Tinley glances at the empty seat next to her, and she’s yet again filled with sadness. It’s been over a week since Dakota was fired and Tinley last saw or heard from her. She’s fallen into a horrible funk, and part of her wonders if she’ll ever feel the same again. Even coming to work has no appeal for her. Before, it was a sucky job, but she could commiserate with her best friend. Now? It’s just a sucky job she has to experience all by herself, especially since Marek got his promotion and has been removed from the sales floor altogether.

The day has been exceptionally slow, and they’ve been sending people home left and right. Normally Tinley would jump at the chance to leave early, but the idea of sitting at home all alone sounds even worse than being at work right now. At least here she’s getting paid to be bored.

She’s contemplating getting up to go to the bathroom for the second time in the last hour when a call comes in on her line.

“Hello?”

With as much forced happiness as she can muster, Tinley greets the customer with the opening line from the script. She desperately hopes for a sales call rather than a customer service issue, because she honestly doesn’t know if her emotions can handle an angry customer right now.

“Yes, hello. I have a bit of a problem, so I’m hoping you can help me. Can you help me?”

She internally cringes—it’s a customer service call. The thought of spending the next thirty or forty minutes on this call sounds exhausting, but she holds back her emotions and replies, “I’ll definitely help you out if I can. What kind of problem do you have?”

“Well, you see, I recently booked that singles cruise package.”

Rolling her eyes, she refuses to drop her professionalism and keeps her voice even and unaffected. “Which one specifically? We have a few different ones.”

“Oh wow. I thought it was a one-time thing. Do you get complaints about them often?”

She shakes her head and realizes the customer can’t actually see her and she replies, “Not any more than the other vacation packages we offer. We pride ourselves on having top-notch customer service and always ensuring our travelers are satisfied with their vacation packages. Was there something wrong with the trip you booked with us?”

“Well, for starters, do you perform any kind of background check on people before letting them go on your cruise ships?”

Is this dude for real? Tinley mutes her phone as she coughs and takes a quick sip of water before returning back to the line. “I’m sorry?”

“Do you thoroughly vet everyone that books a vacation package with you?” There’s a brief pause then a heavy sigh as he continues, “Criminal history? Health checks? Stuff like that?”

“Sir, I’m not sure I understand your line of questioning, but I’m pretty sure that’s not legal.”

“Well, it damn well should be.”

This is the kind of call where she’s going to have to hold herself back, and she can tell already it’s going to be very hard to do that. “You seem upset, and I apologize for that. Is there something specific I can help you with?”

“I need you people to pay for my fucking medical bills, and if you don’t, you’ll be hearing from my lawyer.”

Warning bells go off in Tinley’s head. This dude is obviously pissed about something, but he’s being super vague and not explaining what’s going on or why he’s so upset. She racks her brain trying to figure out what could have happened on the cruise to cause him to have medical bills, but she can’t think of anything. Maybe he slipped on some water and broke a bone? But wouldn’t he have taken care of that while he was still on board? And what would the rest of his line of questioning have anything to do with a broken bone? Against her better judgment, she decides to investigate further and find out what happened. “Sir, can you explain to me what exactly went on so I can try to help you out?”

A harsh laugh comes from the other end of the line and the response out of his mouth isn’t one Tinley expected or could have thought up in a million years. “One of the bitches I boned gave me the clap.”

“The clap?”

“Yeah, you know, the drip.”

“I’m sorry, I’m not familiar with those terms.”

“Gonorrhea. The chick gave me a mother-effing STD, and you’re all responsible for the shit dripping out of my dick now.”

Tinley mutes her phone while he goes on his rant and turns to her right to whisper, “This dude totally just told me he got gonorrhea on the singles cruise, and he said his dick is dripping. Should we call him Drippy Dick?” She starts laughing hysterically then looks up when she realizes she’s laughing alone because Dakota is not currently sitting next to her and they’re not talking right now. Her sadness sets back in as the weight of the mess between her and her best friend weighs on her shoulders. She attempts to ignore her own grief and unmutes the phone as the dude continues his ranting.

“…and I couldn’t even tell you which skank it was. The boat was like a fucking orgy. Seriously, everyone was going at it like rabbits the entire time. It’s like it didn’t even matter if the chick was a double bagger or not. Everyone was getting laid on that boat. I should be flying high over all the ass I got. It was like a wet dream come to life. Instead, I’m dealing with this.”

As his rant continues on and his anger escalates, Tinley finds herself biting down very hard on her tongue to prevent herself from saying anything she might regret. All she can think is that she’s thankful for karma, because obviously this guy got exactly what he deserved. She doesn’t know anything about gonorrhea, but she secretly hopes the treatment is long and very painful.

Rather than let him continue putting down every single person that was on the ship with him, Tinley interrupts by saying, “Sir, I’m really sorry for what you went through. Unfortunately, I don’t have the authority to offer any sort of compensation for something like that. What I can do is connect you with one of my supervisors, and maybe they can help you further.”

“Why the fuck did you let me continue on like that if you couldn’t do a damn thing to help me out? Are you stupid?”

If there’s one thing Tinley will not tolerate it’s someone calling her stupid. It’s completely unacceptable and she has to seriously hold herself back from going off on this guy. She repeats the mantra in her head, I cannot get fired, as she attempts to the end the phone call.

“Well, if that’s everything, I’ll go ahead and get you transferred over so someone else can assist you.”

“Are you deaf as well? You’re not hearing—”

“Okay sir, one moment please.” Tinley hits the transfer button and immediately pulls her phone out of the queue. Now he’s somebody else’s problem, and she doesn’t even care. She doesn’t get paid enough to deal with abuse like that, and really, nobody should have to put up with it. That bathroom break she considered taking earlier sounds pretty good right about now. Maybe she’ll go hang out in there for a while and get away from all the noise, and a nice long bath sounds like the perfect way to end this awful day.