Work part 2.

If, from now on, we're only going to write 'what we know', I'm going to have to stop posting in the very near future. That or embark on a series of updates about the the ins and outs of the Lutheran Reformation. Neither of these options seems a particularly good recipe for a successful blog, so expect to again be reading the incoherent prose of a man who writes 'stuff he knows absolutely nothing about' soon. In the meantime, inspired by Ashley's brutally honest appraisal of his career to date, I thought I'd contribute another job to avoid.

Back in the summer of 2007, as a fresh faced second year history student, I got myself a job at a housing association in order not to default on my vastly over priced rent payments to my unesteemable landlord. Work began innocently enough: I was presented with a mountain of filing to do and people seemed modestly impressed that I knew what a mail merge was. What I didn't realise was that working there was going to make this tatoo seem like an eminently sensible world view.[ pic shamelessly stolen from here]

Having started out doing general office admin, my boss (who could clearly spot an eager-to-please push-over a mile away) soon began setting me to task on a series of jobs "with more responsibility". For no extra money I should add. The people I worked with were lovely people. Patient people who cared about helping others. I admire them greatly. The majority of people who live in housing association properties are normal, average, nice people who are just trying to get on with their lives and maybe get someone to fix the leak in their front room. Unfortunately the vast majority are not the ones ringing you up everyday demanding that you find them a four bedroom house in Covent Garden (true story). In fact the majority of the people who you end up dealing with day to day are either insane, inconceivably angry, or, more commonly, just out-right dick wads.

One of my first tasks with "more responsibility" was to ring up all the deaf tenants to double check if they were indeed deaf. Please just read that sentence again and take a second to absorb the utter insanity of the project. We were trying to get the attention of people who we suspected were deaf using the medium of sound. After a day or two of calling everybody on the list I reported back that, unsurprisingly, very few had actually answered the phone. My boss's response was "we'll have to try calling them at different times of the day. They must of been out." At this point my brain almost melted.

Not long after the deaf person telethon, I was promoted (that's the word used on my CV. A more fitting description would be 'given a job that everyone else refused to do'.) I became transfers administrator. This meant that everyone who wanted to move within the housing association had to contact me, and I then had to explain to them why they were going to be put on a waiting list for two to three years, possibly forever. Lots of people really, really needed to move due to overcrowding, medical reasons etc. Unfortunately there was no where to move them to. There were many, many genuinely sad cases. A family of five living in a one bed flat with a son who, due to being born with an imperforate anus, had no control over his bowels. The man who, due to his schizophrenia, got irrational urges to jump off ledges, but lived on the fourth floor with a balcony. Seriously, these people all existed, and none of them had any prospects of being able to move in the near future.

Were these the people giving me crap everyday? Where they hell. People with real problems tended to have some dignity and were polite and accepting of a system that simply sucked balls. They understood houses in London couldn't be magic-ed out of nowhere. Instead I got phone calls every damn day from a plethora of retards (apologies for the tasteless word but these people broke me) who seemed to think I was personally vindicating them by not allowing them to move to their dream home.

Yes I'm talking to you: lady who wanted to live within walking distance of her daughter's school. I'm sorry you couldn't get a move but it turns out the government doesn't have a duty provide you with a house on the specific street you want to live on. If you want to live there why don't you stop crying about your extremely reasonably priced accommodation and go and rent privately instead of being a massive douche and asking to speak to my manager. You see there are worse things than having to get the bus to school; for example having to live in the same room as your mum, your dad, your sister and your brother who can't stop defecating all over the place.

There were also two idiots who would ring me up on almost precisely alternate days to berate me for only giving houses to white people / blacks and immigrants [delete as appropriate]. I longed for the day when they would call up at the same time so that I could transfer their calls together. What these ass-clowns failed to realise was that calling someone racist over the phone when they had never met you and hence had no idea of your race didn't make any sense.

It was always those with the least to complain about who would demand to have a 1-on-1 meeting and then spend half an hour shouting at me, demanding I photocopy "important' documents (which turned out to be letters from the housing association, hand annotated with comments such as "Aha!! This PROVES I need a move"). Other notable efforts included a man insisting on a move because his floorboards were moving and he used to work for the Queen. When this didn't seem to be doing the trick, he promptly faked a heart attack.

I think a nadir was reached when I replied in writting to a woman saying 'Dear so-and-so, Thank you very much for the picture you sent me... blah blah blah' after she had mailed me a letter with a polaroid picture of her still born baby attached. God I hated this job. But, for all my dreams of going all Office Space at work, any act of rebellion tended to end up more like this.

So as I sit here unemployed, contemplating applying for "A recession PROOF career in recruitment!!" (Guardian Jobs) I can still allow myself a brief moment of happiness knowing that at least I'm not doing any of the above any more.

Words of warning from a call-centre veteran

They say you should write about what you know. And despite the fact that I’ve never quite managed to figure out exactly who ‘they’ are, ‘they’ certainly have a point.

So what do I know? I know that I will always laugh when John Motson ecstatically chirrups something along the lines of “…and he’s come inside his man magnificently” over the top of some meaningless mid-table Premier League action. I also know, like the estimable Wyclef Jean, that two wrongs don’t make a right, especially when you’re just trying to have some dinner with some candlelight. I, unlike this lady, am aware that jumping into the bear enclosure at feeding time is a bad idea. Most of all, however, I know first-hand of the soul-crushing woe that comes from working in a call-centre. And it is this affliction upon which I will focus my attention.

First and foremost, it is important to provide some context. The call-centre can seem like an attractive proposition for some; flexible hours, the chance to meet new people, a lack of really stressful work. Don't be fooled, for the harsh reality is so very different. As a call-centre veteran (I have worked various spells over the years to support myself through University, and as a post-graduate to create a much needed financial buffer zone), I can now reveal the psychological torment that takes hold when holed up in one of these places for too long.

A brief summary of my call-centre resume should be sufficient to convince you (the reader(s)? - [ed - Fred has already made that joke]) to stay away. I have sold boiler insurance to old ladies, but was forced by the client to lie to them about the validity of the cover period. I have attempted to convince unsuspecting members of the public to sign up to a Kerry Katona-fronted bingo website. I have pressed Texan good ol’ boys into revealing their true opinions on "aloominum" wheels through the night.

I have been told, variously, to ‘fuck off’, to ‘get a proper job’ and, in a quaintly British sort of way, to ‘get knotted’. In addition to this, I have been branded a ‘timewaster’, a 'spastic cunt' (I kid you not) and most damagingly of all, a clown. The truth hurts.

Furthermore, the call-centre has a tendency to attract a certain type of person, comprised of penurious students (understandable), attention-seeking out-of-work actors and singers (irritating) and, finally, nutters who always want to strike up conversations with you, despite your best "leave me alone" lack of eye contact and negative body language. Moreover, it is always these nutters who seem to get promoted to the level of supervisor, at which point their over-eager friendship is replaced by the steely-eyed pedantry of a true jobsworth.

Another grave problem with the call-centre are the hygeine levels. These places are veritable hives of illness. If one person has a cold, everyone will soon have it. Packed in like battery hens, sneezes and coughs spread like wildfire. Oh, and I won't even get started on sharing headsets and mouthpieces. Your only protection against call-centreitis? The wet-wipe.

My antipathy toward the call-centre runs deep. In fact, my main problem with the recent Oscar-grabbing smash ‘Slumdog Millionaire’ was not its overly schematic structure, wildly uneven tone or even Dev Patel’s gormless central performance; rather, it was that screenwriter Simon Beaufoy dared to suggest that any good whatsoever could come from a call-centre. Without giving too much all Boycway to those who haven’t seen it, a major plot catalyst stems from a humorous chance encounter in a call-centre. Had I not been trying to impress a young(ish) lady at the time, I surely would have hurled my popcorn at the screen and lunged manically at the projectionist screaming "THE LIES! THE LIES!".

Having said all this, the call-centre is not without its opportunities for Beckettian gallows humour. The whole process is so spectacularly inane that once one develops a sense of acceptance, black comedy can creep in. This humour can range from the basic (laughing at the names that come up on your screen. To wit: Captain Pollock, Peter Sutcliffe, Mr. Jesus Christ, Mrs Qunt - all true) to the more complex (howling with tearful mirth on the bus home as you assess the existential calamity of what you actually do for six pounds an hour).

Occasionally when sitting there like an automated chicken whose only role is to irritate and disturb, you will chance upon a member of the public who is sensitive to your plight, and will engage in empathetic conversation before either returning to their episode of Eastenders, or (and amazingly it does happen) acquiescing to your pleading request, and partaking in a questionnaire about the location and usability of their local cash machine. Getting someone to agree to do a phone questionnaire is not in itself cause for celebration, however, because that would be making the assumption that Joe Public is cognizant of basic skills such as listening, talking and counting. One memorable scene from Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant's groundbreaking 'The Office' epitomizes both the thundering inanity of the typical questionnaire and the terminally frustrating inability of the majority of said public to process a simple request, like scoring on a scale from 1-5.

My post-call-centre search for employment has been largely characterized by agonizing spells of inactivity and soul searching, followed by manic hot-flush internet sessions spent hammering endless combinations into the search criteria of Guardian Jobs, Milkround et al., only to be faced with the constant, mocking six-word epithet ‘Fancy a Career in Media Sales?’. But still I persist, because my determination to avoid these stinking hell-holes is strong.

I’ve never been one for New Year’s Resolutions; my theory being simply, ‘if you want to do something, do it now’. But at the turn of this year, I made an exception. At the time of writing (Wednesday April 22), I've been clean of call-centres now for the best part of six months. I feel like a new man.

I think I'm doing well. Do yourself a favour - don't make the same mistakes I did - stay away from call-centres. AC