Day Thirteen

Her name was Beatrice. She appeared at the counter twitching. She wanted a calendar, but the calendar we had wasn’t right. Beatrice said it needed changing. I directed her to a kiosk where we both sat down. I knew this was going to be bad for me.
Beatrice wanted to do a very simple plain white calendar. We started to work through the program. But the machine was hiding her pictures from her. She blamed me. I showed her where they were. Then the color changed on her. She blamed the system, “It’s so complicated” she said as she jabbed at the touch screen with the pointy side of her pen. I looked back at the counter, searching for a staff member to feel my pain. Most of them tried to ignore my gaze. Then she cried out “Where’s page six? It’s disappeared!”

I explained attempting to maintain patience, “you’re on page six.”’

“No there’s page five and page seven…”

“Those are the buttons to go to pages five and seven. YOU are on page six.”

“But where is it?” she asked.

I stared off again desperately seeking eye contact from my co-workers. Paula gazed vacantly out in to the shop. Charlie hid behind the counter. I was the sacrificial lamb.

“Now it’s gone blue again, why is this thing trying to trick me?”

            She finished an hour later. I was spent. An entire hour spent attempting turn my brain off while I repeated the exact same instructions to her. But I had to ring her up. I waited the five minutes patiently behind the counter while she came up. “Thank you for being patient” she said. I said nothing.