A good job

My first job after I quit writing was in a call center for the university here. Each year, just before the fall semester right when the first minimum payment to attend was due, the office of financial aid got flooded by calls. The office didn't have the enough people to answer all these requests, so for the most part people had to wait on hold.

The year I got the job was the first time they were piloting a program. They called it the FinAid Phone Bank. For the entire summer they hired around 30 of us and stuck us in a computer lab and we answered phone calls. It was a pretty good job. $10 an hour, and we got to work 39 hours a week. They gave us an hour off on Fridays not because they were generous but because once we hit 40 they would be required by law to provide us medical benefits. 

They trained us with a flowchart so that we wouldn't lead anyone astray. We never got one of those rote-reading scripts like you see in movie scenes depicting how horrible phone banks are. The flow-charts just showed us what topics we needed to hit during specific contexts and when we could finally reach out to manager for assistance. 

Anyways, the job wasn't that bad. There were some interesting stories and I kind of liked listening to these people and what they were going through while I pulled up their financial information on my computer. But that's not why I look back fondly on this job. The reason why I liked this job was because of how much reading I got done. For most of the summer there were hardly any phone calls coming in. The employees mostly watched movies -- illegally -- or just played flash games on the internet. There was one kid who was learning to program. But I... I just read and read and read. 

Eventually, somehow I found The Red Notebook. But let me tell you how that happens a little bit more in detail.
It's an oddly blissful thing to look for in a job, just being able to read or write while getting paid and pulling the right levers. I had similarly when I worked the night desk at a $50/night hotel one summer. Interesting times, for sure. A coffee-stain colored nostalgia.

Did you ever stories about these people whose lives you got to peer inside during the calls? or. is that. what is to come? in next part??
2021-07-12 01:13:00
I hope you write about that job. 

This is fiction by the way so it's not me who's in the call center.
2021-07-12 01:31:51
Lol.. I didn't think it was fiction either. You are getting good Sir Abe.

Well, I had a similar experience when I was in college. I was a Math/Stat tutor for $10/hour as well. I got to study my course work if there were not students that needed any help. It was my next job after Kmart and way more luxurious than standing on my feet and asking permission to use the restroom. I will share those stories in a future post. 
2021-07-12 18:44:00
Ah 
keni
so i'm guessing yo uwere a tutor inside a help-room? The university that 
drewb
and I attended had this for math/stats as well.

you must've been pretty good if you got that job. 

now that i write this I think Drew worked in one of the help-rooms as well at 
MSU
 ?
2021-07-14 02:07:29
Tutored languages at umich, but not at MSU. I'm trying to think if i ever had any official faculty of helping people at msu but i don't know if i did lol
2021-07-14 20:36:31
Yes that is true Sir Abe. We had a help room. I tutored at the community college and at the University. I was a nerd and of all subjects, math and Stat were the ones I liked. I told you I was nerd. I was so much better at school than the workplace. I get an F for the politics that work requires. 
2021-07-14 21:08:18
drewb
you worked as a research assistant for a professor though right? For a while? I remember you talking about having that position and me getting jealous that you had the honors college PI assistanceship thing. But when you talked about how it wasn't that great it made me feel better for not having it.

Lol 
keni
 we are all nerds here like you once said. Drew is a linguist nerd.
2021-07-14 23:36:01
ahh yeah i did, that great $144/2wk paycheck that really set me up for the rest of life lol. i assure you your jealousy was misplaced

wildly dull, working in a linguistics honors lab. feel like those sorts of experiences are only as good as the caliber of character in the room with you.

i wanted something like the kitchen crew in ratatouille

i got the morning crowd at a cracker barrel 
2021-07-15 01:31:17
ahh yeah i did, that great $144/2wk paycheck that really set me up for the rest of life lol. i assure you your jealousy was misplaced

Wow this is such a fucking hiliarious comment. Especially this above. And the thing about 
Cracker Barrel
 lmao. 
2021-07-16 01:18:55

I found the Diaries of Greco