11.21.2003 - 2:04 p.m.

I spent a very pleasant half an hour talking to a telemarketer last night. His name is Dominic, and he lives in a teeny-tiny town in Pennsylvania where one of the major phone company call centers are.

I tell you, I learned the answers to questions that have been bothering me for a decade, things like what kind of person voluntarily takes a job knowing that everyone will hate them, how telemarketers keep themselves sane, how often it actually works, and whether call centers are PC- or Mac-driven (which actually, I should have been able to guess.)

See, in Dominic's sleepy little Pennsylvania town? There is nothing but the call center. Everyone works there, and so do their parents. So you see, people don't choose to be telemarketers; telemarketers are selectively bred. The company picks a town with an abnormally high concentration of pleasant voices and it just expands from there. And telemarketers don't actually call you; the computer calls for them, and when their headset beeps, they start talking like trained monkeys. Which they kind of are, now that I think about it.

Last night Dominic was beginning a night shift, during which he expected to call nearly four hundred Californians just after their dinners. He doesn't like the night shift; it is harder to sell to Californians because so many speak (or pretend to speak) only Spanish. Sometimes Dominic will speak Spanish, too. Dominic doesn't know Spanish, but then his supervisor doesn't happen to know that, so it is all good.

After a while I could hear Dominic's supervisor in the background. I guess Dominic has a habit of talking too much, not selling enough. I let him sign me up for long distance. (Not just for empathy, but because it was free as long as we don't use it and, well, we don't. Also I get a gift certificate. Helloo, spiffy new jeans!)

Dominic reminds me so much of certain people I've run across from time to time, the ones who live on their own personality, hitching rides to follow a band or passing classes they didn't attend. Such interesting people, those are, because they are always so willing to explain their paths in life, and I am always so curious.

-stonebridge

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