest in the new workers. In fact, no one paid any attention to their common features; people assumed that the pale skin and yellowed eyes were artificial just like the facial piercings and tattoos the scenesters wore.
Nonetheless, the Cullens were once again the aloof outsiders in the school cafeteria.
A/N: The wonderful world of Twilight and all its inhabitants belong to the amazing Stephenie Meyer. Copyright infringement not intended.
This was written weeks before the commercial for that new tv comedy about a call center began to air. I know absolutely nothing about that.
BTW, if you want to read the drabble that inspired this bit of crac fic, it is posted under El Diablo Doesn't Wear Pantyhose (prompt #16)
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