Be About It Press, 2014

Sympathetic Person HotlineMolly O’Brien

I started a business called “Sympathetic Person Hotline.” It began with just me and an acquaintance who had been unemployed for a while. We charged 10 cents a minute to understand other people’s pain.

It was my friend and me, up all night until dawn. We ate cheese doodles and listened to people talk about their broken hearts and dead fathers, and said things like, “I totally get it. That’s awful.”

Demand increased, so we charged more. We hired five more employees. Our office was a room full of different-shaped pillows and ottomans. I found that the best position to sit while sympathizing was supine or prone, but always splayed on a pillow.

The good thing about being the boss at Sympathetic Person Hotline was that I was also sympathetic toward my employees. If they told me they wanted to take a night off for themselves, to sleep, or to drink or smoke or cry, I’d let them. After all, they needed time to themselves.

Then a competitor called Super-Sympathetic Person Hotline popped up, so I knew we had to pivot. My solution was to keep my first business at cutthroat prices, but to also offer a premium telephone service called Empathetic Person Hotline. This involved charging people 45 cents a minute to actually feel other people’s pain.

Now we had two floors of an office building. The first was for the sympathetic operators, who rolled around on their pillows, cooing and cajoling and making reassuring noises. The second floor was for the empathetic operators, who each had a soundproof cubicle, and in the cubicles they’d be moaning and groaning and wailing in total empathy.

The sympathetic employees needed more mental health days, and the empathetic employees needed lower premiums on their healthcare because they were always wrenching their necks or backs from writhing around in their customers’ pain, or else stubbing a toe from kicking a cubicle wall in empathy.

I was so busy being the boss of this company that I stopped answering the hotlines at all. At first it was a relief, but after a while I missed it. So I just started a side business, just me, working for myself, called Unsympathetic Person Hotline. This involves charging no cents a minute to yell at people. They tell me their problems and I tell them that I don’t care and they should get their shit together and stop whining.

Business is good. Both Sympathetic and Empathetic Person Hotlines are succeeding. Productivity is at an all-time high, and the money is rolling in. So what have you done with your life, you pathetic fucking piece of shit? Why are you still talking to me? Why don’t you go out there and accomplish something instead of crying to me? You pathetic piece of shit. You piece of fucking shit.

Want someone to be unsympathetic to your problems? Call (415) 234-0681. It’s free!

molly mary o’brien is a writer in brooklyn. she has written for a bunch of places on the internet and wishes there were more ice cream flavors to choose from.