h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

July 23, 2000
Telemarketers.
A word that sends shivers up the spines of many.
But what goes on in the world of the telemarketer? How do they function? Are they normal people or invaders from that little town just down the highway that no one ever goes to except to get gas because the gas prices are cheaper there for some reason?
I have, unlike many people, had a glimpse into this world. It is a strange and horrific place...

The first thing one would notice going in are the lines of little half-assed cubicles. They're like cubicles, but not quite. More like cubis...They're in sets of ten, five back-to-back on a row. Four rows (or more, depending on how big the place is) with a break in the middle known as the "bull pen" where the supervisors can walk around and look important.

The second thing one would note is that the entire complex is painted a light shade of grey. Posters encourage values that are all but foreign to the telemarketing breed. The general decor urges the individual to get their hours in and keep their sales up.

The people themselves are rather interesting, but only as the groups you can lump them in. By themselves they're really quite odd.
There are a few groups. The first and possibly most...um...perplexing is the old women who've been there since the compound opened back in (insert date here). Most of them are about as broad and heavy as the snack machines in the break room. No joke. I'm serious.
They're a cheerful group, on the whole, though.
The second group would be the college-age guys. They're there either because they can't find better jobs or to pick up the college-age girls which I'll get to in a minute. Ranging from Magic: The Gathering players to alternate-school drop-outs. Most of them potheads.
The college-age girls (including the ones who try to act like college-age girls) consists of sluts. Nothing more.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not lumping these people into groups, it's just that they happen to fall so nicely into categories, though all of their own accord.
The fourth group is the older men. Some work part-time, some do full-time.It all depends on what they do in their spare time. One individual might watch XXX films, while another goes home and plows fields. (Did I mention this center is in Iowa?) They don't particularly follow a mold. Not like the others.

And they all sit inthese little cubis with head sets. And they wait for this really big computer in a back room to call up people. As soon as some unfortunate simp picks up their phone and says "hello?" the call gets shot off to one of these four varieties of people;all of whom read from a pre-written script.
The big computer often has trouble telling the difference between a live person and an answering machine, so the people with the headsets get to listen to all kinds of answering machine messages ranging from the religious ("God says 'Thou shalt leaveth one message telling who thou art and why thoust did dial my number'") to the really annoyingly lame ("Hello? Hello? Can't hear you! Oh! Wait! I'm a machine...") to the depressingly mundane ("We can't come to the phone right now....") And the telemarketers get bored. Or not. Some of them are small-minded enough to be amused by the flicker of the ancient computer from which they read your name and address.
Every two hours, they get a ten minute break, along with a thirty-minute lunch period at the end of eah six hour...um...group of hours.
For entertainment they bring books, playing cards, or Game Boys...the occasional tabloid gets passed from station to station, but otherwise that's all they have for entertainment, exept, of course, the reactions of the people they're trying to sell insurance or what-not to.
I'm not saying they're sadistic and evil. Quite the contrary. Most of them are...okay, some of them are kind of nice once you get to know them.
I'm not saying stop ahnging up on them, by any means. this was just a breif explaination of my findings when I inspected a place known by the mysterious acronym "APAC"


Hmm...And I'm running out of July 23rd to write in...either have to start a new entry continuing this one or go to bed.
I do beleive I'll go to bed.