Shit Jobs: Telemarketing

There are two people, twelve years later, whose names, numbers and addresses I could recite for you. I still might kill them some day.

You’re sitting there in a tiny cubicle in a moldy beige room with acoustical tile and you’re separated from a bear sized homeless man with a loud booming voice by what is basically urinal divider. You have a headset on, an old one with one foam earphone and a curly wire going into a battered phone. You are listening to a cavernous hiss. And then it beeps and your back tenses and it’s showtime.

“…. Hello? HELLO!!???!!!”

The person on the other end of the line has been listening to silence and clicks for five seconds. They’re tipped off to what you are. Because the autodialer waits for what it thinks is a human voice to connect you. The person is already pissed off. You have a dumb terminal in front of you. It’s the 21st century but you have a monitor with green block letters on black from the 70’s with what is putatively the person’s name and address, but a lot of times it’s empty or some guy who was about to get fired had put in “Harry Stiffey, 69 Cumshot Drive.”

“HELLO??!???” WHO IS THIS??!!??”

“Good evening sir, is this Mr. Sti– uh, are you the head of the household?”