Donna

Chapter 2: The Office

Within four days Donna had landed a job at a company that made deck furniture. Her boss was a large blond man in an enormous green suit named Chuck. An American, ugh.
"You'll be cataloging insurance claims," he boomed, showing her to her cubicle, a dingy little thing, pressed up against a windowless wall. "It's an important job. People do tend to get a bit fired up when their deck chair collapses. So you'll be taking a lot of yelling, but you can take that, aye, Dana? Alright, then, I'll let you get started. Er, someone will be along to, um, you know...brief you. Well, carry on, as the Brits say!"
Donna waited until he had rounded the cubicle, and then let it loose.
"Yeah, right, pork-pie!" she complained loudly. "Well, this is just wizard. They had better pay me my weight in gold for this job." She threw her cardboard box of trinkets and folders onto the desk and began to unpack. She placed her toy cactus on the unstable grey plastic shelf, and her jar of pens next to the chunky grey computer.
The man that came along to "brief" her was a tall man with a grey tie called Carl. He gave her a friendly smile and then helped her to boot up her computer.
"Well then, Donna, your job's pretty simple. The phone rings, you pick it up. People complain, you catalog it in the computer. I'll show you how that works, and here's your script. See, you say, 'Hello, this is Donna from Watson Outdoor Furniture. How can I help you?'"
Carl handed her a packet of protocols and then logged on to the data base.
"You log their name, number, time the call came in, and whatever was wrong. Most often they want their money back. When that happens, you just field the call, send it over to Becky, in the insurance office. I'll give you that number."
He smiled. Donna smiled back.
"So, call me if you need anything," Carl said, handing Donna a sticky note with his number written on it. With a small wave, he vanished into the sea of cubicles, leaving Donna alone with the protocol packet and the toy cactus. She waved goodbye. Carl the deck chair man was lovely, she decided, and sat down on her padded grey rolling chair.
The phone started ringing at 10:00.
"...Hello!" Donna said, after waiting a few stunned rings to pick it up. "Erm, this is Donna. From Watson Deck Furniture. How can I help you?"