"Jake, stop looking at my ass and do your fucking job," Nadia Chaouni said, smiling and shaking her head. The young Moroccan Muslim woman rolled her eyes as her favorite co-worker, a certain six-foot-tall, dark and handsome Haitian, continued to gawk. Jacob Duchene leaned back in his chair, and continued to ogle his supervisor Nadia. The lady was mighty fine, and her Yoga pants seemed to have been painted on. Can Jacob really be blamed for, ahem, booty gawking?
It was a rather quiet day at the Lisgar Call Center in downtown Ottawa. Winter had come to provincial Ontario, and everyone was frosty, reflecting the weather outside. There are hundreds of call center operators occupying five floors of the mid-sized building, with Canadian government workers taking the two topmost floors. Today, the phones were dead, with hardly any callers, and people were a bit more relaxed than usual.
"Desole, mademoiselle, I was daydreaming," Jacob said with utmost insincerity, and Nora grinned, then gently touched his shoulder before she continued making her rounds. She'd recently gotten promoted to supervisor after two years on the job, following her graduation from La Cite Collegiale. Running a call center isn't easy, especially one that takes sales-oriented inbound and outbound calls. There are numbers which every supervisor must meet. Someone has to do it, though, and Nadia Chaouni is the right woman for the job...
"Nadia, I need your help," said Elisabeth Dupuis, and Nadia hurried over to the portly Haitian woman, who'd been eyeballing her and Jacob with disapproval for quite some time. Just as Nadia suspected, Elisabeth had a computer problem which would have been solved by running a simple systems diagnostic. When Nadia pointed that out, Elisabeth gave her a fake smile, then looked her up and down. Obviously, Nadia's choice of outfit, consisting of a black leather jacket over a pink turtleneck shirt and Yoga pants, did not meet with Elisabeth's approval...
"Have a nice day, Liz, I've got to go," Nadia said, with a smile just as fake as Elizabeth's, and she was well aware of the fact that Elizabeth hated to be called Liz. Nadia wondered if Liz was familiar with the concept of irony. The Haitian broad disapproved of Nadia's, ahem, fondness for Jacob, but she had a white boyfriend herself, some guy named Keith or something. Nadia checked up on Ian, a boisterous young African guy who was one of the call center's top salespeople.
"I stole a client from the Quebec cable and Internet company and signed them up to our clients," Ian said victoriously, and Nadia grinned, high-fived Ian and then wrote his name on the board. At the Lisgar Call Center, every employee's good deed was put up on the board and celebrated, from punctuality and customer service awards to exemplary sales records. That's one of the many reasons why Nadia liked her job. She liked making people feel good...
As Nadia continued her rounds, she could sense someone looking at her. At first, she thought it might be Liz, or perhaps Jacob, the call center's booty gawker in chief. Nope, no such luck. Nadia turned around and found herself facing Yassin Assad, a tall, bearded young Arab Muslim guy originally from the City of Aleppo, Syria. He grinned at her the way a serpent smiles at a dove before ensnaring it, and Nadia repressed a shudder. The dude gave her the creeps...
"Well, if it isn't Miss Africa," Yassin said, and he looked Nadia up and down, and the young woman rolled her eyes. Like a lot of Arabs, Yassin viewed himself as somehow superior to Africans, the way some unenlightened North Africans saw themselves as superior to their sub-Saharan brethren. Nadia had seen such racist attitudes in her hometown of Rabat, Morocco, and didn't subscribe to them. The way Nadia sees it, everybody's human, and at the end of it all, everyone turns to dust, regardless of pedigree or skin color...
During Nadia's first year at the call center, she made the mistake of spending one passionate weekend with Yassin. The sex was fun, but the dude was a real douche bag. Nadia decided to dump Yassin after she found out about his racist attitude toward non-Arabs, especially Africans. The fool saw nothing wrong with sleeping with a North African woman while disparaging African people. The sheer nerve on him!
"Something I can help you with, Yassin?" Nadia demanded, crossing her arms, and Yassin grinned. As a quality control manager with the Lisgar Call Center, Yassin outranked Nadia, but she didn't answer to him directly. Nadia's manager was a white lady named Roxy, a short-haired, tattooed lesbian who was actually a really sweet person. Too bad Roxy was on vacation, and there was no one to hold Yassin in check. Nadia resisted the urge to smack the smirk out of Yassin's face...
"I see that Team Africa is leading in sales, go team go," Yassin said mockingly as he pumped his fist in the air, in an imitation of the Black Power Salute. Nadia shrugged and brushed past Yassin, not caring to hear the rest of his diatribe. Of course, Yassin, unable to get the damned hint, followed Nadia, and she sighed, wondering what it would take to get rid of the bozo. In Arab culture, sexual harassment is not exactly seen as a problem, and unless a woman's male family members are present, fools will harass her with impunity...
"Yo, Yassin, what's good?" Jacob said, and with almost panther-like speed, the tall, dark-skinned young Haitian man placed himself between Yassin and the retreating Nadia. Yassin scowled and locked eyes with Jacob, as if offended that the young Haitian guy was standing up to him. Jacob knew that in Arab countries, the blacks are usually passive and soft, the result of centuries of subjugation. Well, Jacob is from the island of Haiti, where the dark-skinned people have been known to beat pale bozos with imperialistic ambitions...
"Mind your own business, bro," Yassin retorted, and Jacob got in his face. Nadia tried to defuse the situation but both young men ignored her. It looked like a fight was about to start. Fortunately, the floor manager, Mr. Morrison, a portly, middle-aged and balding white man, heard the commotion and hurried over to the hot spot. He cleared his throat loudly, and when that didn't work, he shouted to get the irate young men's attention.
"Gentlemen, what the hell is going on here? We have no time for bickering, there is work to do," Mr. Morrison said, and Yassin sighed, while Jacob exhaled sharply. The two young men returned to their respective corners. Mr. Morrison watched them go, feeling like a teacher dealing with irate students. He looked at Nadia, who looked forlorn, and inquired if she was alright. The poor gal looked tired all of a sudden, and it was still early in the morning...
"Thank you, Mr. Morrison," Nadia said softly, and she impulsively gave the older man a hug, before rushing to the ladies room. Nadia washed her face, and looked at her reflection in the mirror. At the age of twenty three, she stood five-foot-eight, curvy and sexy, with long black hair framing a lovely, round face. Serious brown eyes stared back at her. Nadia is a daughter of the North African Desert, and a tough woman. Still, Yassin made Nadia feel powerless, and she felt more embarrassed than flattered by the fact that Jacob, well-meaning but impulsive Jacob, had to come rescue her...