Don't Call Me, I'll Call You

I am a telemarketer, which sucks big time.  This is all I could get out of college, and I need to work, so here I am.  Knowing that the people I call hate me, dealing with being hung up on, called names, etc.  So glad I spent four years involved in higher learning.

Anyway, at our call center, its just basically long tables set up where you  have a phone with a headset and a computer, and we sit lined up one next  to the other.  It's depressing and demoralizing.  Plus, you can hear, see and smell every single thing your neighbor does, eats, farts, etc.

One woman I work with has an unorthodox method of doing her work.  Before she gets on each and every call, she prays for a sale.  Very loudly.  And in a sort of a chant-y, sing-song way.  It's really rather creepy, and freaks us all out.  It also doesn't sound too good to the people we are calling, to have to deal with a telemarketer trying to sell you something while there is religious chanting happening in the background.

Do her prayers work?  Is she like top salesperson or anything?  'Cause you know, I'm sure God puts all the stuff like wars, famine, natural disasters aside when she requests a sale.

Crossing my fingers that you get a new job, StellarStan!

Belly Graham

Remember Victor from yesterday?  Well, there's more...

 On my 50th birthday, my best friend schemed with my partner to set up a surprise 'Belly Gram' during the work day. Apparently this bit of info was circulating among all the employees for a week and I never got a hint of it. On the day, they got me into the conference room for a short meeting and when I came out there was a sexy belly dancer dancing away to Arabic music. She had arrived while I was in the 'meeting', changed her clothes in one of our darkrooms and brought her own tape player. It was a great surprise and was topped off by a cake from a porn bakery in the shape of large boobs. 

After the whole show was over, Victor came to me and said he had misunderstood what was circulating about my birthday.

Victor, a born again Christian, actually thought Billy Graham was coming for my birthday and he had brought his bible in to get his autograph. I was much happier to have the Belly Gram.

And I am sure even happier that it wasn't a Billy Graham Belly Gram.

Thanks again, Bob!

Perfectionist Defectionist

My employee Victor was an Olympic athlete that escaped from the Hungarian Olympic team in France, joined the Foreign Legion, went AWOL and somehow got into the US.  He was a stripper (unfortunately, not the naked kind -  the photography kind). It's a very stressful and precise job.  One day Victor was having a few problems and things were not going as smoothly as usual. Nothing serious, but Victor was a perfectionist and he got very upset when he wasn't perfect.

Victor was a born again fundamentalist who believed God controlled everything. When things didn't go perfectly, he of course felt God had a hand in it. So one day, after a couple of minor errors, which required him to do something over, he looked up at the ceiling and shook his fist at God and said "If you think this is so easy I'd like to see you come down here and do it."

He was such a literal believer that he blamed God for everything that went wrong. One morning he choked on a jelly donut and he chastised God for the rest of the day. He always lived in an apartment that his friends rented. He owned two pairs of socks and two pairs of underwear and washed them out every night. That's not an exaggeration, it's actually true. He wore warm up type athletic clothes every day and he was a very fit athlete.

 We sometimes needed to do alterations on the photos with chemicals and we provided blue lab coats to protect employee's clothing. Well, Victor fell in love with the lab coat concept and wore his every day over his athletic gear.  Victor would always go out during his lunch hour wearing the lab coat to either take a walk, or do some sunbathing. One day he decided to go into an open area in the parking lot and lay down for a short nap and get some sunbathing in.

You can guess. Some passerby saw him stretched out and thought he was dead. They called the police and when my partner and I returned from lunch we saw police cars and an ambulance trying to aid him.

Another time he was standing in his lab coat outside our building, holding a cup of coffee.

Yes, you probably guessed it again, someone mistook him for a homeless person and dropped a quarter into his coffee.

So what I want to know is, DID God come on down and help? 

And where can I get one of these awesome lab coats?   But I'd prefer dollars to quarters - thanks.

Good story, Bob!

Holy Sh*t!

Kelly reports in:

I worked with a guy who would change his religion every month. Each month, he would become VERY vocal about his new adopted faith, and would try to recruit everyone at the office. While in each religious phase, he would adopt the traditions wholeheartedly. When he was Muslim for a month, he prayed to Mecca on the floor in a corner of the office. When he was Jewish, he freaked out about anything non-kosher brought in, which made lunch times difficult. Christian - he was crossing himself and mumbling the Lord's Prayer continuously. When Kabbalah became big with celebrities, he wore the red string and touted its praises. With Scientology he lectured us all about Xenu and Thetans (What? Who?). He was a turban-wearing Sikh. He would meditate when he was Buddhist. During his Hindu phase he ordered in Indian food every day for lunch (that seems a pretty lame way to worship, but I guess we ARE talking about someone who couldn't stick to one religion for more than 31 days...).

Surprisingly (not), he never converted anyone else, but oh how he tried!!

Let me know when he gets to Mormon*. I am interested to see how he will handle multiple wives. I know my husband seems to have enough trouble with one.

*Disclaimer: I know that most Mormons are not polygamous, only a small sect is. But I'm trying to be funny here, so let's just go with it, ok?