Shuffling in through the wide automatic doors of the small office building I keep my head low. The waiting room around me, while only filled with a few individuals, is still too many for my liking. I had only come here today out of curiosity, a slight amount of wonder as to what was on offer that I didn't want coming back to bite me afterward.
The thought of someone recognizing me, either when coming in or out of the Swap Clinic, drives me to pull my dull yellow hoodie over my head as I cinch up the uncomfortably warm hood.
The room itself is rather plain, bright white painted walls and a thin sheet of light blue carpet evoking the feeling of other medical waiting rooms. A series of plastic teal seats line the walls, an occasional spare seat made of a black metal frame on worn purple padding filling the spaces in between.
A series of rooms hang off to the wings of the room, hallways lead off to the left and right of the counter at the back end of the waiting room that leads to the private spaces for the more substantial part of these appointments to occur.
Reaching the counter I cough to announce myself, the cheery young doughy young woman behind the counter looking up at me with a bright smile. She looks up at me with a pair of emerald green eyes, her shiny black hair pulled back into a tough and professional bun. Dimples form in her chubby cheeks, the cute young thing likely having had some level of work done at the Swap Clinic.
"Oh hello" she chirps, her voice bright like verbal daffodils and butterflies. "Do you have an appointment?"
"Oh...uh...yeah" I stammer awkwardly in response, cinching my hoodie slightly more closed in an effort to hide my nervous state. "Jordan...Jordan Hughes, I have a...I mean a consultation appointment" I explain, forcefully correcting myself as I realize my grammatical error.
"Let...me...just..." the young woman mutters, her downright darling voice making me weak in the knees as she adorably shimmies in place with her tongue held between her teeth in concentration. "Here we are...Jordan Hughes, eleven-thirty. You're right on time!" she giggles excitedly, the Swap Clinic having chosen the perfect person to greet their customers.
The short pale woman races around behind the counter, struggling for a moment as she grunts and fiddles with some unseen object before retrieving a tablet with a delighted grin. Looking between her computer and the tablet she types in something, copying it from one to the other.
"Here you go" she coos, holding out the large mass-produced tablet in a well-worn leather case.
Pausing for a moment, I simply stare at the tablet as I cock my eyebrow in confusion. I had booked in an appointment, a consultation with a sales representative who would walk me through the process or something like that.
Sensing my confusion the raven-haired young woman pipes up, beaming at me and burning away any worry with her bright and cheery persona.
"I'm so so so sorry, but we don't do in-person consultations anymore. But...but here, here we have our catalog of traits that are currently on offer" she explains, practically forcing the tablet into my hands in the most cheery sales pitch I had ever seen.
"I...but..." I stammer, taking the tablet from her as she grins from ear to ear.
"Just list your own traits, the ones you want to give up..." she adds in a whispered voice like it was some sort of secret. "...and then select the traits you want, no need for any consultation or anything like that" she explains, trying to make redundancy of paid employees sound like a good thing.
"But what if..." I begin to ask, the plus-pint-sized young woman cutting me off before I can finish.
"We double-check your trade-ins" she chimes in with a wink, smirking slightly as her eyes shift over me. "But don't lie...okay?" she states, pouting playfully as she shoos me away and towards the waiting room at large.
Following her short instruction I pace back over to the closest plastic seat, slumping into the chair as it flexes and stains again my large frame. With a sigh I open up the tablet, a large checker box menu popping up with two separate tabs "Buy" and "Sell".
With a sigh I begin to fill out my own sell sheet, trying to get as much trade-in value as I can before I begin to hit my wallet. As I tap at the screen my mind turns to what led me here, the terrible past few months and my slight windfall.
A few months back I had been let go from my position at a local college, the pandemic making my position redundant despite it being able to be performed from home. After a long dispute, what had been a forced redundancy turned to an optional one.
Seeing the way the wind was blowing I took it, locking myself out of my teaching and lecturing job as my non-compete clause quickly kicked in. With rent to pay and no other skills beyond customer service I quickly searched for more desperate options.
Before long I was brought to the Swap Clinic, their website promising a reprieve from my woes for the right price. With a hastily made online appointment I decided to at least humor the idea of making some sort of drastic change, the thought of my three degrees going to waste thanks to a non-compete clause driving me more than anything else.
As I look at the plain-looking app on the tablet, my eyes immediately glazing over at the poorly formatted black text on a white background, I quickly pull my phone from my pocket. Opening my banking app I look at my savings account, staring at the few thousand dollars in savings I had now bolstered by my severance of...
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