Sam Barley sat lazily, throbbing back and forth against the mesh net of his mid-tier office chair, thinking about one thing: the only thing guys in their mid 20s employed at a
9 to 5
thought of at this time of day. He rubbed his belly.
lunch
.
He wondered whether it'd be fine to escape now to grab a bite. The clock asserted that he still had four minutes to go. But who would really need him in the next four minutes. Half the office had seemed to already be gone for lunch anyways. Barley placed his hands on his
Logitech
mouse to put his machine to sleep when a man barged in. The intruder was in his early 30s, just seven years older than Barley, but he felt so much older. While Barley was wide eyed about the world and the rest of his life, this man... not so much older than him... seemed calcified, set in his ways. Would he be like that in just seven years time?
This was not to say that he thought badly of the man who was now opening his mouth to ask Barley something. In fact he respected the detective. He respected him in the same manner you might respect a guy at the gym who can bench 315 pounds for reps. You admired the feat, but you knew you weren't willing to put in the work to get to that stage. Barley was fine not taking his job as seriously as detective Patrick Schultz did.
"Barley."
"Yes, sir?"
"What's all this about this different phone number?"
"You mean 999-West--"
"Yes."
"It was a phone number we tried using for a non-emergency hotline and it stuck."
"Don't people know that the police department has an actual phone number?"
"You mean 911?"
"No. That's for emergencies. I mean the one that's listed on our website."
Barley tried to signal that he was about to get up from his chair and head to lunch. Schultz didn't notice or didn't care to signal that he noticed.
"What led to this new hotline? The chief told me that it was the technology department that sold it and implemented it."
Damn, Barley thought. He felt his stomach grumble.
"It's an
API
..." Barley noticed that Schultz didn't register. "It's a programmable thing... you can write code to either call or text different phone numbers or email addresses given certain conditions."
"Okay."
"Well the technology team thought wouldn't it be great to have our hotline be automated? We get so many calls and it was a shame that sometimes these calls would not be answered simply because we didn't have a person ready to. People are busy... they might not call again if they don't get a person their first or second time. Anyways, the older folk here thought we ought to get one of those automated phone systems where you hear a robot tell you a series of options -- say 1 for english 2 para espanol -- and you just choose options like that along the way. But implementing that the old school way involves dealing with some archaic companies and well it leads to limited abilities in what we can do. That's where Twilio came in."
"I see."
"So basically Henry spun up a prototype of what a new hotline using Twilio might look like and the department got sold on it. The code that's running now is still pretty much that prototype. They never approved of any more funds to improve it much."
"Henry. He left recently."
"Yup. He's in California now."
While Schultz's eyes showed that determined focus, that was focused on not on something in this world but something inner to him, Barley thought finally to give a cough.
"A hem. So, Pat... I'm looking to go get lunch. If you want to learn more--"
But then Schultz grunted a non-english sound to signal a goodbye as he turned to leave.
Barley sat there now considering where to go for lunch. He didn't know where. Now he wished that he had somebody to eat with.