Noel, The Christmas Scrivener

After I got off the phone with Noel, the Christmas scrivener, I felt a little cruddy.  SuperK has been listening in to my conversations as sort of a free-floating moral support apparatus.  I stuck my head into her office and said tentatively: "Did I go over the line there?"  SuperK tells me when I go over the line.  She speaks freely.  I don't have to read between the lines.  While this makes me uncomfortable sometimes I'd have it no other way - if I'm a jerk please tell me so. Usually I know when I'm being a jerk but sometimes . . . well, often . . . OK, most of the time I manage to justify my bad behavior by blaming it on someone else.  You know the drill - "I wouldn't have done that except he/she/it did this or that etc etc etc so it really isn't my fault."

"I could tell you were frustrated," she said.

The only time she sugar-coats the unwelcome message that I've acted like a jerk is when I'm angry and acting like a jerk.  She's not stupid - when I'm pissed I'm just a big, red-faced, old man yelling irrationally, not thinking clearly.  She's not going to reason with me when I'm like that.

Uh-oh, I thought, I really was a jerk.

I thought about it overnight.  I slept on it.  At my Friday 7AM meeting we read out of the 12 & 12 and I found, ironically, that we were on Step 12, where there is something about "practicing these principles in all our affairs."  Sometimes the message I need to hear is muddled, subtle, requiring some interpretation - sometimes it's delivered by an amplified bullhorn placed right up in my face. 

When I got home I called the financial institution that employs Noel, the Christmas scrivener. This is an act of self-abasement in every sense of the word.  You know the drill with these places - you call an 800 number and are vomited into an automated system that is nearly impossible to exit; when you do manage to navigate to an area where live people exist you are placed on hold, usually with a message along the lines of "Due to unusually high call volume you're going to have to listen to a digitized Muzak version of "The Candy Man" until you're going to want to drill into your skull with a Craftsman electric drill."  The final cherry on the shit sundae was that I needed to talk to a specific person once any person answered.

The woman who finally picked up the call was a little tentative when I said I'd like to speak to Noel, the Christmas scrivener.  She was all "can I help you with something" or "may I tell her what this is in regards to" and the like.  I'm guessing these call centers are kind of a Band of Brothers and Sisters.  I'm guessing people don't call into apologize too often so there's some mutual protection being offered.

Finally, Noel, the Christmas scrivener, picked up.  I reminded her who I was and added: "I'm sorry for my behavior yesterday.  I was boorish and rude and it was totally uncalled for.  You answered all of my questions and I shouldn't have acted the way I did."

She was gracious.  She had to be - it's her job to be gracious.  Still, I think I detected a note of genuine graciousness.  I'm guessing that the percentage of jerks who apologize to jerks who don't is a vanishingly small number.

You know - I did my part.  That's the only part I get to do.