I had been working a stressful job as a Team Leader for a Call Centre for about eighteen months. The hours were savage and I found myself constantly on the phone appeasing angry customers that no one else wanted to deal with. One of the other Team Leaders – Mark – had made it a habit of sexually harassing me despite my threats to report him and my physical health was starting to suffer.
My Manager spouted endless cliches about ‘taking it on the chin’ and ‘stepping up to the plate’ whenever I gave any indication that I was drowning.
My then boyfriend – Patrick – seemed to think that I was overreacting when I told him I was miserable. He kept telling me that ‘things would get better’ but they didn’t.
I was in tears one night whilst chatting to a very dear friend of mine – Gemma – online. She was sending me consoling messages when I noticed a pop-up for a competition for two tickets to Fiji for three weeks. Accommodation, airfares and food were all covered and the beautiful pictures of palm trees and clear blue ocean suddenly transported me.
I was – for a brief instant – not a miserable Call Centre Team Leader, but a calm, tranquil and happy woman of leisure! I was so swept up in the moment I forgot about Gemma much to her chagrin. I quickly promised her a phone call later that night and set about following the links to the competition.
Before I knew it I was entering all my details and I was away. I then noticed in the Terms and Conditions that I could enter as many times as I wanted. Something came over me and when I next looked at the clock it was two am and I had entered that comp no less than a hundred times at a guess. I waited two weeks that felt like months before scouring my email inbox almost hourly for the message that would add some much needed light at the end of the tunnel.
Every time I checked my messages I would sort through the spam and find nothing stating that I had won the comp or even placed second.
I started to realise the silliness of hoping in something so improbable when it happened. I saw the ‘You’ve Won!!’ message and my heart nearly burst out of my chest. I’m one of those people who never wins anything but I just knew that this would be different.
I read and re-read the email and that’s when my heart sank.
At the bottom of the page – it stated the travel times available and they just happened to fall on the two busiest periods in the Call Centre. No one ever got annual leave approved at those times.
I quickly contacted the organisers and tried to negotiate some flexibility in the travel times but there was nothing doing.
I was sunk. I resigned myself to simply just hopping on the conveyor belt and continuing the job I hated.
It wasn’t as simple as getting another job. I had tried that road and having had limited education I was stuck in a bit of a rut. I had scored this job on the back of a friend who had vouched for me but had since moved on.
My hours meant that I was extremely limited as to how many interviews I could attend if any and I didn’t have the freedom of just quitting and searching for a job full time as my boyfriend was unemployed and we were just scraping by as was.
I was ruminating on all of this when my Manager – Lisa – sat me down for a ‘little talk’. She told me how she had noticed my performance going down hill of late. She said that it was apparent that I didn’t want to be there and she asked me the “would I keep me on staff if I was her” question.
They wanted to fire me. That’s when I snapped. I burst into tears and collapsed into Lisa’s arms. ‘What on earth is wrong with you these days?’ she cried.
I don’t even know why I said it. I knew that no one wanted to hear the real story. I had also been been reading a book on the train to work which included a character who had suffered a miscarriage so I guess it all just sort of came to the surface.
Lisa’s face changed and suddenly her normally ‘all business’ facade dropped. She held me and told me about how she had also lost a baby when she was about my age. I felt awful suddenly but it just felt so good to be held and listened to and comforted. It felt good to matter.
We talked some more and then Lisa told me that we were leaving for the afternoon and she took me out to a quiet little cafe that she said was her favourite.
She said such kind beautiful things to me and all I could do was just keep adding to the lie. The feelings of sadness and being lost and feeling alone were all genuine however and it just got easier and easier.
After several hours Lisa drove me home and I had kept the veneer up for so long now I was starting to believe it.
‘Lisa, I’ll need a little time if that’s alright to…’ I began before she interjected: ‘Of course sweetheart, you take all the time you need – you tell us when you’ll be back ok?’
I didn’t sleep that night. All the next day I just paced and thought and stared and thought some more. I told Patrick that I was on annual leave but he didn’t seem all that interested. After a few days the guilt subsided a little and I got into the swing of things.
I soon found myself calling work and telling Lisa that I would be staying with my Mother ‘up the coast’ for a few months. She said that it sounded like a very good idea and that family was very important at this time. I cringed a little as this was another lie – my Mother actually lives in London.
I then called Gemma and told her we would be going to Fiji in a few weeks time. I won’t lie – Fiji was great.
Patrick and I broke up on my return which was for the best. I thought long and hard about confessing the whole thing many times but I always chickened out. Funnily enough a couple of months after my return to work, I was promoted.
As time went by I felt worse and worse about what I had done. I know that miscarriage is nothing to be taken lightly and I have recently had experience with it personally as my cousin miscarried not long ago. It is a horrible, soul-destroying thing and I feel nothing but guilt about how I used it to my own ends.
All names have been changed. Picture posed by models.
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