Wednesday, January 31, 2007

Gerald was at the remote lot again when I arrived this morning. He had his breakfast set up on the trunk of the same car as yesterday.

His trash from the day before was still sitting there - a cup half filled with frozen coffee weighing down the wax paper yesterday's sandwich came in. Whoever owned the car must have left it there overnight.

It looked as if other people were following Gerald's lead with the garbage, as there were two other coffee cups and the wrapper to a breakfast bar there as well. Another week and the car is going to attract seagulls.

Gerald said this parking situation was "beat" and that he was going to have to find a way around it.

At work today a man with a really high voice yelled at me for calling him "Ma'am". He was obviously very touchy about the issue. There was even a note in the account that read, "Account holder is male. Do not address as female."

Later in the day I got an equal response for pronouncing the last name "Kochless" as "Cockless". There was no note in this instance.

I think people might have been reluctant to write the word "Cockless" in our computer system.

Gerald's figured out a way to call himself so it looks like he's talking with an account holder to the people in the Watchtower. He spent most of the day on dating sites or playing Risk online.

I don't know where the hell our manager has been this week, but his "hands off" management style combined with Gerald's work ethic is like handing a toddler a bowl of scissors.

Towards the end of each day, we get a photocopy of a menu from the place we're ordering lunch from, as we have to have our order in that morning to ensure it arrives by 12.

Today's menu was from a place Fitzy called the "Smelly Deli". Everyone was pissed because the buffalo chicken sub was scratched off the menu and that's the best thing there.

I'm really hoping this doesn't get back to me.

Tuesday, January 30, 2007

Gerald was at the remote lot this morning. He was eating an egg sandwich and drinking a coffee when I got there. It was set up on the trunk of a car like it was his own little table.

He left his trash there when the van picked us up.

The Angry Haitian was driving again, and Gerald sat shotgun. Gerald told him there was another route that could get him to the office much quicker and then told him to slow down when they were coming up on this parking lot he saw a cop parked at yesterday.

At one point, the Angry Haitian nearly cracked into someone while he was making a left turn. The other driver stopped and flipped him off.

Then Gerald told him this street was could be really dangerous, which is another reason why he takes the other route. The Angry Haitian turned up the radio after that.

Today we ordered lunch from a place Fitzy calls "Ass on a Bun". The company doesn't want us off the phones all at once, so they buy us lunch and have us eat it at our desks in between calls.

I ordered a buffalo chicken sub.

The delivery was late and there were only three managers available to hand out lunch to about sixty reps, so my sub waas cold by the time I got it. I was starving at that point, so I didn't care all that much.

Whenever I'd try to take a break, I'd get a call from the Watchtower asking me to get back on the phones. I guess calls always spike around lunch on account of everyone slacking.

The first call I took was from someone looking for their account balance. It was a simple enough request, but I put him on hold so I could take a few bites out of my sandwich and look like I was on a call. I did it a second time with a guy who needed to change his address, and the mic from my headset got stuck in the sandwich.

When I pulled in out, it was all gunked up with bleu cheese. I tried to wipe it off, but a big chunk of it was lodged in the hole the sound goes into.

I call that part "the sound-hole".

When I got back on the phone, the guy couldn't hear a word I said. He knew I had picked up because the hold music stopped playing, and kept saying, "Hello? Hello?"

I ended up having to hang up on him and clean out the sound-hole with a thumb tack. The Watchtower kept calling, so I stood up and waved my headset at them so they could see something was wrong.

They sent a manager named Peter over to see what was going on. I told them some stuff from my sandwich got stuck in the hole in my headset.

He asked if I meant the sound-hole. I said I did.

He asked if I had the buffalo chicken sub. I guess this happens a lot.

Monday, January 29, 2007

Today was our first day on the phones. Paige came around to help us get signed in to our computers, and then took off.

Gerald kept taking time off the phone to tell me about his weekend. He and Matt had their bowling night and he ended up hooking up with the woman who rents the shoes.

He also apologized for the whole scene with Ryan's girlfriend. He said she was there well into the night, crying and yelling and such. Gerald said he heard her smash some stuff before she left, but he was pretty sure none of it was mine.

Every time he got into a story, he'd get a call from the manager at the Watchtower telling him to get back on the phone. By the end of the day, they were just yelling at him across the floor.

It turns out I get two 15 minute breaks that day. I guess they give you a half an hour break every day, and you have the option to take it all at once or break it up into two smaller ones.

I don't remember choosing either, but I was informed I did at some point.

My first break was in the morning. Cheryl, the friend of the one with the big ones, was in the break room talking with a couple of friends.

I went to the other side of the room to a table with a bunch of newspapers on it. Someone had taken most of the newspaper and only left the car section.

I decided to see where I could get the best deal on a Nissan Pathfinder.

Cheryl was talking about someone and described them as "not the brightest knife in the drawer." I don't think she was going for irony.

My second break was around two. Gerald and I had it at the same time, but he said he had to go out to his car and make a private call. I went to the break room and sat with this guy who sits in a cube a few rows away from me. His name is Oscar.

He said he's been on the phones for awhile. Before that, he worked in a factory that made transmissions and got to travel to transmission factories all over the world. He was halfway into a story about his trip to Germany and how they made transmissions over there when Sue came in to tell us our break was over.

After meeting Oscar, I think that fifteen minute break is way too long.

Sunday, January 28, 2007

On Friday we had our final training sessions and then took some calls at the end of the day. Paige said she'd put us on the "overflow queue" so we'd only take calls if there were people being put on hold, and she'd be monitoring so she could help us out if it sounded like we were getting stuck.

I ended up getting put on the line for people looking for assistance in Spanish by mistake and had to field calls in a language I don't speak a word of.

I told Paige after the first few, and she ended up giving me this script in Spanish and told me to read it, put them on hold, and transfer them when a Spanish speaking rep was available. I remember the script began with the phrase "Bienvenidos el programma de retiros..."

I kept looking over the script to see if I could find the Spanish word for "updating".

After about an hour, Paige brought Reynaldo over. Apparently, he speaks Spanish and we were going to trade phones.

I only took one call after that. It was from a guy who wanted his account balance and spent the next 45 minutes talking about the town he lived in. I guess Garth Brooks grew up there and hadn't done a "damn thing" for the town since he left.

Before we left for the day, Paige said to plan on working some overtime next week. I guess their call volume was still very high, and everyone on the floor would be working 9 to 7.

I looked around to watch everyone act not disappointed. Reynaldo looked at Paige as if she was serving pie.

Over the weekend I went to move my stuff into the new place. Gerald said Ryan, the guy who was moving out, was still there, but he said it would be OK for me to drop my stuff off.

When I got to the apartment, it was just Ryan and his girlfriend there. His girlfriend was sitting on the couch and it looked as if she had been crying.

Ryan walked with me into the room and told me that he had just told her they were breaking up, but it was still OK for me to bring my stuff in if I wanted. I guess he was moving to Phoenix to work as a greenskeeper on a golf course and had just gotten around to telling her now.

I really didn't want to be there, but I had already rented a van and packed up all my stuff.

Every time I walked in the front door, the place would get really quiet and I'd see Ryan and his girlfriend staring at me as I walked past the entrance to the living room. Then I'd hear whispering as I walked through the bathroom to my room, followed by silence as I walked by them again to get more stuff.

I ended up trying to make as much noise as I could walking out of the bathroom so they'd know when to stop talking.

There was this huge puddle on the bathroom floor and I kept tracking water all over the place. It looked as if someone had showered with the shower curtain open.

When I got my mattress up there, I realized I was going to need someone to help me lift it through the bathroom so it wouldn't absorb the water and get all mildewy. I was standing there trying to think about how to pose the question to Ryan when I heard him ask if I needed any help.

I think they were getting tired of waiting for me to leave so they could resume breaking up.

I walked in and explained the situation. He was really cool about helping me out, but his girlfriend sat glowering as the whole exchange took place.

I felt kind of bad, but probably would have felt worse sleeping on a moldy mattress.

Thursday, January 25, 2007

Tonight we all went out for drinks after work and some guy punched Gerald in the mouth. I guess Gerald was talking to his girlfriend and started spouting off when the guy stepped in.

I didn't hear much of what Gerald said, but I believe it was the phrase "Take it easy, beefcake" that set the guy off.

As it was happening, everyone was looking at Reynaldo to step in. He just stood there and watched like the rest of us. Afterwards, when Gerald told him he could have used his help, Reynaldo said the first rule his sensei taught him was restraint, and it wouldn't have been right for him to use force seeing as the situation was defused.

That guy defused it all over Gerald's face.

Angela wasn't at work today. Paige said she was sick, but everyone thinks the pressure's getting to her.

I'm not sure what pressure she's been under, but given the work we've had to do thus far, there isn't a scenario where I could see myself being too ill to do my job that doesn't involve a trip to the third world.

We had to take messages again today, and I ended up getting a guy who must have spoken with Gerald yesterday. He said I told him we'd be overnighting a check to him last night, and he never received it.

I tried to explain to him that I didn't know anything about the check, and he might be confusing me with someone else. Then he told me he wrote down the name of the person he spoke with.

When I told him there was more than one Gerald at the company, he asked how many there were.I said that as far as I knew there were two, and his response was, "You mean there could be more?"

He sounded truly alarmed by this.

He ended up asking for a manager, and Fitzy took the call pretending to be one.

Gerald did something with his phone so it wouldn't receive calls. When Paige stopped by to see why things were so quiet, he said his phone hadn't been ringing and assumed it wasn't that busy.

She asked someone to look at his phone and said she'd take him to the "order desk". It sounded exciting, but later Gerald told me it was pretty much a big cube where they boxed up the trade sheets to be shipped to another building where they were scanned into the system

He said a couple of the boxes had fallen down and spilled all over the floor, and he had to reorder the sheets by date. I bet he would have traded that for another day of giving out fake answers to irate callers.

When we were walking out of the bar, Gerald invited me out tomorrow night. He said he and Matt were going to cook a spiral ham and go bowling.

I thought I'd sit that one out.

Wednesday, January 24, 2007

The Angry Haitian picked us up at the lot again. This time, he parked the van way on the other side so everyone had to walk across to get in.

Everyone seemed pretty irritated, but I think they were all too scared to say anything after hearing him yell into the phone yesterday. He was listening to this Carribean radio station and had the volume turned up really loud on the ride in.

Paige walked in first thing and told us they needed our help on the phones this morning. She said account holders would be receiving their statements over the next couple of days and a lot would be calling in with questions, so we had to help handle the volume.

All we had to do was tell the caller our systems were updating, take down some information (name, SSN, phone number, etc), and tell them someone would call them back later on.

The first caller I took got mad when I told him this and said all he wanted was his balance. Then he asked what we were updating.

I told him we were uploading vast amounts of market data to the server, and he seemed a little less irritated after that.

I had no idea what I was talking about.

At one point I looked over at Gerald. He was dealing with someone really irate. He kept saying, "I know sir, but I can't help you. Our systems are updating."

When the guy was giving him his phone number, Gerald gave me a look and started moving his hand like he was writing the number down in the air. Later on I heard him giving someone else an imaginary account balance.

I don't think I saw him write one thing down the whole time.

After about an hour and a half, Sue came and collected the message forms from us. I saw them piled up in a recycling bin not too long after.

When we got back the the classroom, Angela seemed kind of upset. Her eyes were red and puffy as if she'd been crying.

I guess a caller had said some real nasty stuff to her.

Paige said people will do that now and then, and one of the toughest parts of this job is not letting it get to you. There's a lot of not letting things get to you at this job.

We spent the rest of the day learning the computer system we'd be using. Reynaldo ended up performing an actual trade during one of the exercises, and Paige had to call the trading desk and get them to cancel it before it was executed. Then he clicked some button that jammed up a printer on the third floor with a 40 page spreadsheet.

I kind of wish Reynaldo's cube was closer to mine. This guy is going to be a disaster.

Tuesday, January 23, 2007

A new guy was driving the shuttle from the remote lot today. He stopped way before the garbage can and totally screwed up the order of the line. I didn't care much as I was last anyway.

The woman with the big ones was first in line and ended up having to sit shotgun. The driver didn't seem to care too much about her big ones. He was having a pretty heated conversation on his cellphone.

The driver was Haitian, and the whole van stayed quiet as he yelled Creole into the phone. The guy in front of me tried to start a conversation with the person next to him, but the driver just yelled louder.

When I got to the office, everyone was already in our classroom except for Gerald. Angela was telling a story to a few of the other folks about how she works weekends at Starbucks to pick up extra cash.

She was saying how she doesn't like people adding sugar or milk to their coffee. Apparently true coffee lovers don't.

I guess Starbucks must stock cream and sugar so they know which customers to hate.

Gerald came in right at 9:00 and totally stank of booze. He told me later that he and Matt drank a bottle of gin and watched "The Wizard of Oz" last night. He said he was probably going to bag out sick before lunch.

We had a consultant named Rachel come in to teach us phone etiquette. The first thing she told us is we should always smile when we're talking, because the caller can hear the smile on the other end. I thought back to yesterday, and began to wonder how someone would react to hearing a smile from someone they just called a cum dumpster.

Reynaldo asked what they should do if the topic of the conversation was sad. She must have thought it was a joke, because she laughed and tried to move on.

Then Reynaldo told her that he was listening to calls yesterday, and a man called up and said he wanted to cash out his account because his cat needed dialysis treatment. The man got very mad when he heard he couldn't take money out of his account for pet surgery, and Reynaldo didn't think it would be appropriate to smile during such a conversation.

Rachel said it was OK not to smile if the conversation was sad, and told us to use our discretion.

We were in between exercises when I saw a couple tow trucks drive into the lot. Gerald had told me he was turning the steering wheel when he parked so it would crash into the car next to his if they tried to tow it. He said tow truck drivers are opportunists, and would skip his car for one that would give them less hassle.

Rachel told us she was going to leave the room for the next exercise and we would have to close our eyes and keep completely silent while she was gone. We were probably thirty seconds into it when I heard a smash and the sound of car alarms outside.

I took a look out the window and saw a tow truck with what looked like Gerald's car hitched up smashed into the rear of the neighboring SUV.

I whispered to Gerald to get his attention, but he fell asleep before the car alarms went off. I gave him a nudge and asked if that was his car out there.

He just got this real defeated look on his face, and sat through the rest of the exercise staring straight forward.

Before we broke for lunch, Paige came in and asked Gerald if she could speak with him. Apparently, Paige told him they don't give any sort of written warnings to employees in training, but if he couldn't conform to the company's parking policies they were going to ask him not to return to work.

I guess the other car was a senior manager with the company, so he had to go and work things out with him as well.

Gerald told me that he wasn't sure he'd still be able to drive his car after this, but he figured he'd play it safe and park in the remote lot either way.

After lunch we did some role playing and then spent the last couple of hours listening to calls. I sat with Manny again. He got a call from a women who spent a half an hour talking about how her sister was a lesbian and how she caught her peeing standing up.

I'm beginning to think they should charge admission to this place.

Monday, January 22, 2007

I told Gerald I'd take the room. There are a million reasons I decided to take it, none of which I'll get into.

Today we spent time sitting with some of the other reps and listening to their calls. The first guy I sat with was named Manny. The first caller he took called him a "cum dumpster".

The second one he took got routed to the wrong department and said he didn't want Manny to put him back in the system as he had already done that twice. Manny said he'd conference himself in with the guy and help him navigate the menu.

Manny pulled out a card that had the whole phone system mapped out, and I sat and listened as he punched the numbers in to get the guy to where he needed to be. After about ten minutes of button pushing, Manny got connected to the guy at the desk next to us.

Manny told the guy our phone system was "updating" and he'd need to take down his number and call him back. Apparently, when something doesn't work you're supposed to tell the person on the phone that whatever's broken is "updating".

I have a feeling I'm going to put that piece of information to work.

The guy on the phone got really pissed and asked to speak to a manager. Manny took off for awhile and I sat and zoned out.

Manny came back with Paige who said it'd be OK if I left for lunch a little early.

Gerald told me the guy he sat with spent the entire time on the phone with his girlfriend. He said she called in through the regular 800 number so it looked like a business call.

After lunch we did role playing, where Paige would pretend to be a caller with questions about her investments and one of us would pretend to be the rep.

She called Reynaldo first. He had a lot of trouble coming up with the right answers and kept calling her "sir".

After a couple minutes of long, awkward pauses, Paige finally gave up and said he could use his book if he wanted to.

Paige let us all use our books after that. It really took the pressure off knowing what a shitty job Reynaldo did. Even Gerald sounded good, and all he did was tell Paige he'd look into her questions and call her back with the information she requested.

When we were done, Paige said we could go back up and find a rep to listen in with. When I got upstairs, I looked out the window and saw Gerald walking to his car.

It was quarter to five anyway, so I walked around pretending to look for someone to sit with and went home.

Sunday, January 21, 2007

This weekend I went to check out a room in Gerald's apartment. One of his roommates was moving out at the end of the month, and he needed to fill the spot quickly.

Gerald's place is in a real congested neighborhood with zero parking. I drove around awhile looking for a spot before parking in front of a crosswalk with my hazards on.

Gerald lives on the second floor of a three story building with no lights in the stairwell. A Chinese family lives on the third floor, and a couple of bodybuilders live on the first.

I could hear one of the kids on the third floor playing the violin as I walked up.

Gerald said the room I'd be moving into was the smaller of the three, so I'd end up paying less rent if I took the place. The only way to get to my room is through a closet in the bathroom.

Gerald said he knew it was kind of a shitty arrangement, but I could use the bathroom closet to keep my stuff in and they've got a system down so I wouldn't get trapped in my room when someone was taking a shower. He also said there was a fire escape outside my window I could pee off if things got grim

Gerald said his roommate Matt's girlfriend sleeps over a lot, so I'd probably want to get the system down.

I told him I'd have to think about it. He told me he'd be showing the room to a few more people today, and said I should call him as soon as I knew I was interested.

Something tells me this room will be open on Monday.

Friday, January 19, 2007

We got our desks today. Gerald and I got cubes across from each other near a window that looks out over a graveyard.

The cubes are about chest high, so you can see across the whole floor if you stand up. Gerald said he was hoping for a more "private situation", as he isn't hooked up to the internet at home and was hoping to get some surfing done here.

I guess he's been barred from the local library.

Fitzy sits right behind us, along with this girl with jet black hair who wears tons of eyeliner. She was arguing with a customer when we were moving in.

When I was done getting set up, I looked around the floor and saw Sue in a big cube a few rows over yelling at people to get back on the phone. Fitzy said that cube's called "The Watchtower", and it tells the managers who's on a call and how long people are off the phone.

I guess being off the phone is bad, as people calling in have to wait longer to have their call answered. Sue seems to think yelling helps.

Everyone in my training class was pretty glad to get rid of those binders, except for this one guy named Keith who was leaving his binders under a table in the classroom every night. Apparently, someone came in last night and took them, although Keith seems to think the janitor might have thought they were trash and carted them off.

Given that the same Twix wrapper has been sitting on the windowsill since I started, I don't think the janitor thinks much of anything is trash.

Paige said it was OK and she'd get him some replacement binders by Monday, but she seemed pretty pissed about it. She kept ignoring Gerald when he'd raise his hand up, and only let Angela ask one question.

I don't think Keith is going to last too long.

At lunch, Reynaldo told us he was psyched about his seat, because they put him right outside Sue's office, and he'll be able to build "rapport" with her. He said rapport is very important in business, and looked very eager to start building it.

Thursday, January 18, 2007

This morning it was freezing, so everyone was waiting in their car at the remote lot. I got out of my car as soon as I saw the shuttle coming down the street, so I ended up getting a seat towards the back of the van.

As the last person was getting on, I saw Gerald running for the van. He ended up sitting shotgun and hearing about how the driver's mom just got a new Harley.

It figures Gerald gets the story about the Harley.

As we were walking towards the office, he told me how he got really hammered with his roommate last night and was shocked he got up in time.

Gerald has a habit of interrupting Paige in the middle of our training sessions. He usually says something like "So ... is this a good time for a break, or should we just press on?"

He did this a couple of times today, and I can tell it's starting to get on Paige's nerves.

Angela has a habit of asking a lot of questions and making our classes go extra long. It's pretty annoying, as most of the time people usually have to go to the bathroom by the end. I can tell it really gets on Gerald's nerves, as he'll butt in and try and answer the question before she finishes.

Then Paige gives the correct answer, Angela asks another question, and the cycle continues. The whole thing would take a lot less time if Gerald just shut up, but I think Paige does it to get back at him for the interruptions.

It's a war of attrition that has our bladders in the crossfire.

We also had a meet-and-greet with some of the other phone reps and found out who was going to be managing us. One of the guys I met had a black eye.

I couldn't remember his first name, but everyone kept calling him 'Fitzy'.

I found out my manager was going to be Tom Oday.

Fitzy works under Tom, too, and said he has a metal plate in his head and has to stay away from running microwaves. I guess they cause him to go into these fits where he swears uncontrollably.

Fitzy said whenever he swears people start looking to see who's making popcorn.

Wednesday, January 17, 2007

Today I got to the remote lot and a bunch of people were waiting for the shuttle. The way the shuttle line works is the first person stands close to the garbage can by the lot entrance, and people line up to the left.

The woman whose nephew got his girlfriend pregnant (who I found out is named Cheryl) and the woman with the big ones were at the end of the line. I was kind of sweating standing next to them, but then Reynaldo came out of his car and lined up before me.

When I got there, Cheryl and the one with the big ones stopped talking for a moment.

Reynaldo and I talked for a bit. I started complaining about having to lug around our binders all the time and Reynaldo said it was good for arm strength. Then started talking about how this job doesn't give him the free time he needs to train.

Reynaldo isn't shaped like someone who's trained for much of anything. His binders were piled up on the ground.

When the shuttle came, I got stuck sitting next to the driver again. He told me he thinks the black guy across the street is the one who cracked up his car.

He kept using the word "black" in all his sentences.

"When he first moved in, I thought that black guy was pretty cool..."
"That black guy drives a Monte Carlo..."
"You don't see many black guys driving Pontiacs."

By the time we got to the office, he must have used the word "black" at least 30 times. I was just glad he didn't use the term in plural.

I was really hoping Cheryl didn't have any black friends she'd be eating with today.

When we got to the classroom, Gerald was the only one there. Paige decided to sit us at the same table. She keeps calling us "the Geralds".

I remarked how he was here early, and Gerald said he's been parking in the office lot so far. I guess he got up late yesterday and he would have been late if he had gone to the remote lot, so he parked towards the back and hoped no one would notice.

He said no one said anything and there weren't any tickets on his car, so he figured he'd be OK.

At nine, someone from human resources came in to give us our benefits paperwork, and gave us a bunch of books to go with it. I don't know what the books were for, but I figured it would be one more thing I'd be lugging around for the next week or so.

Later we started to learn a bit about the different investments we'd be working with. I was struggling really hard to pay attention, and then Paige said we didn't have to worry if we didn't have everything memorized by the time we got on the phone, as there was a page on our intranet we could refer to.

I zoned out after that.

Around 11 Gerald excused himself and left the room. I looked out the window a minute later and saw him in the parking lot talking with a tow truck driver who was in the process of hitching up a car.

Gerald started waving his hands a bit, and the driver just kept doing what he was doing.

Paige caught sight of it as the truck driver was getting in his car. Everyone looked out the window just in time to see Gerald watch the truck drive away with his car in tow.

She said she forgot to remind us that they do tow from the lot periodically.

I ended up giving Gerald a ride to the impound lot after work. He told me he'd probably still park in the office lot anyway.

Tuesday, January 16, 2007

This morning I got lost trying to find the remote lot.

They gave me a "map" to find the place. On it, the lot was across from two rectangles - one representing a donut shop, and the other a car dealership.

When I got to the lot, there was a line of people waiting for the shuttle to the office. Two women from my class were standing their with their arms about to break under the weight of their training manuals.

I waited at the end of the line and listened to the woman next to me talk to someone about her nephew who just got his girlfriend pregnant and can't hold down a job to save his life.

She was into about the fifth job her nephew lost - he was stealing from a Hardee's he worked at - when a longish van pulled up. I was the last one in the van and had to sit shotgun next to the driver.

The driver pulled off and said he was glad it had been warm this winter. I agreed, and then he started telling me about the "big ones" this woman he had just dropped off at the last trip had. He went on about it - talking about the shirt she was wearing and such. I could tell some people in the van were getting uncomfortable, as everyone had stopped talking.

Then he started talking about how he couldn't wait for summer and said, "Know what I mean?"

I was kind of pressed for something to say, as I didn't want to look like I was taking part in the whole thing, but I didn't want him to think I was gay either. Why I was concerned with that, I don't know.

I settled on "I guess so" and then he started talking about how someone whacked up his car while it was parked outside his house and didn't even leave a note.

At lunch I noticed the woman who's nephew got his girlfriend pregnant and can't hold down a job was sitting with another woman few tables away. The woman she was speaking with turned around to look at me a couple of times.

As I was going to throw out my trash, she got up and walked past me, glaring the whole time. She looked about forty and had the biggest boobs I've ever seen in my life.

I guess she's the woman the shuttle driver was talking about.

Not much else happened today. Paige said our desks still weren't ready and asked if we could take our binders home again today. I'm already getting sick of lugging this crap around.

Monday, January 15, 2007

I started a new job today with a company that provides retirement plans to companies. I'll be working in their call center, answering questions their employees have about their investments and doing trades.

I don't know the first thing about investments.

I was given directions to a clean building with a shiny blackish-brown marble exterior and instructed to park in one of the visitor spots. I was told to go to dial a phone near the elevator and ask for Paige, who would come to get me.

I went into the building (which is equally shiny on the inside) and dialed the phone as told. I got Paige's voice mail and let her know I was downstairs by the elevator.

I was there a minute or so when this heavy set woman walked, looked around a bit, and then started walking towards the phone. I asked her if she was here for Paige, and she said yes. I told her Paige wasn't at her desk.

She kind of looked mad, then stood against the wall opposite me. I think she thought Paige wasn't there on account of something I did.

We waited a couple of more minutes and Paige came down. She apologized for making us wait and brought us up to the third floor, where we were brought into this mini break room/cafeteria with several other people. I guess I'll be working with the woman who got mad at me, and her name is Angela.

Everyone was kind of quiet. One guy played with his cellphone and didn't look up once.

After a few minutes, Paige came back in and thanked us for waiting. She said we'd be moving down to a classroom on the first floor to meet the Director of Customer Service, or something to that effect, but first we had to fill out some forms and get fingerprinted.

I guess anyone who works around investments has to get fingerprinted. I'm unsure as to why. There's nothing at all to steal, aside from office supplies.

You also have to fill out a form that lists every place you've worked at or lived for the past 10 years. I couldn't remember that far back and had to start making up zip codes and such.

After about 30 minutes of forms, Paige came in with the fingerprint guy and said we could make our way down to the first floor when we were done. We all got fingerprinted and got this white cream to wash off the ink that smells like bananas.

I was the last one printed, so when I got downstairs the director was already with everyone else. Her name was Sue. The room reeked of bananas.

Sue came up and shook my hand. I must have still had that fingerprint cleaner on it, because she wiped her hand on her skirt afterwards.

She welcomed us all to our first day, and told us we wouldn't be able to park in the main lot after today. Apparently, their office only gets so many spots in the lot and they were maxed out, so we'd get permits to park in a remote lot not too far away from the office.

She handed out tags to hang on our rear view mirrors so we wouldn't get towed, said goodbye to us, and left.

Paige got us started by getting us to introduce ourselves to the group and tell us a little about our background. I had to start.

This is my first job out of college, so I told everyone I graduated recently and was looking forward to working here. I felt like an idiot after, but it sounded much better than "this is all a history degree could get me."

They went on to the next guy, who was also named Gerald. Paige thought that was funny and made a joke that nobody laughed at.

Gerald had graduated a year ago and spent the past year working at a bicycle shop. He said he needed a change, and heard this industry was interesting. Then he said he was looking forward to working here.

Then there was this guy who worked in a pizza shop and another guy who worked on a ski lift in Oregon. It didn't seem as if anyone had any work experience that might have prepared them for this job.

I pictured some brochure being sent to our customers:

"Should you have any questions regarding your account, our call center is staffed with disinterested, barely qualified 20-somethings whose lack of direction has landed them here."

The rest of the stories sort of blended together, except for two.

Angela, as it turns out, had pursued a career in the medical field until a latex allergy made it impossible for her to work in a clinical setting.

The other was from a guy named Reynaldo, who said he was training for the Olympic Ju-Jitsu Team, but had to give up his dream to make money for his family. Later in the day, Reynaldo confided in me that he kept a pair of nunchucks in his car for self-defense.

The rest of the day we had classes on the financial services industry, investments, retirement plans, and such. We got a binder for every class we took, so at the end of the day we had about 40 pounds of reading material.

At the end of the day, Paige told us our desks wouldn't be ready until tomorrow, and asked if it would be a problem for us to bring our training materials home. It was, but no one seemed like giving Paige a problem on their first day.

I went home and watched a story on the news about these people who stole a mummy from an art gallery. Who the hell steals a mummy?