NOVEL EXCERPT: ABSOLUTE ANHEDONIA
This is an excerpt from the novel ABSOLUTE ANHEDONIA.
***
Jeff Winters thought about how meaningless life was. As he was waking up one morning, his eyes focused on the white ceiling above; it occurred to him that the meaning of life was no different than the ceiling. The life of the average human being is full of nonsense, he thought. We fill our days with the most useless things, and complicate what is the equivalent of this blank ceiling. What do we do when everything is peaceful? We make stuff up where there was just nothing so we have stuff to do all over again.
Expiration dates that aren’t accurate to get people to spend more money, laws that are archaic or make no sense and are broken everyday anyway, presidents that pretend to be leaders but give speeches written by other people, people that are allowed to vote for presidents despite knowing nothing at all, people being allowed to have kids despite being kids themselves, art that is created by people who focus on how much money they can earn from it instead of tending to the work itself, people that support mediocrity, celebrities that offend people and then conveniently make sincere apologies half an hour later claiming to see the folly of their ways....The world is doomed......it makes my head hurt and it’s only the beginning of the day.
Despite this view, Jeff got out of bed. What bothered him the most, even more than the lack of meaning in the world, was the fact that he was forced to participate in it. Jeff was no different than the lackluster people he hated, made no attempt to change this, and knew it on an intellectual level.
He sometimes fantasized there was a choice for certain people to opt-out of the absurdity of life without having to do anything as drastic as suicide. It would be a simple thing as easy as moving to another country, and the only people allowed to go there would be the people who figured out life was a flawed joke.
He saw suicide as an inappropriate response to how he felt; an act that symbolized being completely poisoned by the world. Jeff didn’t feel he was that far gone yet. To him, killing yourself was just as absurd as life. He was depressed, but not unintelligently. His lack of enthusiasm in the world applied to his views on killing himself: even suicide itself was a boring answer.
So he was stuck. He was alive, but barely. Having only completed a Bachelor’s Degree after high school, he was considered “underqualified” by most employers. He spent his days Googling, “what can I do with a Bachelor of Arts degree,” and his nights working at any jobs he could get his hands on that nobody else wanted. The most current of these entry-level time wasters being a “Customer Service Rep” at a call center for minimum wage, perfectly mirroring his constant feeling of Absolute Anhedonia.
For eight hours a night Jeff found himself in the dull position of calling customers of banks at the various numbers they had given their local branches. This included cell phones, home numbers, and even the old numbers of estranged parents and grandparents. The office cubicle Jeff worked at everyday could have been in black and white and he wouldn’t even have noticed the difference. He kept his head down and called all the people he was told to.
There were long stretches of time in which no one answered. The tone of repetitive dialling for hours at a time was enough to send Jeff to sleep on multiple occasions.
“HELLO,” an old woman answered.
“Y-. Yes, hello?” Jeff woke up, only half remembering he was at work.
“HELLO?”
“Hi, may I speak with Gladys Saint?” Jeff barely read her name from the computer in time.
“You’re speaking to her!”
“Hello Gladys, my name is Jeff. I’m calling from Nottingham Associates, on behalf of your bank, and we are conducting an interview on customer satisfaction based on your last visit at your local branch.”
“Well you’re calling at a terrible time! I’m not too happy with you guys right now!!”
Neither am I, lady, he wanted to say.
“Oh, I’m very sorry to hear that Gladys. Your feedback is greatly appreciated and if you have a moment of time, you can tell me all about your concerns.”
“Okay, fine. Go ahead.”
“Thank you. Please be advised: this call and interview will be recorded for quality control and training purposes. For the remainder of the interview I would like you to think about your most recent branch visit.”
“Well, the other day I went to your bank. I think it was Tuesday. It might have been Monday, actually. No, I think it was Tuesday. I remember because I was going to see a movie afterward and it was the half price day, and I don’t like to leave the house on separate days because it’s a waste of bus fare when I can just do two things in one day. Anyway, on Tuesday I went to the branch and not only was the teller unfriendly, I was very disappointed to learn that you guys have stopped making the paper copy of all the transactions. I have to do it online now and I don’t have a computer.”
“Oh, I see. You mentioned the teller was unfriendly? I’m required to ask: are there any examples you can give of the teller’s unfriendliness, or anything you’d like to add to that part of your statement? I’d like to remind you that I’m typing all of this as you speak, so if you could please speak a little slower I’d really appreciate it.”
“Well, it wasn’t so much that she was unfriendly, it was just that.....well you know, I’m 87, and so I have a hard time hearing people sometimes. And this branch I notice hires a lot of the Oriental people, you know?”
“I see. And what about the Orien-....what about the teller was the problem?”
“Well they don’t all speak properly. I don’t want to be prejudiced, because they’re not all like that, but this girl was very rude and couldn’t speak properly.”
“I see.”
“And there used to be other tellers that are no longer there anymore, I hate that they keep getting switched all the time. Just when you get to know one they’re gone. There was a coloured girl in there I met just last week, had a friendly disposition. Real friendly like. Reminded me of my daughter in a way. But she’s gone now. Every time you get to know a person at that bank they always disappear.”
“I see.”
“And then the news about the booklets no longer being offered really upset me. I think you guys should keep making them, it’s really sad. I mean, I even requested to see the bank manager, but he wasn’t there.”
Lady, Jeff thought about telling her, you’re a speck of dust to this bank, do you really think they care about you? If they really cared about the customers they’d ask the people calling them what the main complaints are every once in awhile. But they never ask me. They don’t ask any of my co-workers. We never have to file reports or anything on what you say....they just pay us to talk to you so you have the illusion that something is being done and someone somewhere cares. The bank manager probably WAS there in one of the back rooms, but he heard what the problem was and it wasn’t worth interrupting his yacht shopping for your crap. No one knows you exist except for me, and that’s only for the time being. As soon as this call is done you’ll exit my brain. Life has way less meaning than you think it does.
“Oh, I see. Well, Gladys, thank you so much for your feedback. I’ve recorded your statements today, and will pass them along to your local branch. A bank employee will be in touch with you in the next two to three weeks. Thank you for your time today.”
“Hey, wait, what did you say your name was aga-”
He hung up the phone. When he first started working there, he remembered there being some kind of rule in a contract he had to sign about having to wait for the customer to hang up the phone first. Something about, “reflecting positively on behalf of the banks we call for,” or, something, something “etiquette,” or something. But he didn’t care anymore. Around month six or seven on the job, he noticed that the elderly and lonelier customers liked to use the calls as a free therapy session. He learned that the call center employed about 200 people - on his floor alone, in a building of about 28 floors - and not only did his bosses not have enough time to listen to every single call to enforce this rule, they simply didn’t care. What they did do was randomly select an employee out of a list of employees each night of the week, and listen to all of their calls for their entire shift that night. And the employees that made the list to be monitored were usually people that were already known fuck ups anyway. The types that would snort coke in bathrooms on their breaks, and come back to work talking too fastly on the phone. The chances Jeff would get in trouble were slim; he remained relatively anonymous, choosing to keep his nose to the ground. He only quietly said hello to the office extroverts when necessary. It was only recently he began liberally hanging up on customers.
As Jeff continued dialling, he felt himself drifting to sleep again very quickly. It was one of those shifts nobody answered their phones, and if they did, they just didn’t want to do Jeff’s meaningless survey.
“Sorry, we don’t accept telemarketing calls at this household.”
“Sir, I’m not a telemarketer, I’m a market researcher. We’re just looking for general feedback on your most recent branch experience. Hello? Hello?”
As Jeff slept to the soundtrack of a constantly dialling phone, he began to have his recurring dream where he was in the middle of a weird kind of AA meeting. There was the usual flickering fluorescent lighting, and people sitting in a circle.
“Hello, my name is Gregory and I suffer from Absolute Anhedonia.”
“Hi Gregory,” the group responded dully.
“For as long as I can remember I’ve been completely unable to feel joy from anything. And I’ve tried it all. Nothing works for me. I’ve been down a million rabbit holes and they all lead to the same goddamn feeling. Nothing. I’ve tried drugs as intense as heroin, hardcore sex that requires you to do grocery shopping first.....you name it.”
The circle of people laughed lightly.
“You know,” Gregory continued, “It’s funny. We’re all here because we suffer from this disease, and yet you guys just courtesy laughed for me. We can’t feel and yet we still pretend we do. Why do we do that to ourselves? Sometimes I can’t decide if the pretending is worse, or having the disease is.”
Gregory sat down, and then suddenly, it was Jeff’s turn to share. He saw himself standing up and addressing everyone in the circle.
“Hi, my name’s Jeff and I suffer from Absolute Anhedonia.”
“Hi Jeff,” everyone responded, again sounding like zombies.
“I’m not sure when this started. I was never like this as a kid, I actually had a pretty normal childhood. Wasn’t molested or anything like that beyond just the average playing doctor with neighborhood kids. I guess it just slowly started to happen. And then one day I found myself asking, ‘Why are you alive?’ I work for money, and money buys shit. Essential things to live, obviously, like food. But what if food and lodging was free? Would I still work? Definitely not. So what the fuck am I doing with my life? Why am I wasting my life with things that don’t mean anything to me? I’m always wondering if there’s some kind of better way to live out there....”
Jeff felt a stiff finger poking him in the back and he woke up immediately. He turned around and was greeted with a face it took him a moment to register as being one of his bosses, Gregory. He could feel his brain slowly adjusting to reality, and aligning Gregory in the proper category of, “Not in my dream anymore.” Before he was 100% sober with reality, Gregory told him, “Jeff, I’d like to speak to you in my office when you get a chance,” and quickly walked away. Jeff stopped dialling and put his headset on his desk. This wasn’t going to be good.
“Do you understand the consequences of your actions, Jeff?”
That’s a good question. I’ve never really had it phrased to me that way before. Can I get back to you on that?
“Yes, I do.”
“Do you realize the impact you’re having on the company?”
“Yes.”
“Jeff, when you hang up the phone on customers first it gives the customer the impression that you didn’t value their feedback. You could have the best interview in the world, with a customer that gives positive feedback, but if you hang up the phone on them first that could change their whole opinion on the bank.”
“I see,” Jeff replied, accidentally using the same phrase from the script of stock responses he was given to refer to when he ran out of consoling things to say.
“Jeff. Nottingham Associates has been one of the best market research groups since 1972. Do you know why that is?”
“Why is that?”
“Jeff....that was a test. You should know why!”
“Oh, I see. Sorry.”
“It’s because we show the customers we care. ‘Customers’ meaning not just the people you’re calling, but the banks we sell the research we’ve acquired to. Don’t you care about showing the bank managers you care about their customers?”
Not really. When you say ‘bank managers’ I think of a guy that looks like Michael Douglas and start hoping he dies of AIDS on his next vacation.
“Yes, I do. I’m sorry.”
“Okay, that’s good to hear Jeff. You’re one of our top Customer Service Representatives: please don’t change that.”
“Okay.”
As Jeff made his way back to his desk he heard Gregory’s voice.
“Oh, and Jeff?”
He turned around to face Gregory, despite not wanting to.
“You can go home early tonight.”
***
ABSOLUTE ANHEDONIA is available for purchase here.
