Call Center Confidential

For those of you who have ever worked in a call center environment and sat in cubicles, you will know what I'm talking about: when you're in your "cubie" and all the office sounds seem to become a "dull roar" in the background. I wrote this in the fall of 2007, as I was waiting for incoming calls to start:

Fleeting thoughts written
while I look at the blinking
colon on the telephone.
I notice the rough
surface of the fabric-covered walls
of my cubicle.
Telephones ring in the distance;
a dull hum of voices, layers over layers.
Buttons on a keyboard
being keyed in.

My thoughts race as the phone rings,
stirring me back to the droning
work at hand.
Hurried people, impatient, angry;
raised voices; profanity.
No understanding of what they do;
never fully listening to our questions,
unsure of the meaning of some words.
They should purchase a dictionary!