this wonderful moment. I read anxiously down the list of names. The Scarecrow had gone to Headbanging Harvey; drat, I knew I should have grown my hair longer. But there was still the Lion... No. That was Frankie Trevino. I must be the Tin Man, then! Oh no. That had gone to Nervous Noel. My name wasn’t there! I fearfully scanned the list again. But no, I wasn’t even a munchkin. Or a flying monkey. Even my mate Barry had been given a part, albeit Auntie Em, and he never even turned up to audition. How could I have been missed out? How?
I turned from the board in despair and saw Myra standing at the back of the hall, reading something on her iPhone. I hadn’t seen her come in. I wanted to cry, but I knew I had to be strong and not spoil her joy. Swallowing hard to keep back the tears, I called, “Myra! Where have you been? You’ll never guess what role you’ve got! You’re only Dorothy!”
“Oh yeah,” Myra was still texting.
“You mean, you already knew?” I asked, astonished.
“Er, no, I meant, oh yeah, that’s great. I sort of expected it, to be honest. I mean, Tom knows I give the best performance in this group.” She said this rather loudly, just as Thin Lizzie turned away from the board. “Oh hello Lizzie, I didn’t see you there. Bad luck on not getting the lead this time round, but you know what Tom’s like! He’s no imagination, has he? Always typecasting! So what role did you get?”
I looked back at the board; Thin Lizzie was the Wicked Witch of the West. She let out a whimper and rushed from the hall. “Oops!” exclaimed Myra, taking my arm. “Me and my big mouth! Shall we go and celebrate our good news? Den’s Diner is doing a meal-deal - cheesy chips, jumbo chilli dog and a coke all for £2.99! I’ll have to have diet coke of course, as I’m being really careful with my calories.”
“Yes, sure,” I said, trying to stay upbeat. “Although I’m afraid I don’t have any good news to celebrate myself.”
“Oh, you’ll make a great wizard!” cried Myra, punching my other arm. “You can put a spell on the cowardly-arsed lion and turn him into the greasy little rat boy that he really is.” Frankie Trevino eyed us from the corner of the hall.
“What do you mean?” I asked, my left arm completely dead.
“You know, you’re the Wizard!” I looked at her blankly. “The Wizard of Oz, dummy! Honestly Foggy, what did you think when we auditioned to The Merry Old Land of Oz? That we were doing Crocodile Dundee?”
I swung round to look at the board. There, handwritten right at the top of the piece of A4 paper, just under “The SADS proudly announce” was my name! The Wizard of Oz = Morten Fogarty. I hadn’t thought to look at the very top of the page! It had happened, it had actually happened! I had been cast in a lead role at last! I think my legs would have collapsed if Myra hadn’t been holding me up and propelling me out of the hall. I pedalled to Den’s on cloud nine; only one arm had any feeling and Myra was buckling my cross bar, but it didn’t matter. I knew my moment would finally come - if you wished for something hard enough, you could actually make it come true. I remembered Dad telling me that once when I was a little boy, just before he’d left me on my extendable toddler reins outside Ladbrokes. He had kept hold of my reins, of course, poking them through Ladbrokes’s letter box so he could still shut the door behind him - he was a very conscientious father. Just think how proud he’d be to learn that his son had a lead role at last! As soon as I got home, I wrote a letter to Dad at the PO Box address I had for him. It was impossible to get to sleep - I was far too ‘psyched’, as my mate Barry would say, usually after he’s been to the adhesives section at Homebase.
I cycled to work singing Queen’s ‘Don’t Stop Me Now’ between burps. The chilli dog was repeating on me very badly and I had the most dreadful wind; I felt so sorry for the paper-boy who was pedalling behind me. I couldn’t wait to tell everyone in the office my news, but Joy, my team manager, stood over me until I put my headset on and logged into my telephone turret. I didn’t even have time to look at my Internet banking or check Facebook like I normally would as part of my daily working routine. I was dying to tell her, but I didn’t want to appear too boastful.
“Did you get up to much last night, Joy?”
“I watched Schindler’s List again.”
“Oh, how nice. Do you want to know what I did?”
“No. Where’s your process maps, Morten? Why aren’t they out on your desk?”
“Um,” I rummaged around in my drawer. “I haven’t seen them for a while, actually. I may have lent them to someone-”
“You must always have your process maps in front of you. Use them for every call. Here, take Tim’s for now, and you’ll have to find your own maps in your break.”
Perypils were meticulous in their detail, with every single process mapped out in sophisticated flow diagrams. All you had to do was follow the arrows; it was impossible to go wrong. My first call of the day was from Mrs Drake, who was complaining because we’d denied her claim to cover a stay in a Bupa hospital. “Righto, just bear with me, Mrs Drake.” I flipped through the process maps until I found one headed ‘Healthcover - claim denied’. “Ok, here we go. So why was your claim rejected?”
“Why are you asking me? You sent me the bloody letter - haven’t you got that information in front of you?”
“I can’t flick through all these maps and use the computer at the same time you see, Mrs Drake. What did our letter say?”
“It said you wouldn’t pay my hospital fees because I hadn’t pre-authorised my stay.”
“Oh dear. Did you forget?”
“No, I didn’t forget, I was in labour. Funnily enough, when the contractions started, I didn’t think to call my insurance company.”
“Right.” I looked closely at the process map. It read: ‘Did customer pre-authorise treatment?’ The choices were ‘Yes’ or ‘No’. I followed the path for ‘No’, which was a long arrow down to the bottom of the page, ending in a red bubble with ‘Reject complaint’ written in it. “Um, I’m afraid you should have pre-authorised your treatment, Mrs Drake-”
“How could I pre-authorise it? And when, exactly? When I was being rushed into hospital in the ambulance? When I was screaming in agony in the delivery room? Or perhaps when I was being given an emergency C-section?”
“I’m sorry Mrs Drake, but my map says I can’t accept your complaint.”
“Your map? What are you talking about? And why have you sent my son a bill for £630 for his stay at the hospital?”
“Er, perhaps he forgot to pre-authorise too-”
“He’d only just been born! How the hell could he pre-authorise? Was he supposed to call you from inside my womb?”
I rifled through the maps but couldn’t find one that covered pre-borns. “I haven’t got a map for that complaint, Mrs Drake.”
“What do you mean? For Christ’s sake, it’s like talking to a half-wit! I’d get more sense out of a fence panel. What the bloody hell does Perypils think it’s playing at, you’re a complete disgrace-”
I popped Mrs Drake on mute; letting customers vent their frustration was a very important part of Perypils’ complaints handling policy, and it also gave me the opportunity to email everyone in the team to tell them my fantastic news. Sky, who sat opposite me, emailed back to say she had sensed a very strong aura around me this morning and I beamed at her over our blue soundboard. Her real name was Sheila, but she said Sky was her ‘earth’ name. Sky was just brilliant with our customers, so calm and soothing, expertly using open questioning techniques: “What do you expect me to do about it?” or providing clarification when required: “It’s really not my problem”. She was just perfect in a complaint-handling role and she didn’t even need to use the process maps anymore, or “those fascist mind-restrictors” as she jokingly referred to them.
The morning passed very quickly as I was in such high spirits, having a great time chatting away with my customers. A couple of times, I had to place them on hold and nip to the loo at top speed but it was only wind, so I made it back before the
callers noticed I’d gone. My mate Barry always says “never trust a fart”. I must remind him that he still owed me £12 for the jogging bottoms I’d had to buy for him in Tesco’s.
As I ended my call with a Miss Turner, after she’d eventually stopped sobbing, I realised Joy was standing beside me. She was a very slender lady and it was difficult to see her when she was side-on. “Hello Joy,” I began, “Did I tell you my news? I’m-”
“What have you done now, Morten?”
“I got the lead part in the SADS Christmas production!”
“I meant, what have you done wrong? Kate wants to see you.”
My bowels twinged and a small guff of wind escaped. “I, er, I haven’t done anything wrong.” Why should Kate want to see me? Oh, but of course - good news travelled fast in this office. I beamed. “I expect she wants to congratulate me, Joy. You know what a keen interest she takes in our personal lives and our hobbies outside of work. I bet she’s dead chuffed for me.”
Joy was looking rather pained - perhaps she’d had the meal deal at Den’s Diner too. “You haven’t tried to sell motor insurance to a blind person again, have you, Morten? And what about Mr Dogetard - have you upset him recently? Don’t tell me you’ve mispronounced his name again.”
“Oh no, I don’t think so-”
“Come on, she’s waiting. And for goodness sake, empty your bin.