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.