Beef Jerky! Fun In The Bun

My job at work is a fairly cut and dried position, sort of like tasteless & flat beef jerky. For eight hours a day, i talk to people from different manufacturing facilities across the united states & attempt to gather information for my company's manufacturing directories. sounds simple, right? not on your life, pal! it's one of the more challenging positions i've held for over the past three and a half years. it appears boring, but it's by no means easy.

one of the many things i've learned while working here, is the many methods of madness i've invented in order to get past the barriers of "no thanks" or "not interested," but i won't publish them here, for fear some of my colleagues might read this & steal my ideas, god only knows that it is prevelant where i work, cheating & manipulation of data, but that's another story for another time.

a couple of things i've noticed while calling, well not a couple of things, a lot of things, actually. in the paperwork we use, one of the several questions we ask after i've explained to the potential caller my purpose for calling & then ask, "do you have a fax number?" people get all incensed and ask me what i'm doing. when i ask, "what year did the company start?" they get even angrier & ask me again what i am doing. i have to ask myself, are they really paying attention? nope! probably not, especially when i have to repeat myself umpteen times.

then there's the "free listing" factor. a lot of times people think we are selling them something, when it's actually the opposite. my downfall to this, well it's not a downfall at all, it's just that when i do it, i have a very smooth, deep voice & right away i am considered a telemarketer & the invisible barriers go up quickly. right about then, i listen to, on an average daily consumption about 50 or so people telling me how they 've been duped or suckered into buying something or signing up for services that they really don't need & i appear to be like all of those types of callers.

rudeness often follows along with the usual result of hang-ups & in some cases, swearing & threats against my life (in rare cases, it often depends on the state, although new york & new jersey immediately spring to mind).

so why do i continue in such a job? well, believe it or not, i actually like it, primarily because it fords me the opportunity to be creative to a certain degree. it gives me the ability to speak to people around the united states & also it's a great way to know what people are thinking, as sometimes i ask them, depending on the friendliness of the voice, a question regarding the economy or something about the city they live in or near. it's also a great inspiration to my writing & poetry. god only knows how many poems, songs & prose pieces i've written about the people i work for & my co-workers, both present & past.

in future blogs, unless requested or threatened or forced into silence, i will tell you tales of cheating & data manipulation, threats received & above all harassment tales from the former & the latter. see you 'round the computers, ooops wait, i forgot, they'll be tied up forever if old what's-his-name stays on longer than 20 minutes. or is it half an hour? or will it be one hour?