The deadpan wallflower

It’s been half a decade ago since I decided to kick off a so-called career life. Because I was on an entry level and thought myself grandly verbose and grammatically correct, the obvious choice was the call center. I proved to be a sorry call center agent with no future in the business processing outsourcing world.

My QA grades were painfully average and my social skills were low. It was there that I realized that the business world have no use for my vocabulary and grammar; whereas in the academe, it made me shine despite my social defect. Customers on the other end of the phone line do not care if my preposition and conjunction are perfect.

It was depressing and my already defective set of social skills has become completely run down; I became the most unenthusiastic agent on the floor. It did not help that my days are spent on school and my nights at work and in between I was traveling and sleeping on buses and cabs. I could not cope with my coworkers whose bond grew stronger as we stayed longer in the company. Despite the presence of a boyfriend at work, I felt my self drifting apart from the rest of them.

In the middle of the persistent misery, I had an epiphany. I suddenly wanted a job that would make full use of my motor skills. I thought then that my enthusiasm may be spruced up if I expend more energy at work.

And I was right. My years spent as a barista was a turning point in my life, if not of my career. I had another realization; I belong somewhere and my skills are relevant and I am an important person. I was prized for my abilities.

But there was a draw back, I can not make the front line, I can only stay on the side lines. I envy my colleagues who can carry out a small talk with a hesitant guest. I was a feisty vivacious girl behind the bar as I was the laconic freak during table visits.

I remember telling my coworker Bab Gillera that I was not used to being talked to while growing up. I was used to being invisible and ignored. And it wasn’t even a bad case of ignored, I was simply not talked to probably out of disinterest. I am always overcome with disbelief whenever persons, strangers and those whom I normally mutually ignore speak to me. When my former college classmate Kay Duenas mentioned wallflowers in her nostalgic Facebook album, I was convinced that I was the major wallflower.

Ronald told me that I am elitist; my difficulty to socialize does not stem from pathology but from an innate repulsion of everything I find disagreeable.

However I struggled with customer relations, I successfully felt empowered as I discovered my niche, and this gave me delusions of grandeur. Aside from making friends and bridging authority, which used to be a waterloo, I also found admirers, which included me.  I discovered and cultivated my aesthetics and developed a deeper interest for material wants, specifically, clothes.

It was then I altered my plans of culinary servitude and dreamed of climbing the ladder of a fashion powerhouse.

These jobs caused paradoxical changes in my attitude. I became more reserved and patient towards strangers whenever I’m out of the work place and developed notoriety for scorning and disparaging irate customers. I was conscious about how I behaved to potential customers, but unmindful to those who made my job more depressing.

As I evaluate my progress in this detour of a career path I made, I can feel the resentment boiling. I have long suspected that this was a wrong turn and I have indeed carelessly walked out of the niche I found. I am slowly slipping back into the deadpan wallflower I was before. Bleak future, no friends, and without enthusiasm.

The difference is I am probably scorned, please don’t ask why, but that’s better than invisible. Also, as I regain further social awkwardness, my wardrobe will make up for me.