Earlier this month, I had an interview for a summer job. Walking into the lobby of the building, I was apprehensive about what awaited me beyond the elevator doors. It wasn’t the interview itself that worried me—thanks to the experience I had last summer, I just wanted to see what the place looked like.
Considering I hadn’t started looking for a summer internship until April, I realized that I probably didn’t have the luxury of being too choosy. But after last summer, I was determined to be a little more selective when it came to a job. Everyone has their summer job horror stories, but when I settled for my “internship” last May, I never expected I was getting involved in something so absurd.
My first warning probably should have been that the job was advertised exclusively (and excessively) on Craigslist. The second was that the “office” I worked in contained little more than half-assembled furniture and telephones. The third, that my interview was really more of a speech to lower my expectations and disclaim the job posting. The fourth…
Okay, so really, I did have an inkling of what I was getting myself into. But I didn’t have any other options, so all I could do was give the place two weeks and hope the paycheck cleared.
I’ll eschew all the fancy language my employers used to explain my job—basically, I was a telemarketer. As for the company, an internet start-up, I can only describe it as a cross between a social networking site, the Yellow Pages, and a 900 number—a mix that just screams legitimate business.
I was prepared for the movie Boiler Room, minus the glamour of Wall Street and Vin Diesel. And while I was right about the former, my boss was actually even better than xXx—he was Arnold Schwarzenegger. That is, if Google Image Search is to be believed. The founder of the company was a Russian-born chess grandmaster-cum-Internet millionaire who was built like the Governator. Someone, apparently ignorant of the difference between Austrians and Russians, posted a picture of the Terminator, along with an online profile of my boss.
But I didn’t know that when I started. My first, uninformed impression of the man was one of bewilderment. Why was this Russian bodybuilder running a telemarketing company in suburban New Jersey? My confusion (not to mention suspicion) was heightened when, on my second day on the job, he started handing out hundred dollar bills to the week’s top performers. Maybe I was in for an exciting summer.
Reality soon proved to be much more mundane. My boss’s mystique wore off quickly—he was just the big guy with the accent who would berate us for not being good enough. And then there was the actual work.
Telemarketing was exactly as soul-crushing as I always imagined it to be. I got cursed out more times than I could count, and only on those rare occasions when someone would stay on the phone for more than 15 seconds. Once I was done getting yelled at on the phone, there was always a supervisor there to do the same in person, imploring me to get my call volume up. Needless to say, there was a lot of burnout. Another college kid started the same day as me; he went out for a cigarette before noon and never came back.
The few of us who stuck around for any length of time fell into two groups. The first consisted of people like me, students who persevered thanks to the promise of paychecks (yes, they actually cleared) and the sweet escape back to college. The others were adults for whom this job was actually their livelihood. Not surprisingly, considering the lax hiring requirements, a lot of them—like the twenty-something woman who aspired to direct porn and once asked if Delaware was two hours back or three—could have been characters on The Office.
But then there were those who I couldn’t help but feel sorry for, like the guy who had gotten laid off from his financial job and was forced to make phone calls eight hours a day until he could find something better. These were the people who kept me from writing the whole place off as a joke—a bad summer job is funny, but stay beyond three months and it becomes downright depressing.
Ultimately, I made it halfway through July before I couldn’t take it anymore. Normally I would feel bad about quitting, but by that point I was one of the longest-tenured employees. It felt more like retirement.
This year I was determined to avoid the same fate, but laziness still brought me dangerously close to the desperation of Craigslist. Thankfully, there were still a few legitimate offerings left in early April.
I breathed a sigh of a relief when I stepped off the elevator for my interview. The place was fully furnished, and there were even offices with names on the doors. I was safe.
I ended up getting the job. Now all I hope is that they don’t put me on the phones.
