Duel of systems

First

I was a simple salesman in a call center. I offered products of a communication company. Every day, I called more than thirty people to offer them different promotions and items at low prices.

It was very difficult to work there. People were very rude and said dozens of rude things to me, it was easier for them to hang up on me or tell me a simple no and that was it. Sometimes I had to hang up on them when they were getting through.

I was a pretty nice guy, and thanks to that I was the best salesman, in the first few months some of my colleagues made my life miserable. They would steal my client sheets, or sometimes they would turn off my computer. I got used to that lifestyle. My wife was out of work, and she earned twice as much as I did. We had been married for almost two years. We had no children yet. I took on all the household expenses, I still had to wait a little while to leave this company or wait to be moved to the less stressful customer service area.

In the short time I had been here, I had lost 20 pounds from the stress of being there. My hair started to fall out a bit. I had only expected to be bald at such a young age, I was only twenty-eight. My hair was short and black, I usually went to a hairdresser every two weeks. My brown eyes and average height were being affected by this job.

By now I was obliged to sell a minimum of 4 products a day to stay in the company and at the end of the month I had to sell at least 70 products, sometimes I sold 120. That's how stressful that job was, plus the job was more complex. I was in a small office in a series of blocks. Made with plastic dividers and sad colors.

All my days were like that. Until one day I made a call to the owner of a company.

"Good morning, Mr. Johnson, this is Leandro, from the mobile company All Connected, we are offering you.

A better plan for this year, plus other services."

The very angry man spoke to me.

"Shut up, I'd better look for a job, useless, starving. Salaried, loser......!"

I hung up the call and left the office. I needed to get some air, it was a very bad day, I had sold almost nothing, I started to get stressed, it would take me more time to achieve the monthly goal, and it was days away from the end of the month. I had almost 20 plans left to sell. I tried to calm down and just went to the bathroom and splashed water on my face, so I could react. I was too anxious.

I stopped thinking about the situation and went back to my post, since it was almost five o'clock in the afternoon and I had to leave the office by orders of the owners because the city was very dangerous after seven o'clock. There were robberies every day in every place. The police couldn't handle so many thieves, they didn't care about helping anyone either, they only worked to earn a salary and didn't expose themselves to a gunshot.

I arrived at my office to pick up my things to leave, however, someone had spilled coffee on my desk. The keyboard and client papers were wet. I looked around all the offices, but everyone was at their posts and no one looked suspicious. It was my turn to remove those papers and throw them in the trash. The keyboard had been damaged and I had to report it to my superiors. That would be deducted from my salary, the only thing I could do was to go to the security office, but I was too depressed to go there. The best thing to do was to go early tomorrow morning. I didn't feel like talking to anyone.

I picked up my briefcase and turned off the computer. I didn't want to be in that place anymore. It was still a very tiring job. I didn't know what other job I could get, I hadn't gone to college, just took some courses and training that would help me get this job, and I had a serious problem getting another one. I only put up with this stress because of my wife, she was the only thing that gave me the strength to keep coming back, to work in this company.

[...]

At six twenty in the evening I arrived in the suburbs. I tried to get there quickly, so I wouldn't get robbed, the later it got, the more insecure the place was, but I stayed in front of a cafeteria. That was on that avenue where the cab dropped me off. In this area it wasn't raining yet, but in some hours, maybe it would, despite that it was a bit cold, besides it was almost Friday, so the place was full.

I was not distracted by seeing those people, I was a bit cold, I was constantly moving my arms, the clothes I was wearing had gotten a bit wet before stopping the cab and the wind was starting to blow quite strong, I didn't want to stay long like that. I started walking fast towards my apartment, which was a few blocks away. However, I saw a familiar person among all the people I saw walking down that street. It was my wife's silhouette, she stood out among all of them, but she was with another man holding hands.

I recognized from a distance that long, wavy red hair, and her sometimes leisurely walk and her waist.

The clothes the man next to her was wearing were not just anything. It was quite expensive, it was a $400 pair of pants, maybe. The quality showed, my father was a clothing salesman, so I learned a lot of things from him.

I tried to catch up with them and talk to them. I walked the hard way through the people around me. There weren't many, so I could easily move on. I couldn't bear to imagine that she was cheating on me, even though it was obvious what I saw, but in the middle of my stress I stumbled upon a dangerous person, he grabbed me by the shirt the hard way.

"What's wrong with you bastard?" He yelled at me.

When I could look at his face, I noticed he was a gang member. He had tattoos of animals and letters on his face, also on his arms. His look was somewhat intimidating, and I could tell he didn't mean well.

He pushed me and pulled out a gun, I tried to run, but I was very unlucky at that moment. I didn't look at the road and a car was passing by at that moment, I couldn't move fast, and it ran over me. I spun around in the air like in slow motion and fell to the ground like a cracked egg. My whole back and head hurt, I heard a strange whistling, a depressing song was playing repetitively.

"It's all over, a new chance will come."

Everything went dark, and I could no longer move my arms, not even breathe. Only a sound of a computer assistant echoed in my mind.