Legendary Cringe: Fresh Telemarketer
circa. 2013

How the fuck did you get this number?
Don’t EVER call again, asshole.
I dunk the slimy plastic receiver down, fingers sticky from an unidentified gunk that wouldn’t submit to my frantic paper towel and hand soap cleansing earlier that day.
At a more orderly work station to my left is Richard, my pony tailed manager who drops into a wholesome and doughy sounding Bronx accent when desperate to hook a lead. It is an amiable trait, which has apparently served him well over two years of telemarketing since his parole from state prison.
Early on, around the second hour, he generates the day’s first lead.
Richard has scheduled a free estimate appointment for Abdullah’s Dry Wall & Spectacular Floors. Put it on the board. He boasts to me after closing the call:
“You’re going to be hearing that a lot, kid.”
I wouldn’t, but he tells me this repeatedly as we review the steps of his accomplishment. His soft and charming phone manner is not quite congruent with the reality of his person. Richard sounds like a conniving chimney sweep, diligently hustling door to door in a jagged motion in between bouts of doughy integrity and wholesome warmth ladled on thick.
He gruffly offers pointers and tips in between the endless dialing. The sonic landscape is dominated by; ringing, dialing, mumbling and the clattering of gooey plastic receivers.

Not long after I failed to entice my tenth call, we’re interrupted by a pissed-off co-worker who has come to complain about the Manuel situation.
The sassy woman, Shonna, is irate over Manuel’s treatment by Abdullah, the handsome Arabian contractor masterminding our telemarketing operation. I am sitting at Manuel’s recently vacated desk, which explains the printed out family photos and rainbow array of peeling sticky notes dotting the cracked plaster wall.
I met Abdullah briefly the day before for an interview, though he was more interested in overseeing office activity via a thorough network of high definition surveillance cameras looming over each dingy office room. Richard was called into the stunted interview and vouched for me almost instantly.
During Shonna’s burst of profanity, I learned that Richard has recently returned from a stint in prison. They jabber and jest until she stalks off to close a call in Hayward.
I had a chance to meet the rest of my co-dialers during break, surrounded by the haze from their collective cigarettes.
Each that I met was kind and supportive, offering strategies and speculation regarding the best area codes to dial. John, who had a sagging face and few teeth, dressed in what could only be described as a flowing lab coat, insisted San Jose and Brentwood almost always picked up later in the afternoon. A hulking, aggressive man who’s splattered with tattoos reminisces about the good old days, when “five leads a day weren’t nothing.”
Richard has recently purchased a low end Android smart phone. He is absorbed by it throughout the work day and enlists my help in configuring various settings and features. I am labeled a genius for rearranging apps and deleting others. He asks that I demonstrate how to enter contact information, so I hesitantly provide him my cellular number as a good will gesture. He particularly enjoys talk-to-text software, freeing his dialing fingers from constructing conventional SMS messages.
Word from the out of town Abdullah is that we are to have twenty leads by days end. By two o’clock lunch our motley group has amassed four.

I eat Vietnamese takeout alone while sitting on a bench directly in the sun. Soon enough, some co-workers making their way back from lunchtime excursions stop to shoot the breeze with the new guy. They provide further advice and assurance, although I begin to notice a pattern in the collectively broken smiles I’m offered. Some were missing more teeth than others, but dental upkeep seemed a low priority of my new peers.
In fact, personal hygiene and appearance seemed definitively irrelevant with regard to the telemarketing profession.
Once back inside, Richard returns with the unmistakable aroma of marijuana about him. After our first dozen calls, he turns to me and requests a ride to a BART station once work ends. I politely decline. Richard spends the next several hours trying to arrange a ride with the occasional work call made sparsely. His talk-to-text software required that he sound out his words and enunciate clearly — loud enough to hear cringeworthy gems like:
“RONNIE — CAN — I — GET — A — RIDE — GOT — A — SHIT -LOAD — OF- POT”

The day slogs on with little success.
From the adjacent office a resounding “FUCK YES!” is bellowed. The tattooed man has secured a precious lead for the contractor. It should go without saying how inappropriate such behavior is in a call center when surrounded by dozens of people speaking with potential clients.
Enthused, he comes gallivanting into our section to gloat and suggest tweaks to my evidently faulty approach. “Tweak” is perhaps an appropriate description here, as this is the moment I am assured the tattooed man is high on methamphetamine.
“Tweaking” is an adjective often attributed to the behavior of those overcome by the stimulating nature of meth, and can involve incessant twitching, scratching of the face or arms and unusually sped up or slurred speech patterns. All of this is exhibited as he belligerently explains his “DON’T ASK THEM, FUCKING TELL THEM” approach to telemarketing. He absentmindedly rearranges paper, pens, and other nick knacks on my desk while chattering madly.
“DON’T ASK THEM, FUCKING TELL THEM”
The hours continue to stack without any leads. Richard, bereft of a ride home, calls Abdullah requesting to leave half an hour early to catch the bus. He is denied this small grace and will have to walk miles.
Finally, it’s seven o’clock and I have achieved nothing on my first day of telemarketing but acute insight into the depraved nature of my coworkers and bottomless failure. As we pack up, Richard addresses me solemnly:
“Look kid…sorry to have to do this but…we’re looking for someone a little
more… aggressive. You’re just not aggressive enough. Just come in and pick up your check tomorrow, OK? Abdullah called, he’s been watching all day and I’m sorry to say he doesn’t want you back. Doesn’t like what he sees and maybe your leads don’t like what they hear.”
I lower my eyebrows, not quite surprised but spurred by his diagnosis of my failure.
“Aggressive? Richard, you spent half of the day text messaging and downloading animated wallpapers for your smart phone.”
He began to shuffle out. “I’m not good at this part, so…”
The dingy office has cleared out quickly and I soon find myself alone. I sit in the dark for a few minutes to become reacquainted with unemployment. After I say goodbye to the receptionist locking up, I receive a call.
It’s Richard on his walk to the BART station:
“Hey, kid. Hello? No hard feelings right? Think I could get a ride? Please?
Freezing out here. Hello?”
I hang up. No hard feelings. After all, we’re going to be hearing that a lot.
