The Cynical Career Counsellor Explains Your Future As A

Telemarketer

Look kid, I'm trying to eat lunch here... Okay--if you don't mind me spittin' pastrami on you. Telemarketer--figures you come at mealtime. Hey--you want to make 3 bucks? I just remembered my cupboard key dropped in the urinal and wondered if you'd go get it... No wait--sit down. I was just checking to see if you have the right mindset for telemarketing.

There's a special kind of preparation needed for telemarketing, but since you're already in the country and I understand at least 50% of what you say, you're way ahead of the curve. Still, the really big telemarketing operations will want to take you through some special training before they give you your cubicle, phone and diaper and turn you loose on... Oh--well you see, they can't afford to have you wasting time on bathroom breaks.

So, they'll take you to somewhere secret, and you'll get your training. First thing you'll do when you get there is meet some shady guy in a black trenchcoat with his hat pulled down low--he'll want you to sign some things in blood. Don't worry--a soul would just get in the way in your line of work anyway.

Once you're in there, you'll go through a series of role-playing exercises designed to give you no shame. You'll simulate phone calls to houses where people tell you to get off the line so they can call 911 and save their baby--and soon you'll realize that they're just pulling another tired sales-avoidance technique--you never hang up until you've read the whole card. Don't worry--they'll keep hanging up until they realize you're still there every time they pick up the phone, and rather than have you keep starting again, they're wiser to let you finish.

Of course, you'll have to become immune to insults and abuse. Their psychologists will walk you through every rejection and humiliation of your childhood and adolescence--you'll even cry all over again when Mary Sue laughs at your prom invitation. Scary, large men will come and scream at you--threatening your life and punching you every so often just to be convincing. When you can ignore them and finish reading the card, you'll have proven yourself ready.

It won't be easy--your targets will be warned by the telltale noise of the call centre for those few seconds before you pick up from the autodialer, and they'll have their best insults and threats prepared. Don't worry, by that time you'll have learned that every householder who screams his desire to dig up your grandmother's bones and urinate on them, or promises to burn the homes of you and all your family so your DNA can be justly wiped from the planet, is just another future satisfied customer who will give thanks for the day you brightened their life.

Now get out of my office--I gotta make some calls.

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