A Deviated Script
A man returns home from his work, his honest work, which has tired him, and he is very likely to sit in front of the television with his dinner. Its my job to call him, then, when he is least likely to want me, but most likely to answer the telephone. I ask, “What are you doing right now?” and before he can answer I guess, “Are you watching television?” These kinds of things are not on the script. There is a script for what I do. I’m a telemarketer. “I am. I am watching television! Oh my god! How did you know?” He is excited, and so am I. He has already been fooled. “I’ll bet you would really like to know what’s on right now, wouldn’t you?” and with that, I sell him a subscription to TV guide.
The purpose of my work is to call anyone on a list of people: those who made poor credit decisions, binge spenders, people in debt, lonely souls who buy things to thank you for talking to them, idiots; my job is to entice them into continuing their habits. It is scripted work, and the script has been contrived so that any response to it has been anticipated.
I cower from my manager so that my deviation from the script will not be punished, but rewarded with a sale. The board at the far end of the room has no hash marks by name this week. I’ll get paid without them, my hourly wage increases with every one I get.
When I follow the script, dozens of calls can transpire without very much variation at all. Once I have established that the person on my list is the one I am speaking to I might say: ?Yes, you have been selected / chosen / your name has been selected and entered / you are a finalist in our ALL CASH / our Fifty-Thousand Dollar drawing / sweepstakes / sweepstakes drawing.? And I might hear “What’s the catch? / What’s the catch? / Fifty thousand dollars! / What’s the catch? / I am so sorry I don’t speak the English. / Uh-huh I’m listening, go on.”
On the other end of the line, I am slouching in my chair as much as the bachelor in front of the Television. I have holes in my T-shirt, bracelets along the length of my arm, and my hair is teased into six-inch spikes. They resemble the spike through my co-worker?s nose. We were drawn to this work by its promises of a “rock-and-roll atmosphere” in a “place where personality counts” and, of course, by the money. There is another co-worker to my right. There are no cubicles here, just desks, arranged in a warehouse behind a gas station. The co-worker to my right wears a suit to work every day. It’s a new suit.
Very frequently, the person on my computerized list is not the person I am speaking to. My script has contingencies for that. I say “There’s no need to take a message. I can call back later.? I tell the computer not to call that number at the same time of day.
“No you may certainly not speak with him. He’s dead.” My script has no contingencies for that.
The cheap radio in the back of the room is leaking popular rock. Whoever becomes the top seller on the list gets to pick the radio station for the week. The space between that radio and the board is where it all happens. We sit in a row of desks, like schoolchildren, although most of us are dropouts. At the front of the room, in something like the teacher’s desk, sits the manager, who wears the most comfortable headset. The manager may or may not be listening to our conversation, as a gesture of quality control. The manager takes down the credit card numbers, constantly. It is tireless work, for the manager.
For me, it is more tiresome. Telemarketing is a thankless job. No one hesitates to share the opposite of thanks with a telemarketer. Excuse me; we’re not called telemarketers. We have a euphemism: “consumer educators.” The people I call have their own euphemisms, often for the word “hello”.
I call a woman who isn’t one of the idiots. She is quick to respond with something instead of hello, like “If you call this number again, I’ll cut your balls off.” Ending the conversation, but only because my manager is listening, I program the computer to call her number again, and often, but not with my phone. Her threat to me was like stamping out a cockroach. Others like me, cockroaches with suits and ties, or spikes on their heads, they will return to the scene of the incident, the kitchen you are trying to cook in. She is listed as “very interested” and “please call later” and as preferring “dinnertime”.
Aside from a declaration of death, there is only one way to say goodbye to a person like me, and profanity won?t do it. Telling me that you are not interested doesn?t work either. Buying something will only make me come back. Politely hanging up won?t get rid of me. You must say the magic words: “remove me from your calling list,” then I am required to do it.
If only my manager hadn’t been listening. This line of work has done wonders for my ability to string some curses along. I’ve had every one of the dirty words aimed at me. I am hated for what I do, and my urge to return some of that hate is building. With the manager listening, my only recourse is to turn those feelings inward.
The other voices from the world out there begin to blend together. My own voice goes on without me. Each time someone hangs up, I edit the script slightly, partly to keep myself enthused, and in the hopes of keeping the next listener. I follow my script dutifully. “Now, let me tell you about the fabulous/ wonderful / cool / various prizes in our drawing / sweepstakes / sweepstakes drawing. As a contestant / participant / chosen finalist, you will be in the running / eligible for the Grand Prize of / which is fifty thousand dollars. Think of what you could be doing / you could do a lot of things with all that money / with fifty thousand dollars! I’m curious, I like to ask the people I call, what would you do with it?”
That question is not on the script, but it serves me well. It reminds me that the voices cussing me are human, that they are more than my pawns. They tell me “The first thing I would do is pay off my credit cards / I’m in debt so I’d fix that / Student loans, you know? / What’s the catch? / I would buy a house / car / vacation / new wardrobe. / What’s the catch? / I would move out of my mother’s / father’s / husband’s house / out of this fifthly city / the country / this town. / I would spend it all / save it / invest it / give it all away / never win anyway.”
The time has come for my last call. The words of the script flow easily, and uninterrupted. I stop in response to the uninterruption. It is startlingly unusual in this line of work. I need to look at the computer screen again, since I am three paragraphs past the point where I would need the customer?s name.
“Are you still there, Marian”"
“Yes, I’m still here but you”re going to have to speak up a little, my ears ain’t so good no more.”
“I would be happy to do that for you Annabelle, but first I will need only a few minutes of your time and a tiny bit of information from you is that alright?”
“Why you can have all the time you need. You sound like a nice boy. I don’t get too many visitors out here. They gave me those hearing aids, ones from the church I think. Its something troublesome getting them used, since I know how my hearing ain’t getting no better neither for me to be done with them, but then again I don’t use the damn things anymore myself.
It is a relief to the on the receiving end of a telephone conversation, for once. I have made my sales for the day. Now it is time to ride the clock. This old woman is confiding in me, almost as if she has forgotten who I am, but she remembers.
“I suppose if I win this money” Oh that sounds like a lot of money, oh how I would thank God for it. You best put me on the list for that sweepstakes”
I didn’t expect her to bring the conversation back towards the script. It seemed as if she would go on sighing and moaning until the day she died. I say, “You poor thing, you sound lonely.”
“Poor is right! You probably don’t want to hear a lonely old woman’s tears.”
“Its alright. Most people cuss and hang up on me. I hope you can still hear me. I want you to hear me, but I don’t want my boss to hear me. I”ll speak louder now. Can you hear me ma’am”"
“Don’t you ever get that way with people. Can you hear me now” This old world is full of that, people who stop listening. My boy, he cussed me and he left me. He won’t help me. I told him I brought him into this world, but he won’t help me.
As she relates her long and unfortunate history, I am compelled to open up to this sad grandmother, and to tell her how I feel about what I do. I must tell someone, and she will forget. I must tell her, rather than complete the script, for her sake.
She is quiet on the other end of the line. “I’m sorry, I’ve lost my place. What, now” I’m afraid I have forgotten why”"
“Well ma’am I am with the board of utilities. I called to check if your telephone is working properly.”
“Oh well you”re a nice boy, thank you. Yes, it seems to be working real good, or else we wouldn’t be talking.”
“Yes, ma’am. Thank you for your time.” That”s the end of my last call. I can’t make another one. I can’t steal money from a lonely, senile old woman whose son does not love her. I take her name off the list, and I ask to have my name erased from the board. I take my headset off, shut down my database terminal, and deactivate my auto-dailer. It”s a script I can’t follow.
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