Esquizophonia

The Call Center

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"Hello?!"

"Is this Mr. Vitor Scaglia?" asked the sexy voice on the other end of the line.

"Yes, it is, but no one has ever called me 'mister' before..."

"I have a very interesting proposal for..."

"Is this Fran?"

"What?"

"Francieli? That girl from the bar yesterday? I didn't think I gave you my phone number."

"No, sir..."

The voice changed. The girl's discomfort was now noticeable: "This is Microlinhas. We are offering you a computer course with a 50% discount."

"Ah!..." Now it was me who was visibly uncomfortable. "I'm not interested. I hate computers."

"Alright."

The girl hung up on me — she must have been embarrassed by the Francieli talk.

I didn't expect the call to be from a call center, especially since back then, in early 2001, I didn't even know what that was.

Nowadays, almost everyone has a cell phone. It has become ubiquitous, as common as leg warmers or shoulder pads on jackets in the 80s. You can access the Internet, talk on WhatsApp, have GPS, all on the same device. But in those days, although this little gadget was already popular with many people, not everyone had one, and it only served three purposes: making calls, sending text messages (and not all of them had this option), and playing Snake.

A friend of mine practically maxed out this game on my cell phone. The snake's head only hit its own tail when there was no more space for it to grow. I think that was about eighteen hundred points. I told everyone the record was mine, when in fact it was another guy's.

In the old days, when there were only landlines, people had to call to find you at home. If they didn't find you, they'd call again... and again... and again... until they reached you. But what was the problem? Today, it doesn't matter if you're buying batteries for the TV remote or taking a dump in a public bathroom, they'll find you anyway, almost like we're living in an old sci-fi movie where people have trackers implanted in their necks in the 21st century. The difference is that, although we are indeed living in the early 21st century, the trackers are in our pockets.

I remember when my dad came home with a cell phone for the first time, around 1995. It looked like a brick, the size of a forearm, and if it hit someone's head it could do some serious damage — but the truth is, that thing barely worked, it had terrible static and would lose the signal if you farted too close to the antenna. But anyway, it was a cell phone, it was fancy, it gave you status and made you seem important.

No one imagined that a few years later, this little gadget would become a global craze, with various types, models, and functions, and that no one would be able to hide from it. I try, but I can't say I don't have one.

Back then, I had bought a used one from a classmate in prep school. I hadn't passed any college entrance exams and lived my life between unemployment benefits. Honestly, I never cared for these mobile phones, but how could I live without my cell phone? It has Monopoly, man! I can play Monopoly whenever I want.

But back to my story, still at the beginning of that same year, I accepted one of the worst jobs of my life. Yeah... I ended up working at a call center, but you've probably worked at one or know someone who has.

It was a dirty job, but someone had to do it.

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