My Job

Jobs are great. What better way to make money could there be?

I think everyone should get a job. It's harder to be a vegetable when you have to show your vital signs in public every day.

My job is the best. I get to sit in a chair for four hours every day and call people. So many people. So many great people...

And so many more rude, obnoxious people. So many people who will not hesitate to express their deepest resentment for you, the innocent shift worker on the other end.

Someone once wished an eternal curse of cancer upon a coworker. And her eternal posterity.

It's easy to deal with. For me, after the first spicy customer, it was all fun and games. Plus, you always feel like a champ when you are able to effortlessly maintain a mature composure while simultaneously being verbally assaulted.

But I wonder: Why is it that so many people so completely lose their cool with one simple phone call? Why is it considered so intrusive?

We all have acquaintances we may wish we didn't. Do we refrain from yelling at these people when they fail to respond to social queues in the sole interest of avoiding losses to personal interest? In the real world, it would seem unlikely. It would seem that some altruistic desire for their welfare overrules our natural desire to get rid of them. But according to what I witness in the telecomm world, telephone affairs are subject to a very different set of rules.

No matter. For now, I get a kick out of listening to people lose total control and all evidence of their decency in less than ten seconds. The power... 

Every day, I ruin a few minutes of a lot of a lot of people's lives. Because they lack the self-control of a seven-year-old, they throw a very literal tantrum when someone calls them on their personal number. 

That can't be healthy, and it is certainly not becoming of any adult, anywhere, ever.

I suppose the take-home message I am trying to put across is this: Next time a telemarketer calls you, remember that he or she exists as a person in the real world, and as such is entitled to a certain degree of respect. 

Also, please trust that he or she would rather die than call you personally on his or her personal time.