it seems to me there are two types of telemarketing operator: the old fella who retired 15 years ago and now realises he hasn't got any money to send his grown up daughter to college; and secondly the waster who can't think of anything else to do. i fell into the latter. all my mates had gone to university and i decided that the opportunity to work at the heart of the uk call centre industry was far too good an opportunity to miss. (plus i needed the cash for the 6mnth trip to the states i was plannin) my first experience of an outbound telemarketing call was on a large bt campaign - basically phoning up sme's to confirm address details, fax machine numbers, the employee count and whether they are interested in any other bt services. i lost count of the amount of times i'd phoned a pub and try to confirm a fax number with them; "nah, mate. FAG machine's out of order..." or you speak to a farmer who has never heard of bt. the hair dressers who think you're trying to make an appointment or the complete ignaramus who thinks you're trying to sell him a bt product - "why are you phoning me!!? I hate bt and i'd never subscribe to any of their services!!" - yeah? well then how come you're talking to me through your bt handset down a bt phone line you complete... but then there was the time when i was working on a coca cola vending machine campaign tyring to get the things into sports centres, community halls or train stations. one of the addresses came up on the screen reading "buckingham palace" i wondered how the wealthiest woman's home address could possibly have got onto the database but figured it must be a gift shop or something (gift shop at buckingham palace?? no, i've never seen it either...) so anyway, i figure i've got to phone it - can't just put it through as a wrong number or unobtainable can i? (supervisors with eyes like hawks and ears like will smith would be on my case faster than concorde). dialled the number and let it ring, must have been twice before it was picked up. "hello??" "yeah hi, calling on behalf of coke - wanna vending machine?" strictly speaking that wasn't exactly how the script went but you get the idea. "this is buckingham palace" "yeah, i know. wanna a coke machine?" "i don't think his highness has any need for such a thing but thank you for your call"... we figured we'd got through to prince charles' private quarters or something - funny call though. on another occasion we were doing a bt cellnet campaign (when they were bt cellnet)phoning up people on their mobile's trying to upgrade them to a more expensive service. ended up getting through to an mtv presenter (can't remember her name but i remember having seen her on tv and thinking "how dense are you...!") needless to say she doesn't work on tv anymore (i think her name was clio or something...anyone remember??) it took me about quarter of an hour to explain who i was, another 10 minutes for her to understand why i had her number, and another hour or so for her to figure out what the call was about. good times. but the job for bmw was pretty good. an after sales customer satisfaction survey where we ended up ringing the entire liverpool football team. (the manager had just taken them all down the local bmw showroom and rewarded each of them with a brand new beemer as a bonus...not bad huh?) but since those days i ended up going to the states, spending all my money, coming back to the call centre where upon i got promoted into the client services dept and having to brief operators who, like me six months previously, were complete wasters with no interest in anything except break times, lunch and pay packets. but i could sympathise. the call centre was a good introduction to working life and one that i look back on with fond memories (despite all the politics and crap that seems to surround companies with large amounts of people in one place...but there you go)

anyway, if you've got this far you're probably also on your last working day of the year and have nothing going on.