A Ridiculous Disguise.I had a relatively brief attempt at functioning in the squares world. A series of dead end office jobs that seemed random on a resume were to be replaced by a focus on graphic and web design. After all, I had the skills and my first fiance was feeling the call of the suburbs. The lectures about my misdirected ambition and stress over her inability to keep up with her old Haddonfield peers were becoming intense and frequent. No one grasped the insane statement that I didn't want to use my art and design skills that I went to school for to create petty corporate logos and websites for Real Estate douche bags. But considering what a web designer was earning at the turn of the millennium, and with her sister jet setting Europe with her French movie producer boyfriend, and all of our friends shifting from the fringe to the bourgeoisie, the heat was on for me to throw away the staving artist tag and get us out of our center city shoe box apartment.
But alas, I got to the party right as it was ending. I spent most of the dot com boom doing tedious data entry temp jobs and office managing a series of laser vision clinics. By the time I signed on with a web tech head hunter, work was spotty and drying up. Finally it got so bad that I had to take a temp job at the Bank of New York Transfer Agency call center.** It was everything a shitty day job should be. Every day I would make the hour and a half-8 mile drive to King of Prussia where the Walmart sized call center was located. As I entered the building in my business "professional" or business "casual" dress, I felt like everyone knew I wasn't supposed to be there. When I sat in meetings I felt like I looked like the Joker right before he blew up the hospital. How could they not see through this ridiculous disguise?
On my first day a blizzard blew through and after about a foot accumulated outside they finally called a snow day. But it was too late. It took us two hours to dig out of the parking lot and another six for me to drive home. I should have taken the storm as a an omen as I inched along the gridlocked icy highway with scattered semi trailers apocalyptically flipped over all around me.
I was convinced that that building was a portal to a ring in Dante's hell. The building was one huge room. An open sea of shoulder high grey cubicles that ran on as far as the eye could see. The place was so large and had such a high turnover rate, that a team of two were assigned to a cart. They rolled the cart around the building, cleaning out cubicles of those who were fired or quit. Quietly removing push pinned charts and tax info folders from the abandoned cubicles in
preparation for the next recruit. Their presence was a sign of another man down and there was a strange morgue like feel to watching them clean. From the ceiling hung a series of tickers that monitored the calls in cue. Every time calls were on hold for more than a minute, the tickers would begin to ring. Ding Ding Ding... Ding Ding Ding. But no one likes wasting pay on an idle employee. If the tickers were quiet for even a minute, it meant we weren't working, so they would start cutting people until the tickers starting ringing again. As you approached the entrance, the ringing would get louder and louder like you were entering a casino. But there were no glitzy lights or cute cocktail waitresses offering up free drinks. Just droll, beaten down faces and everything in shades of grey.Within a week I was already in trouble. I was assigned a seat right underneath a ticker. Between the ding ding ding in one ear and the screaming geriatrics who hadn't received their tax forms in the other, I though I was going to lose my mind. I compensated by speaking to the callers in either ridiculous game show voices or in mirroring doddering old man voices. My team leader wasn't pleased with me at all. Then I heard that there were openings for the one night team and he pushed my transfer through to get rid of me. "I think you'll like that shift better" he laughed. "That's the island of misfit toys crew."
**(A transfer agency is the company that actually issues and manages a company's stock. When a stock broker is buying or selling for a client, the transfer agency is who they call. But most stock broker firms have their own "pools" of stock that they move the shares around in, so they don't really have to deal with the agency. 90% of the calls were coming from individuals who had stock but no broker. i.e.. stock options->long term employees with lots of that one company's stock->retired->cranky old people with no clue.)
My Company
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