Teleselling: The opposite of telemarketing

I’m a telesales agent. It’s like being a telemarketer, except that instead of calling you up in the middle of dinner, or whenever you’re asleep, I work at an inbound station.

That is, I wait for you schmucks to call me.

Some of you are just really bad.

You can’t remember your area codes. You can’t remember your ZIP codes. Every time I ask you what the logo on your credit card is, you tell me the name of the bank.

I spent at least five or six minutes yesterday trying to explain to a caller the concept of “Express Delivery”. The idea that by paying extra, you can receive mail faster. Sometimes two or three weeks faster. I explained…again…and again…as one would to a child, while all the while I can only imagine him scratching his head in a vain attempt to understand.

Some of you are paranoid. Some of you are just plain mean. You call in, thinking that you are somehow special. That you are somehow unique. That we will put you on a pedestal far above the ‘common folk’ you represent.

You interrupt us at every sentence–cut us off while he are confirmation your information back to you, and yell at us like we’re driving a screwdriver into your abdomen the second we try and tell you more about the product or offer an upsell. Admittedtly, some of these upsells are very rotten. But that’s why if they are, I’ll let you know in subtle ways, first.

Don’t you see? I want what is best for you. But you spurn us. You call in with your telephones and think you can flex those big, retarded testicles of yours because you are ‘isolated’ from us. You will give me your credit card number, and then speak to me as if I were a thug.

Sometimes–you don’t even know why you call in. Some of you are so incredibly lame and have so much free time, that you will call any toll-free number you happen to catch. Then you will proceed to inquire -all- about the line you just called, not knowing that we have very little information on hand. Not knowing that this is why they make advertising in the first place. Not for you to talk to someone on those lonely nights. But for you to get what you want, and then a little more.

I am trapped here. This is my only source of income. Sometimes, there are so many calls that I get one after the other, without even any time to -breathe- in between. Each time, praying that the caller on the other end has an IQ higher than their age.

You might hate me, but I hate you even more. To quote agent Smith…

I hate this place. This zoo. This prison. This reality, whatever you want to call it, I can’t stand it any longer. It’s the smell, if there is such a thing. I feel saturated by it. I can taste your stink and every time I do, I fear that I’ve somehow been infected by it.

I’m curious - what exactly do you sell, and how do people get your number?

Flexing testicles???

I’ve done this before.

It helps if you write down the jerks credit card number on some scratch paper and keep it. Then you just think about the mean stuff you could do to them with this info. You never actually do it (anything you could do without getting caught won’t benefit you), but it helped me to think about it.

Geez Ashtar, you sound like you’ve had a bummer of a day.

Sorry, I had male callers on the mind, because those are the ones that, on average, tend to be more…anger-prone? I dunno if that’d be the right word.

I’m just stressed out by this whole job. I don’t even -mind- sales. But the telephone as a medium for presenting myself just sucks. I feel like it would be so much easier to see these people in person, ya know?