The Mindful Migraine

Carey shook hands with the call center’s floor manager and then tucked her hand back into her jacket pocket, trying to hide the fact that she was wiping his sweat off her fingers.  She followed Mr Abaddon’s skinny shoulders and wide hips towards her new cubicle, bemused by his strange body shape, whilst reminding herself to be less judgmental… more mindful.  Mr Abaddon explained politely that his branch-office was very similar to the one she’d worked for previously, “but,” and here he lit up, “there are a couple of improvements that I’ve implemented.”

Carey put her bag under her new table and leaned onto the dividing screen.  A moment later, she realized that looked lazy, so she stood up straight and pushed her shoulders back in her version of a shy person’s power pose.

“That swirly logo on the bottom right of the screen,” Mr Abaddon said as he pointed at her new computer monitor, “that’s like the other office.”

“It’s recording how much my mouse moves,” Carey nodded.

“Exactly,” Mr Abaddon said, “we learnt the hard way from the ‘work from home era’ that people never really work when they’re at home… and then when they all came back to work… well… you know… old habits die hard.”

“The logo changes color if you slow down,” Carey shrugged, “I remember.”

“Sure… but see that other swirly logo, top center?”

Carey leaned a bit closer and said, “yep… I mean, yes Sir.”

“That’s monitoring your eyeballs… so you can’t just sit there with your eyes shut and move your hand-on-mouse around…”

Carey laughed a nervous snort-laugh, and then after a long pause, “it can’t hurt my eyes can it… or steal my identity?”

It was the manager’s turn to laugh, “no, no… it doesn’t record what it’s seeing… AI just alerts the system if it loses sight of your eyeballs.  It’s a lot like those cameras the police use to detect if you’re using your mobile phone in your car, or not wearing your seatbelt.”

“Ok,” Carey replied.  This news didn’t worry her too much; she couldn’t really imagine herself sitting in the middle of the office moving her mouse around with her eyes shut.

“Great,” Mr Abaddon said, “so the only other thing that’s probably different to your last job is that there are financial incentives tied to the color of the movement spinners.”

“Meaning?”

“So, the mouse-spinner was designed to go from yellow to orange to red to show if you’re slowing down… but here, both spinners change color, and the time that you spend in the red is tallied up and recorded.”

“And if it’s low you get a bonus?”

“Ah no… whatever the amount of red-time you have is deducted from your pay at the end of the week.”

Carey stared at the little red-colored swirly logo at the bottom of the screen and tried to figure out what you were supposed to do when you went to the toilet, or took a lunch break.

As if he read her mind, Mr Abaddon said, “my advice is,” and he leant over to whisper to her, “you go to the toilet before your shift starts, and do your best to eat at your desk… like everyone else,” and he swept his hand across the room.

Carey looked around and saw everyone sitting bolt upright, staring straight ahead at their computer, and yes, there were noodle-tubs and bento-boxes all over the place, sometimes piled several boxes high on one table, as if the staff member was going to grind for the next 10 hours straight.

“So,” the manager said, “toilets and tea-room are at the end of the floor… over there…”

Carey winced as she calculated how much time it would take her to get there and back again, and wondered if there was a way she could get a seat closer to…

“…that end of the floor is where the senior members of staff sit… play your cards right and who knows… one day…”

Mr Abaddon gave Carey a pat on the back which might have meant, “sorry and good luck” or “hurry up and get to it,” Carey couldn’t be certain.  He turned to go, and then at the last second, turned back and said, “gosh I nearly forgot!  There’s one other thing we’re trialing.”

“Yup,” Carey sighed, crossing her fingers in her jacket pocket.

“See the headsets that everyone is wearing?”

Carey nodded.  They looked like the headsets in every call-center everywhere.

“Can you also see the light on the side, above the earmuffs, about halfway up the strap?”

Carey nodded again.

“Great.  Well, those change color too.”

“What are they measuring?” Carey wondered out loud.

“How busy your brain is.”

“What?”

“Well, you see, we realized that many staff members were coming in here to work, and sure, they were keeping their eyes open and moving their mouses… making their calls and doing their thing… but… they weren’t really focused.”

“Focused?”

“Yeah… we got the feeling some people were daydreaming more than they were working for our benefit, so we installed these little chips on the side of the headsets that touch your temples.  ‘Mind-readers’ we like to call them.”

“You read our minds?”

“Not really… we’re not that advanced… yet… although; I would love to know what everyone thinks of me!” Mr Abaddon laughed loudly for a long time, and then said, “it’s more brain waves we’re measuring… checking whether you are cognitively engaged with the task at hand.”

“Engaged…” Carey said, and she moved her hands around in her jacket pockets, rubbing her fingers against each other, feeling the bare flesh of her left hand where the ring used to be.

“Exactly.  So as long as you stay cognitively engaged, the light stays yellow; that’s great.”

“And if it turns orange or red?”

“Well, orange is ok, you’ll just get a little buzz in your temple to tell you to wake up.”

“Buzz?”

“It’s not an electric shock or anything dramatic, it’s just some science-y way of jerking you out of your semi-slumber,” he smiled at her facial expression, “don’t stress; they tell me it doesn’t hurt… much,” and he laughed again.  “Anyway,” he continued, “if it turns red…”

Carey felt herself slump against the screen that divided her space from her neighbor.

“…management gets an alert… like a red flag.  Three red flags and you’re out.”

“Not just docked pay?”

“No, no, no… it’s much more serious if your mind’s not on the job.”

Carey stared at Mr Abaddon for a long time.  A mental image of her friend Jim popped into her mind.  They’d worked together at the last call-center.  He’d lost his job because he got migraines, and the system had no sympathy for ‘slackers’.  She stood up straight again and asked, “what if I have the flu, or I had a bad night last night… or I get a migraine?”

“You get migraines?” Mr Abaddon asked as he tipped his head to one side.  It was as if this was not good news and bad news rarely slipped by him.  He seemed genuinely surprised.

“No,” Carey shook her head, “but what if I did?  Your approach doesn’t seem very… empathetic.  Everyone gets a bit of brain-fog sometimes.”

“Not at work they don’t.  Not at this place of work anyway,” and he waved his hand across the floor, “look at all those sparkling lights… gold and amber, not a ruby in sight…”

He stopped, and Carey saw it too; a red light about three cubicles over.  She wondered if this was his first or last strike and held her breath to see if someone would whisper in his ear or drag him out backwards by his feet.

Neither happened.  The young man grabbed his can of soda, took an enormous swig, shook his head violently form side to side and sighed as his light turned orange.

“You see,” Mr Abaddon smirked, “golden amber as far as the eye can see,” he patted her on the back again, and left her with; “welcome to the team, I hope you enjoy your stay.”

Carey went to the bathroom, splashed water across her face, and bought a drink from the vending machine.  She had a sandwich in her bag and a packet of crisps, which would have to last her the whole day.  There was no way she was going out to buy food.  She couldn’t even remember if there were any fast-food places within sprinting distance.

She sat down at her computer, fired it up and put on her headset.  Within seconds, the calls commenced, and she could see in the reflection of her monitor that her headlight was golden.

By midmorning, she had finished her drink and her crisps.  The calls she had taken had been beyond mundane.  The food kept her vigilant and ‘on yellow’.  Only once, when an elderly man was complaining about the increased cost of his insurance policy, did her mind drift to reconsider poor Jim’s plight.  How were people with disabilities supposed to make it in this impatient world?  A moment later, her light turned orange.

She double-clapped herself on her cheeks to wake up and get focused, and in that instant, she recognized that this cheek-slapping sound had been with her all morning, everywhere throughout the room.  Carey glanced to her side and met the eyes of the woman opposite her. 

“Mandy,” the lady said as she cupped her hand over the microphone attached to her headset.

“Carey.”

By early afternoon, Carey realized she really had to go to the bathroom.  She briefly imagined asking her friend to move her mouse around for her, but remembered that her eyeballs would still be missing.

“Damn it,” Carey said as she stood up and walked as fast as she could towards the bathrooms at the end of the floor without wanting to look like a pant-wetting-toddler.  Within minutes, she was back at her desk, another can of soda beside her.  It was a mixed blessing she realized; the sugary-liquid sparked her up, but the sugary-liquid would drive her back to the bathrooms.  “Lesser of two evils,” she muttered to herself as she gave her mouse an exaggerated wobble and wide-eyed her monitor’s camera.

By the end of the shift, Carey’s headset had turned orange several times, zapping her each time.  It was not painful, as Mr Abaddon had said, but nor was it comfortable.  Once, just once, for the tiniest of seconds, when she had been wondering where Jim went after he was sacked, she thought the light on her headset had turned red.  The fact that nothing happened however, (there was no zap or screen warning, no tap on her shoulder), she guessed it might have been an optical illusion.  ‘Anxiety-eyes’, her mother used to call it; “you always expect the worst of the world – so that’s what you see.”

As a ‘ding-dong’ sound rang out across the floor, Carey stood up and muttered to herself, “anxiety eyes my ar…”

“What?”

It was Mandy. 

Carey fell into pace beside her, and laughed as they walked towards the doors, “just talking to myself.”

“Probably best not to,” Mandy said.

“Why?”

Before Mandy could answer, Mr Abaddon stepped forward, blocking the exit doors.  He smiled and with a low bow, handed Carey a white envelope.

Carey smiled, assuming it was a ‘welcome to the team’ letter.

It wasn’t.

Inside the white envelope was a small piece of cardboard… colored red.

*

*

*

Take care out there, Linda xx

PS – that was the last short story I’ll be posting on the blog – if you’ve enjoyed reading it, there are 12 more in my free ebook “A Gothic Migraine“.

PPS – I let the blog’s AI art generator create the image for today’s post – not sure what it means… the two swirly-logos or a face with Big Brother eyes? Either way, I like it!