Alex Faulkner (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
videokilledme) wrote2018-11-21 09:00 pm
videokilledme) wrote2018-11-21 09:00 pm
“And The Rest Is (World) History.” Alex, Bianca. (Persona Dreamscape) - Chapter Eighteen
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"And The Rest Is (World) History." Alex, Bianca. (Persona Dreamscape) - Chapter Eighteen
Over the next few weeks, from the end of March and the beginning of April, Alex spent more time with Bianca than ever. They still hung out in her dorm room a few times a week, working on homework or unwinding together by watching whatever NextFlik show caught their attention. They went to two rock shows, got ice cream three times, and Bianca and her friends showed up every weekend that he was DJing at the Rave Review.
They did not, however, go to any more frat parties. Connor had texted them both, but neither was the least bit interested. “Yeah, fun as it was to finally dance with you...I think I’m kinda all partied out after that last one,” Bianca had said dryly, giving a visible wince at the memory of the headache she’d had the next day, and Alex could not have been more relieved, for a multitude of reasons.
They also had not played soccer together again, despite Bianca’s best efforts at dragging him onto the team permanently. “Between my job at the music store and my nights at the radio station, plus the minor details of going to class and keeping up with all my homework, I really don’t have time...and anyway, it took me an hour to clean all the mud out of those cleats,” Alex had growled, mouth tightening with displeasure as he went on, “And your way of cleaning us all off after that game was to borrow a hose from one of the landscapers and spray us all down--in 45 degree weather, no less.”
“What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger,” Bianca had quipped with a mischievous twinkle, as if she could deny the fact that she’d turned the hose on him longer and harder than anyone else, especially considering the way she’d sprayed him squarely in the face, laughed at his expression of dripping indignation, then sprayed him again, to the raucous, echoing amusement of the rest of her team.
Alex only snorted at that. “Definitively untrue. So yeah, no, I think I’m good.”
As far as his radio show went, Alex was fully in the swing of things now. He had settled into his role with relish, and other than the time he spent with Bianca, it was his favorite time of day or night, that two-hour stretch when he dropped into one of the comfy broadcasting room chairs, slipped on the radio station’s headphones, checked all the dials and switches and sliders, then leaned into the microphone to say, “Hi, this is Alex Ace of the Carrington University Radio Station. The time is 12:00 midnight, so let’s get this bird off the ground.”
The first time he’d done it, it had been a joke, his sarcastic way of pretending to be a pilot, but Connor had liked it, because he was stupid and a huge troll; more surprisingly, Chisomo had liked it, too, but Alex got the feeling that she just enjoyed the idea of him having to say something dumb every time he came on-air. But one way or another, it had become his catchphrase. Alex took it in stride; it was overly cutesy, sure, but it was still a small price to pay for having free rein in the studio for two hours, and it was hardly the stupidest thing that anyone listening in would hear that night. The profusion of callers asking for life and love advice--and especially the morons who periodically tried to prank-call him--always made certain of that.
And the prank calls were happening, with a fair degree of regularity now (though Alex always, always made them regret it--he’d even made a few of them cry), the reason being that Alex was actually starting to get fairly well-known around campus. “Hey, aren’t you that guy on the radio super late?” was a question that he was getting used to hearing a few times a day, and his answer depended on who was asking and what tone of voice they were using. The majority of people were grinning, laughing or quoting a particularly choice comment he’d made back at him, and most of those people he graced with a small, tight smile and an acknowledgement of his identity. Some people, though, were legitimately angry, and while he still did sometimes admit to being ‘that smartass jerk on the radio,’ more often he took advantage of his large eyes and deceptively young-looking face and played dumb or innocent or both until they gave up and left.
It was understandable why some people would get upset: he could be absolutely brutal in his roasts, though his harshest words were saved for people who were being clueless or cruel without any sign of contrition, and also for those who had made mistakes and knew it and yet wouldn’t admit to it. But regardless of who he was tearing into, the audience loved it...for the most part.
One evening in April, Alex was relaxing with Bianca in her dorm room as usual. They’d finished talking about their Spring Break adventures (Alex hadn’t gone anywhere and had picked up a lot of work hours at both the store and the club, while Bianca had gone home to San Fran area; she hadn’t been able to tell him much more than, “Like I said, my family is crazy. Thank the gods for my brother Harper and my godfather, Zico, because if it wasn’t for them, I would’ve gone every bit as crazy as the rest of my family.”) and both had fallen to working on assignments for class the next day. Alex still had his show that night, but figured he might as well take the opportunity to pass a few hours in the pleasant company of his best friend instead of alone at the library or in the cafeteria. He was halfway through his reading assignment for his World Lit class when Bianca unexpectedly broke the silence.
“It seems like you’re really enjoying yourself on the radio these days.”
Alex blinked a few times at that, wondering why she was bringing this up when she knew how he felt about it already. He’d babbled at her for hours about it, but if she still wanted to hear more...
“Yeah, it’s really great. I gotta say, when Connor first dragged me onto his show, I honestly thought that he was just messing with me, and that I was gonna hate every moment of it, but...I really do love it. I mean, did you hear my show from last night? I know you can’t listen live because of early morning practice, but there are podcast recordings-”
“Yeah, I listened to it,” Bianca replied, and for once, Alex was far too caught up in his own excitement to notice how quiet and somber the blonde girl had sounded.
“Well anyway, Dr. de Forest called me into his office today and showed me how much publicity it’s all been generating for the campus radio station, which is crazy. He even mentioned potentially doing a thing for charity, which would be really neat. I’m not sure which one he’s got in mind, but there are a lot of good— Bianca?”
It had taken him considerably longer than usual to pick up on how withdrawn and unhappy his best friend really looked, but now that he had, now that he’d noticed the slight pinch between her eyebrows, the downwards curve of her mouth, the troubled light in her sea-green eyes, his excited chattering cut off in an atypically awkward sort of sudden stop. “Wh-what is it?” he managed after taking a moment to try to collect himself, with mixed results. He still felt off-balance and almost fearfully concerned, unable to pinpoint the reason for her current lackluster expression. “Did I—did I do something...wrong?”
It was a genuine question, and the ring of honest apprehension only seemed to make it harder for Bianca to give him an answer. Finally the blonde gave a little sigh, her mouth pulling sideways into the expression she always got when she’d been thinking about something and knew she had to bring it up because it was important, but was hesitant to do so because she wasn’t entirely sure how it would come across.
“...So...that one guy who called in last night, the kid who asked about changing his major as a junior?”
Alex nodded, still anxious, but now somewhat confused as well. “Yeah, of course I remember that one. I got to say-”
“Don’t you think you were a little hard on him?”
That interjection brought Alex up short, left him wide-eyed and staring in surprise, but Bianca wasn’t done.
“I mean, think about it. He just wanted some real-life advice...and I know that’s not the point of your show, really, but...isn’t it kinda the point of your show, at the same time?” Her tone was steady and pensive, like she was feeling out the thoughts and words even as she said them, without the barest hint of accusation or finger-pointing, and Alex couldn’t justify raising his hackles about it, listening in stunned silence as she went on, “People call in to get roasted, yeah, but...what you’re actually telling them are the hard truths that they know deep down they need to hear. You tell them to move on, to stop doing things that are self-destructive, or even just to make themselves better.” She shook her head slowly, her mouth shaping itself into a rueful frown. “But that guy...he was honestly asking for help, and you were just kinda mean to him, and made fun of him, and...didn’t really help him at all.”
And as those carefully-selected words sank in, Alexis Oisín Faulkner was left completely and utterly thunderstruck. He was dumbfounded, and it showed in the way that he said, with perfect poise, “...Oh. Uh...yeah, well, um.” He stopped himself there, clamping his jaw shut before any other similar verbal gems could escape, and took a moment to sort that out, because...
...Because Bianca was right. She was absolutely right. He’d been an asshole to someone who was calling in with a real question, someone who sincerely wanted advice, and instead had just been ridiculed for his lack of focus and foresight without getting anything helpful or constructive back in the bargain. Alex had dismissed that caller without a second thought, making fun of him and his honestly pretty understandable and probably not uncommon dilemma.
But...that’s what I do. That’s what my show is all about. It’s not for anyone who’s looking for REAL advice...
But again, Bianca was right there, too. Offering good advice wasn’t the point of his show...and yet, it really sort of was, or at least it had become part of it at some point, and all the advice he’d given over the last few months had been good advice. It had been blunt and no-nonsense, often insulting and always unsparing and never in the least bit gentle, but it was all sound and constructive nonetheless.
But that junior last night hadn’t even gotten that much out of him. Alex had taken the call, listened to the guy’s problem, and then proceeded to rip into him:
“All I can think about right now is how much money you’ll be wasting with this. You might even be delayed in graduating, you might have to do an extra semester and some summer classes--and just, wow, going from computer science to drama is basically education whiplash, they’re so far on opposite ends of the spectrum. How on earth did you end up in one when you apparently actually wanted to be in the other? Was it pressure from your parents, or did you just have some kind of ‘awakening’ that made you realize that your heart belonged to the stage or whatever?”
But instead of letting the guy speak up, Alex had just plowed straight onwards, quickly finishing that call off with a careless-sounding, “I guess that doesn’t really matter in the long run, does it? I mean, you’re still preeeetty stupid for ending up in that situation--and oh look, we’ve got another call. I can’t take any more of this one, it’s making my scholarship kid sensibilities and my wallet hurt, so let’s move on from this academic trainwreck-slash-nightmare to something else.”
Maybe not his best material, but Alex hadn’t felt bad about it until Bianca pointed it out like that, how harsh and unhelpful he’d really been. He should’ve talked the guy through it, let him answer the questions and then ask why he suddenly thought he was meant to tread the boards instead of type on one. He could’ve still joked around and made fun of the caller, that was fine, but he should’ve at least heard him out before moving on to the next call. No matter how busy the phone lines were (and they had been pretty busy lately), that still didn’t excuse not giving his best to every caller.
...I have to make this right. I can’t leave things like this. For my own sake as much as that caller’s.
With a sharp turn of his head, Alex looked back over at Bianca, who gave a quick double-blink on having his attention slewed back up at her so abruptly; but her worried, still-conflicted expression eased when Alex offered her a small but still very real smile.
“You’re right, Bianca,” he said matter-of-factly, without any attempt to make excuses or pass the blame, though he did give a rueful little laugh. “You are...absolutely, 100% right. I didn’t handle that call the way that I should’ve at all. And so I’m gonna fix it tonight--just you wait, I’ll make it right. You’ll see. Or, well. You’ll hear, I guess.”
That night, at the very start of his show, Alex did something that he’d never done before, and that he was going to do his damnedest to never have to do ever again: he retracted something he’d said. He told his listeners that his best friend had brought up how he’d handled one of the calls he’d gotten the night before, and that after thinking about it for around .5 seconds, he’d realized that she had a point. And so he apologized, promised that he’d do his best to give every caller the proper amount of attention, and...called the guy from the night before back. (“God bless caller ID, am I right?”)
The guy answered, and Alex explained what was up, admitted that he hadn’t given the caller the amount of attention that his problem had really deserved--not that it wasn’t a pretty laughable problem, all things considered, but still--and if the guy still wanted to talk about it now, they were live, on the air right now, and they could do that. If he wasn’t interested in having it talked about on the radio any more, Alex offered to call him back tomorrow during the day and have an off-the-air chat with him then.
It was pretty obvious that the caller was surprised, but he was still amenable to the idea of actually talking out his problem this time. Alex listened, making sure to give him a chance to explain himself and why he’d suddenly decided that he wanted to change majors, then outlined a more helpful and comprehensive pros-vs-cons argument. The guy would be giving up what was certain to be a lucrative career for one that was so uncertain that he’d almost definitely have to wait tables or work some dead-end retail job to pay the bills. And so Alex’s final argument was, since that was the case and he’d need another job anyway, why not do both? If he had the time and money to start over, then he probably had the time and money to double major, or get a drama minor, but as long as he was also good at it, he should stick with the computer science. He might as well be doing something more meaningful and well-paying than being a barista at the local coffee shop while he waited for his big acting break.
The caller was hesitant at first, clearly unsatisfied with the idea of not simply throwing away everything else and casting himself bodily upon the altar to drama without any reservations (at least, that was the way Alex rather disparagingly put it, much to the caller’s simultaneous annoyance and amusement); but once Alex pointed out that he’d need to have some kind of job in the meantime anyway, he seemed to rethink his decision to start again from square one. In the end, it sounded like he’d take Alex’s advice, and try for the double-major.
“Good luck talking that over with your faculty advisor,” Alex chuckled, and after exchanging the usual banal social niceties, the whole take care, hope it all goes well for you, dude kinda small talk garbage, Alex ended the call and put on a commercial while he took a long drink of his coffee and thought over how different that had been from what he’d done before.
As was usually the case when she decided to speak up about something, Bianca definitely had a point. She really had been right about this: it had been much more entertaining to really hear about the guy’s problem and then comment sarcastically on his life choices while giving genuinely helpful advice at the same time, which was something to keep in mind going forward. Until that call (or rather, until Bianca had called him out about that call), he hadn’t really felt conscience-struck about any of his interactions with callers, regardless of how nasty he’d gotten. They’d deserved it, after all, and a fair number of them had seemed to want the verbal abuse.
But there were exceptions. There would always be exceptions. And that was something to remember: to take each call as its own separate entity, its own universe with its own set of governing laws and truths. It was his show, so the callers had to play by his rules; but since it was his show, Alex was the one who got to make those rules in the first place, and he could also decide when and where to bend them just a little. A little bit of flexibility wasn’t always a bad thing...and really, it was a lot more satisfying to get the whole story, and then rub just how right he was in their faces with some no-holds-barred commentary and consultation.
After all, what could be better than being totally correct and mercilessly cynical, and then getting thanked for it?
Nothing, really, Alex thought to himself with an immensely satisfied little smirk as he set down his coffee and gave Chisomo a thumbs-up to indicate he was ready for the next caller. God, I love my job.
READ MORE
"And The Rest Is (World) History." Alex, Bianca. (Persona Dreamscape) - Chapter Eighteen
Over the next few weeks, from the end of March and the beginning of April, Alex spent more time with Bianca than ever. They still hung out in her dorm room a few times a week, working on homework or unwinding together by watching whatever NextFlik show caught their attention. They went to two rock shows, got ice cream three times, and Bianca and her friends showed up every weekend that he was DJing at the Rave Review.
They did not, however, go to any more frat parties. Connor had texted them both, but neither was the least bit interested. “Yeah, fun as it was to finally dance with you...I think I’m kinda all partied out after that last one,” Bianca had said dryly, giving a visible wince at the memory of the headache she’d had the next day, and Alex could not have been more relieved, for a multitude of reasons.
They also had not played soccer together again, despite Bianca’s best efforts at dragging him onto the team permanently. “Between my job at the music store and my nights at the radio station, plus the minor details of going to class and keeping up with all my homework, I really don’t have time...and anyway, it took me an hour to clean all the mud out of those cleats,” Alex had growled, mouth tightening with displeasure as he went on, “And your way of cleaning us all off after that game was to borrow a hose from one of the landscapers and spray us all down--in 45 degree weather, no less.”
“What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger,” Bianca had quipped with a mischievous twinkle, as if she could deny the fact that she’d turned the hose on him longer and harder than anyone else, especially considering the way she’d sprayed him squarely in the face, laughed at his expression of dripping indignation, then sprayed him again, to the raucous, echoing amusement of the rest of her team.
Alex only snorted at that. “Definitively untrue. So yeah, no, I think I’m good.”
As far as his radio show went, Alex was fully in the swing of things now. He had settled into his role with relish, and other than the time he spent with Bianca, it was his favorite time of day or night, that two-hour stretch when he dropped into one of the comfy broadcasting room chairs, slipped on the radio station’s headphones, checked all the dials and switches and sliders, then leaned into the microphone to say, “Hi, this is Alex Ace of the Carrington University Radio Station. The time is 12:00 midnight, so let’s get this bird off the ground.”
The first time he’d done it, it had been a joke, his sarcastic way of pretending to be a pilot, but Connor had liked it, because he was stupid and a huge troll; more surprisingly, Chisomo had liked it, too, but Alex got the feeling that she just enjoyed the idea of him having to say something dumb every time he came on-air. But one way or another, it had become his catchphrase. Alex took it in stride; it was overly cutesy, sure, but it was still a small price to pay for having free rein in the studio for two hours, and it was hardly the stupidest thing that anyone listening in would hear that night. The profusion of callers asking for life and love advice--and especially the morons who periodically tried to prank-call him--always made certain of that.
And the prank calls were happening, with a fair degree of regularity now (though Alex always, always made them regret it--he’d even made a few of them cry), the reason being that Alex was actually starting to get fairly well-known around campus. “Hey, aren’t you that guy on the radio super late?” was a question that he was getting used to hearing a few times a day, and his answer depended on who was asking and what tone of voice they were using. The majority of people were grinning, laughing or quoting a particularly choice comment he’d made back at him, and most of those people he graced with a small, tight smile and an acknowledgement of his identity. Some people, though, were legitimately angry, and while he still did sometimes admit to being ‘that smartass jerk on the radio,’ more often he took advantage of his large eyes and deceptively young-looking face and played dumb or innocent or both until they gave up and left.
It was understandable why some people would get upset: he could be absolutely brutal in his roasts, though his harshest words were saved for people who were being clueless or cruel without any sign of contrition, and also for those who had made mistakes and knew it and yet wouldn’t admit to it. But regardless of who he was tearing into, the audience loved it...for the most part.
One evening in April, Alex was relaxing with Bianca in her dorm room as usual. They’d finished talking about their Spring Break adventures (Alex hadn’t gone anywhere and had picked up a lot of work hours at both the store and the club, while Bianca had gone home to San Fran area; she hadn’t been able to tell him much more than, “Like I said, my family is crazy. Thank the gods for my brother Harper and my godfather, Zico, because if it wasn’t for them, I would’ve gone every bit as crazy as the rest of my family.”) and both had fallen to working on assignments for class the next day. Alex still had his show that night, but figured he might as well take the opportunity to pass a few hours in the pleasant company of his best friend instead of alone at the library or in the cafeteria. He was halfway through his reading assignment for his World Lit class when Bianca unexpectedly broke the silence.
“It seems like you’re really enjoying yourself on the radio these days.”
Alex blinked a few times at that, wondering why she was bringing this up when she knew how he felt about it already. He’d babbled at her for hours about it, but if she still wanted to hear more...
“Yeah, it’s really great. I gotta say, when Connor first dragged me onto his show, I honestly thought that he was just messing with me, and that I was gonna hate every moment of it, but...I really do love it. I mean, did you hear my show from last night? I know you can’t listen live because of early morning practice, but there are podcast recordings-”
“Yeah, I listened to it,” Bianca replied, and for once, Alex was far too caught up in his own excitement to notice how quiet and somber the blonde girl had sounded.
“Well anyway, Dr. de Forest called me into his office today and showed me how much publicity it’s all been generating for the campus radio station, which is crazy. He even mentioned potentially doing a thing for charity, which would be really neat. I’m not sure which one he’s got in mind, but there are a lot of good— Bianca?”
It had taken him considerably longer than usual to pick up on how withdrawn and unhappy his best friend really looked, but now that he had, now that he’d noticed the slight pinch between her eyebrows, the downwards curve of her mouth, the troubled light in her sea-green eyes, his excited chattering cut off in an atypically awkward sort of sudden stop. “Wh-what is it?” he managed after taking a moment to try to collect himself, with mixed results. He still felt off-balance and almost fearfully concerned, unable to pinpoint the reason for her current lackluster expression. “Did I—did I do something...wrong?”
It was a genuine question, and the ring of honest apprehension only seemed to make it harder for Bianca to give him an answer. Finally the blonde gave a little sigh, her mouth pulling sideways into the expression she always got when she’d been thinking about something and knew she had to bring it up because it was important, but was hesitant to do so because she wasn’t entirely sure how it would come across.
“...So...that one guy who called in last night, the kid who asked about changing his major as a junior?”
Alex nodded, still anxious, but now somewhat confused as well. “Yeah, of course I remember that one. I got to say-”
“Don’t you think you were a little hard on him?”
That interjection brought Alex up short, left him wide-eyed and staring in surprise, but Bianca wasn’t done.
“I mean, think about it. He just wanted some real-life advice...and I know that’s not the point of your show, really, but...isn’t it kinda the point of your show, at the same time?” Her tone was steady and pensive, like she was feeling out the thoughts and words even as she said them, without the barest hint of accusation or finger-pointing, and Alex couldn’t justify raising his hackles about it, listening in stunned silence as she went on, “People call in to get roasted, yeah, but...what you’re actually telling them are the hard truths that they know deep down they need to hear. You tell them to move on, to stop doing things that are self-destructive, or even just to make themselves better.” She shook her head slowly, her mouth shaping itself into a rueful frown. “But that guy...he was honestly asking for help, and you were just kinda mean to him, and made fun of him, and...didn’t really help him at all.”
And as those carefully-selected words sank in, Alexis Oisín Faulkner was left completely and utterly thunderstruck. He was dumbfounded, and it showed in the way that he said, with perfect poise, “...Oh. Uh...yeah, well, um.” He stopped himself there, clamping his jaw shut before any other similar verbal gems could escape, and took a moment to sort that out, because...
...Because Bianca was right. She was absolutely right. He’d been an asshole to someone who was calling in with a real question, someone who sincerely wanted advice, and instead had just been ridiculed for his lack of focus and foresight without getting anything helpful or constructive back in the bargain. Alex had dismissed that caller without a second thought, making fun of him and his honestly pretty understandable and probably not uncommon dilemma.
But...that’s what I do. That’s what my show is all about. It’s not for anyone who’s looking for REAL advice...
But again, Bianca was right there, too. Offering good advice wasn’t the point of his show...and yet, it really sort of was, or at least it had become part of it at some point, and all the advice he’d given over the last few months had been good advice. It had been blunt and no-nonsense, often insulting and always unsparing and never in the least bit gentle, but it was all sound and constructive nonetheless.
But that junior last night hadn’t even gotten that much out of him. Alex had taken the call, listened to the guy’s problem, and then proceeded to rip into him:
“All I can think about right now is how much money you’ll be wasting with this. You might even be delayed in graduating, you might have to do an extra semester and some summer classes--and just, wow, going from computer science to drama is basically education whiplash, they’re so far on opposite ends of the spectrum. How on earth did you end up in one when you apparently actually wanted to be in the other? Was it pressure from your parents, or did you just have some kind of ‘awakening’ that made you realize that your heart belonged to the stage or whatever?”
But instead of letting the guy speak up, Alex had just plowed straight onwards, quickly finishing that call off with a careless-sounding, “I guess that doesn’t really matter in the long run, does it? I mean, you’re still preeeetty stupid for ending up in that situation--and oh look, we’ve got another call. I can’t take any more of this one, it’s making my scholarship kid sensibilities and my wallet hurt, so let’s move on from this academic trainwreck-slash-nightmare to something else.”
Maybe not his best material, but Alex hadn’t felt bad about it until Bianca pointed it out like that, how harsh and unhelpful he’d really been. He should’ve talked the guy through it, let him answer the questions and then ask why he suddenly thought he was meant to tread the boards instead of type on one. He could’ve still joked around and made fun of the caller, that was fine, but he should’ve at least heard him out before moving on to the next call. No matter how busy the phone lines were (and they had been pretty busy lately), that still didn’t excuse not giving his best to every caller.
...I have to make this right. I can’t leave things like this. For my own sake as much as that caller’s.
With a sharp turn of his head, Alex looked back over at Bianca, who gave a quick double-blink on having his attention slewed back up at her so abruptly; but her worried, still-conflicted expression eased when Alex offered her a small but still very real smile.
“You’re right, Bianca,” he said matter-of-factly, without any attempt to make excuses or pass the blame, though he did give a rueful little laugh. “You are...absolutely, 100% right. I didn’t handle that call the way that I should’ve at all. And so I’m gonna fix it tonight--just you wait, I’ll make it right. You’ll see. Or, well. You’ll hear, I guess.”
That night, at the very start of his show, Alex did something that he’d never done before, and that he was going to do his damnedest to never have to do ever again: he retracted something he’d said. He told his listeners that his best friend had brought up how he’d handled one of the calls he’d gotten the night before, and that after thinking about it for around .5 seconds, he’d realized that she had a point. And so he apologized, promised that he’d do his best to give every caller the proper amount of attention, and...called the guy from the night before back. (“God bless caller ID, am I right?”)
The guy answered, and Alex explained what was up, admitted that he hadn’t given the caller the amount of attention that his problem had really deserved--not that it wasn’t a pretty laughable problem, all things considered, but still--and if the guy still wanted to talk about it now, they were live, on the air right now, and they could do that. If he wasn’t interested in having it talked about on the radio any more, Alex offered to call him back tomorrow during the day and have an off-the-air chat with him then.
It was pretty obvious that the caller was surprised, but he was still amenable to the idea of actually talking out his problem this time. Alex listened, making sure to give him a chance to explain himself and why he’d suddenly decided that he wanted to change majors, then outlined a more helpful and comprehensive pros-vs-cons argument. The guy would be giving up what was certain to be a lucrative career for one that was so uncertain that he’d almost definitely have to wait tables or work some dead-end retail job to pay the bills. And so Alex’s final argument was, since that was the case and he’d need another job anyway, why not do both? If he had the time and money to start over, then he probably had the time and money to double major, or get a drama minor, but as long as he was also good at it, he should stick with the computer science. He might as well be doing something more meaningful and well-paying than being a barista at the local coffee shop while he waited for his big acting break.
The caller was hesitant at first, clearly unsatisfied with the idea of not simply throwing away everything else and casting himself bodily upon the altar to drama without any reservations (at least, that was the way Alex rather disparagingly put it, much to the caller’s simultaneous annoyance and amusement); but once Alex pointed out that he’d need to have some kind of job in the meantime anyway, he seemed to rethink his decision to start again from square one. In the end, it sounded like he’d take Alex’s advice, and try for the double-major.
“Good luck talking that over with your faculty advisor,” Alex chuckled, and after exchanging the usual banal social niceties, the whole take care, hope it all goes well for you, dude kinda small talk garbage, Alex ended the call and put on a commercial while he took a long drink of his coffee and thought over how different that had been from what he’d done before.
As was usually the case when she decided to speak up about something, Bianca definitely had a point. She really had been right about this: it had been much more entertaining to really hear about the guy’s problem and then comment sarcastically on his life choices while giving genuinely helpful advice at the same time, which was something to keep in mind going forward. Until that call (or rather, until Bianca had called him out about that call), he hadn’t really felt conscience-struck about any of his interactions with callers, regardless of how nasty he’d gotten. They’d deserved it, after all, and a fair number of them had seemed to want the verbal abuse.
But there were exceptions. There would always be exceptions. And that was something to remember: to take each call as its own separate entity, its own universe with its own set of governing laws and truths. It was his show, so the callers had to play by his rules; but since it was his show, Alex was the one who got to make those rules in the first place, and he could also decide when and where to bend them just a little. A little bit of flexibility wasn’t always a bad thing...and really, it was a lot more satisfying to get the whole story, and then rub just how right he was in their faces with some no-holds-barred commentary and consultation.
After all, what could be better than being totally correct and mercilessly cynical, and then getting thanked for it?
Nothing, really, Alex thought to himself with an immensely satisfied little smirk as he set down his coffee and gave Chisomo a thumbs-up to indicate he was ready for the next caller. God, I love my job.
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