The Throwaway Year Read online

  Hayden moved quickly, dumping the trash and huffing under her breath. When these people left their cubicles for the night, they also left half eaten food and drinks on their desks and they left their chairs almost halfway out into the aisle. Well she wasn’t supposed to touch anything on anyone’s desk—even if it was a bunch of sticky napkins from where someone had made a half-hearted attempt to clean up a spill.

  It gave her a new appreciation for her own workstation at her fulltime job. Now she made double sure to keep the liner in place and to push her chair up to her desk at the end of the day. There were 26 cubicles in this office and it took a chunk of the night to get all of the chairs pushed up to their desks so that she could get to her vacuuming. Of the 26 cubicles, there were three that remained neat and she was grateful that some people had apparent home training.

  She hadn’t been the least bit curious about what they did here. She knew a boiler room when she saw one. They were a bunch of telemarketers. How many similar places had she dropped off or picked up MyKell from? Jobs like this had a high turn around so who cared if the carpet under your feet was stained, especially when the guy sitting next to you was probably living out of his car and hadn’t bathed in days? Telemarketing was a job of fast money and lots of… sitting.

  Contemplating her sore hamstrings, Hayden suddenly thought of a solution. She returned to the manager’s office that she had just cleaned. She tried reading the faded stenciling on the outside of the door but FOX, VINYL, and A S was all that she could make out. So she snooped around the messy desk only long enough to write down the phone number and name of the company.

  Cleaning this pigsty wasn’t worth the small amount of pay that she was getting. Maybe she would fare better working sales. MyKell had done it for years and she knew the ends and outs of it, though she’d never sold anything in her life. Yet if MyKell could do it, then she sure as hell could too. So the next day, Hayden called the owner of the company, Robert Fox. He gave her an impromptu interview over the phone.

  “You have a very pleasant phone voice Miss Michaels. I understand that you’ve never done sales before, but we have a script and I think you will do fine. If you like, you can begin tomorrow, and I see no reason why you wouldn’t be able to work later in the evening. After all, we have customers on the West coast. Miss Michaels, welcome aboard.”

  “Mr. Fox I have to give two weeks notice. Would it be a problem if I started after that?” She had considered just quitting her cleaning job with no notice but this place was just way too nasty not to make sure that the cleaning company found someone to replace her.

  There was a brief hesitation. “I think we can work with you on that.”

  “Thank you Mr. Fox.” Hayden hung up pleased as she did a mental calculation of how much she was sure to make at the higher paying position.

  ~***~

  Two weeks later, she was walking through the door of the same office complex that she had been cleaning for the last month and a half. However, this time, the office was a bustle with activity. She paused inside of the door as 19 sets of eyes met hers. 18 sets of eyes turned away, quickly dismissing her. She looked at the one person that hadn’t looked away. It was someone sitting at one of the tidy desks; one of the few people here with home training.

  Or… maybe not. He stared at her with dispassionate grey eyes as he talked on the phone, and the polite head nod that she was about to give him was quickly abandoned at his rude stare. Hayden headed to the back of the room where Mr. Fox’s office was located. She knocked on the door now understanding that the faded stenciling read: “FOX VINYL AND MAP ADS.”

  “Come,” said a gruff voice from inside, which sounded nothing like the polished man that she had spoken to over the phone two weeks before. Mr. Fox was holding an ink pen, which was poised over a document. His eyes swept over her body before settling on her face.

  “Hayden Michaels?” he asked. He was sixtyish, fit and not totally unpleasant to look at.

  She moved forward and offered her hand. “Yes. I’m Hayden Michaels.” He stood and accepted her hand. After a polite exchange of greetings he had her sit in a plastic chair before his desk. He spent the next half hour “training” her and then showed her to an empty desk out in the main room.

  Ah. It was the second neat desk in the room. No wonder… it was empty. She glanced over at the third neat desk and noted that it too was empty. Her faith in mankind once again diminished.

  “Pam will be your on-the-job coach. If you have any questions, just ask her, though it is very simple and I don’t think you will have any problems.”

  Hayden hid her doubts. That half hour discussion in his office wasn’t very much in the way of training. When she looked over at her OJ coach, whose workstation was right next to hers, she saw the little old bouffant lady from the other week. The woman appeared to be in her late fifties with painted on eyebrows and crimson lipstick. Yikes. Pam gave her the once over before plastering a fake smile on her thin wrinkled lips.

  She walked over to Hayden and offered her hand. Hayden accepted it, shaking it carefully as she was so thin that it felt like she had the bones of a little bird.

  “Aren’t you our cleaning lady?” Pam asked loudly. Mr. Fox raised his brow in surprise.

  Hayden found herself already disliking Pam. “Not anymore,” she responded.

  “Oh, I didn’t realize that you… um worked here before.” Mr. Fox interjected and Hayden wanted to say that it would have been on her application if he had asked her for one.

  “So you didn’t like it, huh?” Pam asked with a smirk. Hayden suddenly wished that she could skip this part too; where she was expected to be nice to people simply because they were her co-workers. Where she also had to politely listen to them share stories about their tedious lives.

  Hayden could feel her build up of tension suddenly disperse as she decided that there was absolutely no reason why she had to be that person. This was about getting to the money, and there was no time to expend on friendship, foolishness, or frivolity. So she gave Pam a neutral look.

  “I’m Hayden Michaels and I understand that you will be my… OJ coach? Mr. Fox gave me some information but I have some questions if you don’t mind?”

  Pam sniffed when it appeared that she couldn’t needle the new girl. “Oh… sure.” Mr. Fox left them to it, retreating back to his office. As soon as he was gone, Pam’s pleasant smile disappeared.

  “You can double jack with me and listen to how I do things. Just watch what I do. You and I will be working the back half of the Detroit phonebook. There’s a copy of last year’s on the floor over there.”

  Pam returned to her desk and pretty much disregarded Hayden as she went about making her next call. Hayden retrieved the phonebook from a messy pile on the floor. The pile contained phonebooks from different cities; Norfolk, Columbus and then she saw Detroit. She grabbed it, finally seeing the vinyl cover where she would sale ad space.

  It was covered front and back with ads for businesses, restaurants, hotels, etc. She noted that there was a clipboard hanging on the wall near Pam’s desk with a mock up of a phonebook cover. Looking around the room, she spotted other clipboards with their own mock-up phonebook covers for the cities that were being called by the other telemarketers. It clicked into place when she saw people periodically jump up to jot initials or check marks on them indicating which ad space had been sold on the covers for the cities that they were calling.

  Hayden opened the box that Mr. Fox had given her containing a new headset which she put together quickly before wheeling her chair to Pam’s workstation. Pam pointed to a place on her phone where Hayden could plug in to listen to the conversation; double jack. The older women didn’t offer her any explanation of what she was doing as she rapidly flitted around the script and fired amounts to her customers—amounts that were different than the ones listed in the script given to Hayden.

  When that call ended, Pam picked up her copy of the yellow pages that lay sprawled on her desk and sca
nned it without bothering to tell Hayden what she was looking for. Hayden knew from MyKell that this was called cold calling. When telemarketers don’t have a lead, they have to cold call.

  Pam began the process over, asking if the caller wanted to advertise on the vinyl phonebook cover and then discussing how much the ads would cost. If the customer seemed uninterested, she then chopped the price down, and if there still was no interest, Pam grumbled a half hearted goodbye and hung up. After about half an hour of this, she stood up and announced that she needed a cigarette.

  Pam didn’t invite Hayden to join her and just walked away to go to the canteen. Hayden was too busy jotting down notes to care. Once Pam was gone, it gave Hayden the freedom to pick up the woman’s order forms that were to go to the printers.

  It was just a mess of crossed out amounts and circled names and she could not make hide nor hair of it, so she disregarded it wondering if she might have actually been better off staying the cleaning woman. Then Hayden scanned through the training material that Mr. Fox had given her and found a list of ad sizes with price amounts. Based on what the board indicated, more than half of their cover had already been sold. She tuned to the other people in the room, listening to what they were doing, and in that way, Hayden began to teach herself how to sell advertisement space on a phonebook cover.

  ~Chapter 4~

  PRETTY GIRLS

  Todd was on the treadmill right next to her bike and he was pounding away at a full out run. Hayden had been pedaling for 30 minutes and he had not slowed his pace once. She had long since stopped equating Todd’s fitness with his muscle size. The man was a freaking rock!

  Wiry muscles lined his arms and he often times wore loose fitting shorts that did little to conceal thundering legs and a boulder butt. Long ago she had considered him to be an Average Joe that looked a little like that actor Adrien Brody—well Adrien Brody with a hyped up body. Not a bad combination in her opinion, but she now gave him much more credit in the looks department.

  However, Hayden’s appreciation of Todd’s looks was no indication of any type of romantic notion. Her trainer was quite obviously in love with his wife and her two sons from a previous relationship. Besides, the idea of love just made Hayden feel cold.

  After another five minutes of rapid pedaling, Hayden managed to throw him a scowl. “What are you doing, trying to show me up?”

  Todd gave her a sheepish look and slowed his run to a fast walk. “Sorry. I decided to do the Zombie Run this year. I haven’t jogged in a while and I need to get back into condition.”

  She snorted. “Back in condition?”

  “Well, runner’s condition.” He pressed stop on the treadmill and hopped off.

  “I was just kidding Todd. Don’t stop running,” she huffed breathlessly as she continued pedaling. “You’re giving me motivation to keep pushing it. Notice that I passed the thirty minute point?”

  He looked at the time on her bike and smiled. “Damn girl – you go!”

  She smiled proudly.

  “Ten more minutes and then you can stop.”

  “Wha-?”

  “You can do it, Hayden. That will put you at forty-five minutes.”

  She would throw up before she got to 45 minutes… but she didn’t. With pride, she climbed off the bike ten minutes later while Todd gave her a loud applause.

  “Hayden, do you realize that you can now ride a bike non-stop for twelve full miles?”

  Her hands were resting on her bent knees as she tried to find her breath. She watched fat drops of sweat hit the floor with a soft yet repetitive ping. She lifted her head to look at him, causing the rivulets of sweat to run down her neck. “What’s a Zombie Run?”

  “Come on; let’s walk before you tighten up.” As they made a circuit around the gym, Todd explained that each fall his fire department hosted a 50K marathon where the participants dressed as zombies.

  “Fifty K?”

  “That’s just over thirty-one miles.” His head snapped back around to her. “You know what Hayden, you should join it.”

  She made a rude noise with her mouth.

  “No, seriously. You just did twelve miles without stopping.”

  “But I was riding a bike-”

  “It doesn’t matter. It’s still cardio.”

  She gave him a doubtful look. “I don’t think I can run for thirty-one miles.”

  “Not even if zombies were chasing you?”

  She smiled.

  Todd stopped walking and gave her a serious look. “Hayden… I don’t mean to pry but… well; you don’t seem to take much pride in your accomplishments.” Hayden’s mouth opened to protest, but Todd stopped her. “I know you’re working hard and really pushing yourself, but do you realize the great strides that you’ve made in the last two months?”

  She looked at him with confusion. “I’m still shaped exactly the same, even if I have lost a couple of pounds.”

  He shook his head. “You’re a work in progress, but you’re not the same. You can do forty-five minutes of cardio, and that’s nothing to sneeze at. Look, I would never suggest you do something that I knew you couldn’t. I believe that I can get you in condition to run a fifty K.”

  She considered his words and thought about how she could now walk up the four flights of stairs to her job each morning without breathing hard. Also, how she had tightened the drawstring on her workout pants to keep them from dropping down her smaller hips.

  “Okay,” she said slowly. The idea of running a marathon—hell just running in general, scared her, but… “Yeah, I’ll try it.”

  He smiled and clapped her on her shoulder. “Awesome. We’ll start training at our next session.”

  Hayden dragged ass into her second job later that evening, grateful that she would be sitting for the next four hours. This was her third day as a Telemarketer and she had yet to sell one ad. Yet at least she now understood some things better. The entire room was split into sales teams; hers seeming to be a band of misfits that all of the other teams had probably rejected like the kids in school that no one picked to be on their dodge ball team.

  They consisted of Pam, who hadn’t said more then ten words to her all week. She smoked in excess and Hayden was happy that there was a policy that all smoking had to be done in the canteen, which meant that Pam had to leave the area every half an hour to feed her nicotine addiction. Next on her team was the rude guy with the neat desk.

  From what Hayden could make out, his name was Brian, although Pam was the only one who had called him by his name. Pam had actually said “Brine” like he was something she soaked a turkey in. This was Covington, Kentucky though, so the room was filled with varying forms of countrified and Mid-Western dialects.

  Then there was Marcus, an older Black man that smoked weed in his car during his breaks and lunch. He would always give himself away by returning with red eyes and singing doo-wop songs, or blasting jokes that made no sense. Last was Abdullah, who was of some unidentifiable race and who had an unidentifiable accent. He complained all the time and smelled funny.

  Well, she was sure that they had some equally unappealing thoughts about her; the new hire… you know the pig-faced Black lady with freckles. Or maybe they laughed at her fruitless attempts to make a sale, stumbling over her words and getting hung up on while she was in the middle of a sentence. It didn’t matter what anyone else thought though. She had decided that she would keep to herself during her four-hour shift and had made no attempts to be friendly with anyone here. This was a throwaway year and nothing that happened during it would mean anything except getting right with herself.

  She placed her purse into her desk drawer before noticing that all of the sales had been removed from the mock up cover on her team’s clipboard. She glanced at the open phonebook on Pam’s desk. As usual Pam was off in the canteen smoking and drinking coffee. They had apparently finished Detroit and were now working Kansas City. Someone had placed a new phonebook on her uncluttered desk and she smiled. Yes, a fresh
start with a new book!

  Hayden stiffened her resolve as she sat down and studied her copy of the yellow pages sheathed in the previous years vinyl cover. She was going to make a sale if it killed her because there was no way that she would allow Pam to out sale her with her hacker’s cough that marked the end of nearly every one of her sentences. Besides, no one was following the stupid script that she had been given, so why should she?

  Hayden looked at the ads that had previously sold coming up with a great idea. She would start calling them. They had already purchased, right? Chances were they would be interested again, and at the very least they would be an easy sale.

  There was a 5x9 ad that took up a huge amount of space on the back cover. She would get 30% commission from each sale… that would net her $156 for selling just that one ad. Hayden picked up her telephone, checking the time difference and decided that it wasn’t too late to call these businesses.

  “Hello, this is Hayden Michaels of Fox Vinyl and Map Ads. May I speak to the person in charge of your advertisements?”

  The man who answered indicated he was in charge of marketing and advertisement. Hayden explained that his automotive company had advertised on the city’s vinyl phonebook cover the year before and she was interested in whether he would like to advertise again.

  “Is this with the Chamber of Commerce?”

  “Uh… no,” she responded.

  “Well, we’re working with the Chamber this year-”

  “Oh well you know Fox Vinyl has exclusive access to vinyl covers in your area. Anyone who scans the phonebook looking for automotive repairs will see your glossy ad right there before they even open the book.”

  “Well…”

  “Also, you have one of the better spots on the cover which we did save for your company. We just began our new campaign and I would hate to see it go to one of your competitors.” Hayden held her breath and crossed her fingers… and toes. Please, please, please…