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.