Cape Day

I worked as a telemarketer (or, as they say, “Communicator”) for InfoCision Management Corporation for a couple of months—Good benefits and fulltime work—Not bad for North East Ohio.  Nothing, however, is without it's dark side.

The work was awful…..plain awful.  Sitting a cube wearing a headset parroting whatever babble and drivel appeared on the computer screen—then having to “upsell” everyone, and make them say “no” to the point of exhaustion (both theirs and mine).  But, I could have done it a little longer it if the odd lot of Geeks and Dorks that run the place had treated the employees as grown-ups.

They offered, as incentives to work longer hours and push the upsell harder, extra…Oh Christ, I can barely say this…Pizza Parties and extra Jeans Days.  I'm an adult, for Pete's sake.  I'd already given my notice to quit when the final straw in my book was reached. 

When my training was completed I was named an “honor graduate” because, well, I never quite knew why, but my nameplate had two stars on it and the words “honor graduate”.  Didn't prevent them from misspelling my name—James turned into Janes (I told people that I was actually twin girls).

They had a nurse practitioner on duty there for our use—don’t know if she could have given out a Viagra prescription or not—I never asked.  They had a room full of high quality gym equipment that no one ever used.  I was there for “EOM” day—that’s Employee of the Month.  Very Big Deal.  All of the supervisors and management were roundly applauded repeatedly, and the employees who squeezed the most blood from the fewest turnips were awarded trophies and speeches were given.  Everyone was roundly thanked for making InfoCision just the best.  It was high times indeed.  Then we all went back to our cubes.

Oh—back to the final straw.  We were blessed with a “cape day” as an incentive.  I mentioned to the lady in the next cube that I didn’t have a cape.  She told me that it was OK because our manager would supply the capes for us to wear.  So, on cape day, I walked in and turned in my ears.  Couldn’t quite do Cape Day.