The Torments of Telemarketing
I have worked a lot of bad jobs, but no work has been as just plain awful as telemarketing for a mortagage company. I actually call people up and ask them if they want to refinance their home. I know what you're thinking. You are absolutely right. I a m one of those people who interupt your dinner and babble something about which you couldn't care less. I am the annoying voice that asks, "Is Mr. Blah Blah there," when you just know I've never met anyone in your family before in my life. I harrass comp lete strangers about subjects I know nothing about.
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For this gem of a job I get paid five dollars an hour and a stunning three dollars for every pre-application I manage to hustle. I call fifty people in thirty minutes sometimes. This varies according to how long I can keep each one on the phone. The people who actually fill out the pre-apps must be desperate as hell to give the private information they do to some stranger on the phone: social security number, amount of debt owned on their house, their credit cards, their cars. I know more about their finances than I do about my own. I invade their desperate lives. I average about two pre-apps an hour and if I did any less they'd probably fired me. They want me to aim for six. |  |
My butt kills from sitting for three hours straight and I get cauliflower ear and a kink in my neck that refuses to be relieved. By the end of the night, my eyesight is blurry from squinting to read my calling list all night; the print is twice as sm all as that in the dictionary.
You must wonder why I don't work in a fast food joint somewhere instead. For some strange reason I actually appreciate the fifteen minute breaks I get to play basketball and eat dinner. And because all my friends need jobs, a lot of them work here. The company hires two new people every day. You only need to be able to speak English properly and you've aced the interview. This is ironic considering most of the people we call don't speak English anyway. There's any easy way to slack on the phones too. Just call your friends. Unfortunately, the boss sometimes picks up the line and listens; you've got to watch out for that.
There's not much career potential in telemarketing, unless you actually like it I guess. It's probably time I started looking, but I find it hard to give up the basketball and free long distance calls since I don't think there's anything out there th at's much better.
