Two Weeks Notice - Part 3

Sunday September 16:

Today was the last Sunday I’ll ever have to work as a telemarketer. As you can probably guess, Sunday’s are the hardest days to get a sale. Sample Sunday conversation:

Me: I can give you free television.
Lead: I worship THE LORD on Sunday!
Me: I apologize. Have a good Sunday.
Lead: Go to HELL, MOTHERFUCKER!

I am not exaggerating. I especially enjoy the folks who tell me that they do not take calls on Sundays, because they evidently forgot that fact when they answered the phone.

It was another excruciatingly slow day. For some reason, every terminal was filled. Usually, there is only a hundred or so working on Sundays. Today however, two hundred people were crammed in; all yelling over each other so the leads can hear them. As a result of the two times the amount of employees, there were half as many calls for everyone. Consequently, boredom and downtime. But that did give me a chance to work on homework.

I wish I could elaborate on the subject, but I’ve got to go. I will write more later, preferably on the last two sections so that this has some sense of symmetry.


Monday September 17:

I don’t remember Monday. Sorry.


Wednesday September 19:

First, before I enlighten you about my Wednesday, I need to get some exposition out of the way. In the previous weeks, I have had just enough free time to barely cover my day-to-day assignments. Since my schedule has been overscheduled and overfilled, this Tuesday evening was the only time I had to start and finish an eight page paper. So at 3 A.M., I finally make it into the land of sleepdom. Five hours later, I turn in the paper.

At 8:50 AM, I promptly leave the lecture hall, travel to the library, go up to the top floor where all the comfortable chairs live, and pass out. After approximately half an hour of bliss, one of the University’s Public Relation Specialists (read: Tour Guides) arrives with 50 thunderous high-schoolers. In the middle of her speal about the new, multi- million dollar facility filled with wonderful arrays of knowledge, I wake up, crankily say a few choice words, roll over, and fall back asleep all before I realize that I am in a public place. Of course five seconds after this I become lucid. I look around and see that while I was unconscious, seven others thought I had a good idea. The eight of us had been lying equidistantly in comatose states when the Tour Guide arrived. “Yes kids, enroll in the school of the homeless.”

At noon, I took the physics test, drove home, slept some more, and then drove to work. I suppose I should have more memories from work, since 6.5 of the 8 total hours I was awake today took place there. Oh well. I’m a student, not a worker, anyway.


Friday September 21:

Back when I started the first entry in this journal, I had the ending all figured out. Flashbacks would explain my supervisor’s reaction when I told her I needed to quit. Then, I would intercut anecdotes of my last night with details of my first few days at this job. It would have been a minor masterpiece since my first night and my last strangely paralleled each other. It would have allowed me to compare the apprehensive beginner with the assured expert I had become. However, the details don’t seem that important anymore. And honestly, most of that first night has faded from my memory. I walked through the employee exit for the last time tonight. I don’t need to go back.

Also, tonight I talked to a Romanian immigrant. After I separated his last name into its syllabic components, he responded by saying, “Yes. It is I, Markovotsky,” with the same inflection and cadence as Bela Lugosi. Luckily, he hung on me before I blurted out that I missed Count VonCount. It is rare that you ever find someone that passionate, especially about addition.

Two Weeks Notice: Part 2

Monday September 10:

I have fifteen minutes to kill, so off to the library I go. The library is the most useful building on campus. I have yet to check out a book. Last week, I went inside the library to use the reading rooms as napping rooms like normal. But when I left, to my horror, part of the huge field of dirt had been covered by grass. Many universities have scenic views. But we had a huge field of dirt. It made us unique. I miss it.

At 3:15, I leave the library to go to work. At 3:50, I’m clocked in and ready to take calls. For some reason, Karyn, the benign sixty-something woman who occupies the cubicle across from me, didn’t go to work. Is she sick? Or on vacation? Did she quit? I don’t think she would, even though she was as fed up with the campaign change as much as I was. I look around for familiar faces and I don’t see Thin Blonde Bitch as well. Thin Blonde Bitch is aptly named because one night she had an 18 minute (I watched the clock) diatribe concerning every detail of this job. Also, she once attacked a vending machine that wouldn’t take her dollar. I keep my distance.

Since Karyn’s gone, Laura and Tim are the only employees in my campaign that started working here before me. The twenty-two others were all hired within the last three months. Also, there are three new people in the monitoring room tonight, listening in to everyone in a sales campaign. Once this becomes common knowledge, Laura promptly says “Screw this!” and takes off. Tim ditches as well, leaving me as the sole veteran of the campaign.

While we are monitored, we can be written up every time we don’t rebut. Rebuttals usually go like this:
Lead: I’m not interested.
Me: Well, actually you are interested because this is a great deal!
Lead: No!
Me: Yes! Let me sign you up!
Lead: (Sigh) Okay.

If one can fake sincerity while being aggressive, people will immediately cave. One night I made 18 sales (back when the goal was 9) simply because I overdosed on Claritin-D and inadvertently sounded like I cared. Tonight, I’m too tired to exhibit faux-sincerity. The customers misinterpret my lackluster rebuttals as signs of a pushy salesman, when in fact I deliberately speak to them in the least convincing manner. However, since I say a rebuttal, I can’t be written up. This way I don’t have to list ‘terminated’ on any future applications.

In one of my last calls, a guy tells me that he wants to decrease his bill. I was supposed to say to him that the deal would save him five dollars but instead I explained what he was paying for HBO and Starz. Then I gave him the customer service number where he could get rid of them. So instead of making the company another ten dollars a month, I cost them twenty-five. So it goes. My shift ends at 10:40. On my way home, I maintain a steady 70mph and hit my driveway at 11:10. Counterproductively, it then takes my brain over an hour to fall asleep.



Wednesday, September 12:

At school today, I ran into Rachel, a girl I known since Kindergarten. She’s a commuter as well. We’ve gone to the same elementary, junior, and high schools. Now we’ve managed to end up at the same university. All our conversations tend to follow the same pattern. There’s an inevitable reference to our six-year-old selves and the awareness that we have occupied the opposite sides of the same building most of our lives. But it is always nice to catch up.

We ran out of leads tonight. So for about twenty minutes we have nothing to do. I end up talking to another Rachel (This one is in her forties), who is sitting next to me. We exchange office gossip about how we’re supposed to go home at ten, or at least that’s what they told us when we were hired. Apparently, a few employees have alerted corporate about the deception. Exactly two seconds after Rachel informed me of this, we got to go home half an hour early. Sometimes life hands me a present. Sometimes I get to have eight hours of sleep.



Friday September 14:

Next week I have an Ethics essay exam on Tuesday, a Humanities paper due on Wednesday, a Physics exam on Wednesday, and a Psychology exam on Thursday. It is also my last week at work, so Sunday, Monday, and Wednesday I’ll have no time to do the necessary studying. Additionally, I’m using this journal as a means of procrastination. I really should be writing that paper.

At work, Karyn and Thin Blonde Bitch returned, so I guess they didn’t quit. I made a big bad nine sales. I was supposed to make thirteen. At one point, I closed my eyes for an hour, only opening them to glance at the lead’s name and price information. I’m such a hard worker.

I only have four more days left at this job. I have no idea what I’m going to do with myself afterwards, but I also have no idea how I’m going to survive next week. I need to stop procrastinating.

Two Weeks Notice - Part One

Sunday September 9:

I turned in my two weeks notice on Friday. I should’ve starting writing this then, but good ideas never come to me on time. For breakfast today, I had a piece of toast, one egg, and a bowl of vanilla ice cream, just to make sure the day went down smoothly. It did. I had a great time at work. I made nine sales. I was supposed to make fourteen. A lead asked me if the channels I was offering her had any children’s programming. I told her that “Sexy Suspects,” “Sex on the Run,” and “Thrust from the Hip” were being shown today. I didn’t get the sale.

For the last three weeks I had been monitored, meaning that malicious people listen in to all the calls I make to see if I screw them up. Stress accumulated inside of me like fat. I was always worried about fuckle-ing up and then being fired. “How will I be able to pay for tuition?” was all I could think about. I gained five pounds. Two weeks ago, when the semester started and I had to leave to go to school at 7:30 AM and didn’t get home till my shift was over and my commute commuted at 11:10 PM, I stopped meeting my sales quota. Too much pressure. Not enough sleep. And I was being monitored, so I couldn’t cheat like everyone else. So I decided to quit. I may not be able to pay my bills, but I just might be able to enjoy life. I’m waiting to see if that’s worth it.

“I’m a student, not a worker” I repeat to myself. I hope that my inner voice will eventually sound convincing. Exactly two hours after I turn in my two week’s notice a supervisor comes up to me and tells me I’ve been selected to start the new BBC campaign. That’s why they were monitoring me. They didn’t want to fire me. They wanted to transfer me to a better position. Good things never come to me on time.

A Series of Unrelated Observations

The water from the pump is as yellow as the grass surrounding me. The chicken in the rotisserie hiccups as gas escapes its succulent, lifeless corpse. Life is a collection of unrelated observations. It may appear to have thematic significance, however, that is simply the result of our attempts to attach meaning to meaningless information.

I had a dream last night in which I suffered a case of mistaken identity. The traveling mime troupe explains that it is I who has mistaken my identity. One of the silent performers turns out to be Justin, and I am a nameless stand-in. I apologize for any inconvenience and sit down, attempting to remember my correct identity. Eventually I give up and create a new one, but it turns out that the new identity is also taken by a mime.

Confused, I glance at the world surrounding me and observe that I am in a warehouse as large as a major metropolitan mall. It is crammed with a mixture of gray tubes and stairs, all angles, asymmetry, and alliteration. There is a community on the floor that I am sitting on that is substantial enough to sustain a mime troupe. Also, a village of upside-down people dwells directly under the ceiling, in direct violation of gravitational laws. The hot chick from work resides up there. The mime beside me says that everyone is happier up there, but I don’t believe him. His skewed perception identifies smiles when in fact all they do is frown.

I find myself at Wal-mart in the wee hours of the morning often this week. The consumerism distracts my insomnia. I stare at the daunting aisle of orange juices. Several fruit fusions are available, as well as tangy original. The tangy original is tangier than the original I remember and the fusions are interspecies anomalies that call themselves orange juice. There is also a reduced sugar variety. I grow nostalgic for the mid-nineties. What ever happened to the sugar-fortified Sunny-D I remember from my childhood? I settle on mango.

Repetition

I talk to more people than I’ve ever spoken to in my entire life these days. From four to ten-thirty I talk to the Vanvalkinburg’s, the Montezuma’s, the Farnkoff’s, the Delarosa’s, the Bones’, and every Johnson family found within the continental United States. I plead, implore, and beg in a precisely inflected tone of voice which insures maximum sales. I tell them of our great new offer available to only the most select, valued customers that we sell to everyone, everywhere, at all times.

“Well, sir, the reason for my call today to thank you for being a valued customer and therefore let you know that you can get a $25 cash rebate just for trying out our late-night pornography programming that your children will watch while you sleep. With this special new deal, sir, your six-year olds will be taught how to masturbate by the television, so you won’t have to have uncomfortable conversations with them when puberty strikes and wet dreams commence. Also, sir, the $25 rebate will cover the first two months, but you are going to forget to cancel the service when this trial period is over since these channels are identical to the 250 channels you already have. They’ll get lost in the mountain of trash and smut that you already receive, sir, only for the low cost of a hundred dollars a month more than cable.”

Surrounding me are 169 other employees speaking the same words as I am. While there are multiple bodies, only two other people are found in this place. It’s the same two people repeated over and over in varying genders and ethnicities. They may look distinct or sound atypical, yet their personality mirrors most others if not all. All can be designated as either a temp or a lifer. Except me, it seems. I fall somewhere in between the common categories. I plan to get out in three to five.

Several women are in the habit of dancing on the weekends when they make a sale. I assume this is the motivation as a white one down the aisle starts to thrust her pelvis. Her beer gut bounces merrily in the air-conditioned breeze. The effect is not unlike the effect of a mural made out of dung or prose composed completely of sentence fragments. There is an internal awareness that if I had feelings or a sense of discrimination, I would be disgusted. Yet I do not, so I am mostly captivated by my easily found compliance.

Soon thereafter, our system crashes. With newfound free time, the boy in the mini-cubicle next to me begins to list mediocre garage band names he has been generating this afternoon. He is of the goth/emo rocker variety. As he names thousands of reasons why such and such band name won’t do because it is too similar to such and such established band, I realize that he has had very minimal customization. I have talked to hundreds of the same model in my short life-span. He is not unlike an action figure that is in the same condition as it was in the box, twenty years ago. I smile at my realization and visualize everyone in the room on the shelf in Wal-mart’s toy department. Goth/emo rocker boy misinterprets this as a sign that I was listening to him and continues on with the list of creative conformity. I don’t correct him because my nominal sense of politeness tells me not to spoil his fun. He asks me to be in his band. I tell him a flat “no” but this is interpreted as “please continue the monologue.” Eventually, I am released from the one-way conversation as the system restarts. The store manager leaves the computer room to hover the aisles, an apparition with gardener’s eyes, searching for weeds. I try to look busy.

I realize three hours after the fact that the high school kid two seats over was fired. The official reason for his termination was a low sales rate, but everyone knows it was because he is a city kid with a history of vandalism and a habit of talking trash. I didn’t notice his departure till the end of the night when his fellow city kid/best friend served exposition to everyone. The two of them looked so similar that everyone assumed the other one was still in his seat.

I clock out and I drive home. I drive back and I clock in. I rinse, lather, and repeat the same way repetitively. I say the same words to the same people in different bodies. I say the same answers to the same questions to the same customer found in fort-eight states. The people around me engage in small talk that unremarkably matches the small-talk others are saying at the same time as I sit accompanied by my thoughts. I think that if there was a creator, I assume she/he tried to mix things up, but he/she only had two die to make individuals out of, so everyone ended up as something between two and twelve.

I clock out and I drive home. I drive back and as I walk to my half-cubicle, I pass by another me. He has the same brown hair, same blue eyes, same allergic reaction to wasp stings, same bounce in his steps, and same tilt in his dick. He has the same sense of anomie found in the knowledge of human mass-production. We stare at each other for a few milliseconds and become aware of the awkward moment.

Then we shrug and go opposite directions.

I enter the call center, clock in, and say what I’ve already said several thousand times. “Well, Mr. Johnson, the reason for my call today to thank you for being a valued customer and therefore let you know…”