Isabelle Gaumont

I don't know why I've been holding off for so long on reading books en francais -- it is a homecoming! Except for the very end following the general end, this was a really well-written, thought-provoking book. It's difficult to go into detail without spoilers. But since I am writing about an French book in English, I will share a general synopsis. This is a book about Simone, a Montreal woman stuck in a collections calling-centre crap job, and an even crappier relationship (which is only exposed after every indignity of the job has been put on the table). She plays by the rules. She may bend a small rule in order to comply with a greater rule (i.e. she will literally bend so that her head is unseen above the cubicles where she works to break the rule against being away from her desk so that she may speak to a colleague to provide her with information so that the colleague may better answer calls from customers and thereby she complies with the bigger rule of providing effective customer service and making her employer-company bigger profits). And she burns out but has no clue that she is burnt out. It is a seemingly inappropriate gesture on the narrator's part that triggers her employer to force her to seek counselling (from a Yellow Pages psychologist, as she refers to him) and thereby set her into introspection and drastic changes (for the better) in her attitude. This lady cleans up! And it seems to end well, with major character growth, until the very last bit...… (mais)