The Truth and Lies of Telemarketers Act 3: Telemarketing for Life

A call center is by far, THE WORST environment on the face of this rotten earth.   Everything down to the core of it is a total perversion of anything that God created.  Its make up is so unnatural, and perhaps it’s the only place in the world where you are honored for telling a more outlandish lie than your neighbor.  There are 3 basic types of call centers, lets have a look.

Telemarketing for Life (The Center for small time squaresuckers)

Description:  These call centers are typically run out of decrepit, decaying, decomposed buildings.  Their anomalous locations usually discourage people from applying in the first place, or, returning after the first day of work.  The equipment is outdated, rotary phones are still used, and the lead sources often come out of a phone book.  The products offered are usually a business to business referral platform and are either A) offering an SEO or Facebook business fan page optimization B) Some very crude and archaic (and pointless for that matter) form of advertising like having your business name mentioned on the radio(AM of course) or a commercial featuring your business (ON PUBLIC ACCESS of all places) or C) having your business mentioned in small print in the local penny saver or recycler, both of which are free magazines, and it goes without saying, that give a ways are throw aways, so get ready to throw away your hard earned cash for nothing, because the only practical function these types of magazines have are clothing the homeless in the wintertime.

 Victims:  Middle aged, mid life crises, 3rd month into his trial separation right before the divorce men with an over appreciation for football, immigrants from the middle east or India, old divorced women that have been smoking so long they sound like Darth Vader and look like a wrinkly foot.

Truth and Lies of Telemarketers Act 2: The Boiler Room Operation

A call center is by far, THE WORST environment on the face of this rotten earth.   Everything down to the core of it is a total perversion of anything that God created.  Its make up is so unnatural, and perhaps it’s the only place in the world where you are honored for telling a more outlandish lie than your neighbor.  There are 3 basic types of call centers, lets have a look.

The Revolving door center aka (boiler room operation)

Description:  These types of call centers are notorious for either A) offering an overpriced service that is now obsolete B) Collecting money through endless 3^rd party services, on the promise that your money is going to a good non tangible cause, or C) Providing you with a state of the art service, that is marked up 600%, and one that you could clearly die with out ever needing.

Victims:  The bulk of the population here is comprised of parolees and other convicted felons, single divorced moms, drug addled teenagers (and adults), social rejects with the gift of gab and the curse of body odor,  and random naivesuckers that are easily manipulated, believe everything they are told, have little imagination and even less common sense.

The dreaded supervisor

Supervisors: The supervisors here are usually hand picked from the original group hired on.  You don’t have to worry too much; part of the requirements to being a floor supervisor is to possess the i.q. of room temperature.  Over time, these supervisors become more and more malicious, until they have gone through a state of alien metamorphosis, and no longer resemble the co worker that once sat next to you.   Fear is the name of the game in this environment.  Nothing like having an angry little floor goblin marching around the room while randomly swinging a 9 iron at invisible enemies to promote a feeling of unity and peace amongst you and your fellow coworkers.

Truth and Lies of Telemarketers Act 1: In the Beginning...(2.0)

The Graduate Actor

In today’s economic rat race, work is scarce...and that which is available is either excessively competitive or excessively boring.  Flip on the T.V. between 10am-2pm...it’s the same thing on every channel.  T.V. shows featuring live law-suits, talk shows featuring trashy trailer trollops, and the 14 ½ different men that could be the baby’s daddy.  The commercials that run during this time, are aimed to inspire today’s youth to pursue a higher degree of education at such academic bedrocks as Everest College...or other such prestigious institutions as DeVry.  All these commercials feature a paid actor claiming to be a graduate.

               The “graduate” actor is often portrayed as a hip cool guy who just wasn’t sure what he wanted to do after high school (as opposed to a hip cool guy who wasn’t sure WHO he wanted to get HIGH with after school).  The schools they promote often are skilled labor schools like for welding or masonry.  This cool guy is going on about college, broad casted from his driver’s seat in his beat up Chevy Nova in a dark ally way at night time.  If you squint your eyes, you can see 4 guys mugging a baby in the background.

                The actor never talks about how awesome his experience was at school.  He doesn’t mention what he’s doing now with his degree, or even mention what he studied.  All (he) they say is “PICK UP THE GOD DAMN PHONE AND CALL YOU LAZY ASSHOLE!! YOU AIN'T DOING SHIT WITH YOUR LIFE CEP COLLECTIN G.R. OR SSI, SO SPEND YOUR MONEY ON ME INSTEAD...SO WHAT CHA WAITN FOR?  PICK UP THE PHONE!!!”.  During the closing scene, the actor pulls out a grip of one dollar bills and flashes them on the screen.

                If this commercial features a woman, she is typically fat and ugly, portrayed as a single mom (well probably just single), and is usually advertising for a nursing school.  She is usually walking alone on a bridge somewhere in slow motion, the camera fades out and fades back in, this time showing her stressed out and yelling at her 12 kids and-or siblings (If you squint your eyes during the scene where she is walking on the bridge, you can see one of her fellow class mates attempting suicide by hanging herself, that is until the bridge collapses underneath the combined weight of the two fat women, and the weight of all the bullshit that they are trying to feed us).

The Lost Art of Swearing

The Paradox of Persuasive Profanity;theLost Art of Swearing

"When angry, count to four; when very angry, swear."

(Mark Twain, Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calender, 1894)

                The English language is by far the most fun and versatile language that is used today. English encompasses high levels of description, as well as emotion, and is spoken around the globe in both native and non-native dialects.  It’s said (by whom I’ve often wondered) that the roots of English are about 60% Germanic, and 40% Romantic.  What is not clear to me, is the remaining percentage (and yes I can do basic mathematics and realize that 60% + 40% = 100%, so suspend your belief on the infallibility of mathematics for a moment please) that is borrowed via sounds, words, and concepts from the rest of the world.  This percentage is also harvested from American sub-culture (or “Urban Culture” as the Fox network and the rest of the right wing media avidly refer to it). 

Ssssssooooooo…….consider this; the English that we read, write, and speak(unless you prefer  the swansong of languages, Klingon) in this country HAS AND DOES melt with modern slang, blend with old school jive, and twist with international and cultural vernacular.  E-Ebonics, Spanish/Spanglish, and Vietnamese, (just to name a few that is) have a tendency to be substituted and sprinkled within the body of a totally different language, this is done for the sake of convenience for the native tongue.  So before I continue, I would like to take a moment to thank our founding fathers, for not being douche bags, and NOT voting German as our official/unofficial language (officially, we don’t have an official language).Despite the evolution of the English language (oh yes it DOES evolve), some words retain their meaning, value, and effectiveness as effortlessly as many of my former employers lied to me. “

On the Subject of Roommates

As far back as I can remember I have always had roommates.  Not necessarily other people living inside my room, but that’s happened too.  Weather it was my family as a kid, students in college or military school (another subject in and of itself), fellow felons during that year I spent in county jail (Orange County CA can still blow me over that one) or my lovely fiancé (by far the best roommate ever)I’ve always had company.  Roommates are becoming more popular as our economy dwindles toward the seemly endless downward spiral, of the economic toil bowl.  I for one, never enjoyed living alone anyway, and feel karma owes me a great deal of good brownie points for paying someone else’s mortgage.  On the most fundamental level, let’s take a look at a scenario involving me with the pad to myself for a weekend.

At first I rejoice.  “At last, those bastards have left for the weekend”.  I then proceed to reward myself.  After all, I did go through all the trouble of being a senseless asshole day in day out, for weeks on end.  So I grab a 12 pack of Sierra Nevada, or some other such fine ale from the local liquor store.  Of coursewhat’s’ a little pale ale without 1/8 onceof some chronic (my mother stillaffectionately calls it grass.  The only things worse to call it would be dope, because real dope is an ENTIRELY DIFFERENT SUBSTANCE AND BALL GAME).  Between my first 6 beers and my first gram, a feeling of peace settles in.  A sense of pride and hopefulness.  “I choose my own destiny, I choose my own life, I am a man, and I choose hamburger helper again for lunch.”  Silence fills the room, it’s just me and the hamburger mitten guy on the box, and I can feel him eyefucking me.  This has gone far enough I think to myself.  I weight my options.  On one hand, hamburger man is feeding me, on the other, he’s hurting my feelings.

“You sure you know how to cook that?” Thehamburger man mocks me in tone of arrogance and disgust.

“Silence you hamburger fucker” I snap out of it, only to find myself alone with a tennis racket, a head full of alcohol, and smeared casserole from wall to wall.  This is when the depressionstarts; Ineglect chores, continue to drink irresponsibly,smoke cigarettesin thehouse, get stuck on Law and Order SVU marathons, proceed to curse Ice–T for being a sell out cop killa gone, what the fuck, COP?  I then become inspired by Law and Order SVU, “Mariskha Haggerty must be the anti Christ who covets the secret to immortality and eternal youth, because she is the only bone able198 year old who still walks this wretched foul earth.  At this point I abandon beer for Tequila, and marijuana for methamphetamine.  I proceed to break into my elderly neighbor’s house in the hopes that a spontaneous  consummation of love can lead me to the elusive and esoteric non-haggard Haggerty secret. I hide in her closet, wearing a diaper, a flannel, and a ski mask, chain smoking and talking to the stuffed animals, only to discover that at the height of my altered state of extreme paranoia, loneliness and drug frenzy, I had broke into the wrong house, and had but a horrified and baffled Asian family staring at me in horror, complete confusion, and dare I say it, SHAME (the hallmark of traditional Asian negativity) as a reward for my endeavors.  After calling a bail bondsman, I filled out the paperwork for the restraining order, and had no choice but to take a look at this anti-social behavior.  Is this a far fetched story, your humble narrator thinks not.  Personally, I like being around people (even if they are big fucking shitheads) for the sake of my mental health.  So let’s take a look at a few times when being surrounded by people was still bad for my mental health.

                The K.B. house, Dana Point, CA- I responded to an add in the local penny saver.  I was previously living with my father and his newly wed Pilipino mail-order bride.  As I had mentioned before, I have a phobia about being alone.  My dad and my step mom/sister (she was only 3 years older then me) had gone somewhere on a trip, most likely their honeymoon, or perhaps TGI Fridays.  I invited all my friends over and promptly started drinking for 112 consecutive hours.  My dad said he’d be back Sunday night.  He lied, and when he entered the house that Sunday morning, promptly kicked everyone out of the house just like the actor who played the grandpa on that Snoop Dog video,Jin and juice (so old school, but if you remember the video, your probably old).  I knew I was fucked by the color of the big pulsing vein that turned blood red on his bald forehead.  If the vein was greenish blue, I was good, but chicken yellow or blood red pretty much meant a beating.  So, it was time for me to leave, and that’s when I found the K.B. house.