Note: I'm intentionally being obtuse about some details; no need to make more enemies than I have to.
Also, for those of you for whom solicitor means a form of lawyer, I apologize; I am using it in the
US-centric fashion to mean a person who calls on the phone to get donations.
It was the end of a summer "off" from college, and I needed money for when I returned.
I say "off" because at the college I was attending, you were supposed to have a
co-op job. My mother pointed out a job in the town newspaper for the suburb I lived in that paid
$6/hour and didn't care how long you could work, which was what I needed given I had only three
weeks until my return to school. So I applied for the job.
As it turns out, the job was to solicit donations for the local police union.
You would work from 5pm to 10pm weeknights (Friday till 8, Saturday 9am-1am as I recall), calling
people to get them to donate money, in return for which they would get tickets to a concert
put on by a one hit wonder band from the sixties at one of the town's high schools.
The job took place in a windowless office in the back of a plaza. The tables were...
well-loved, the phones were the generic tan touch tone phones many businesses had.
The environment was quite spartan -- tables, phones, and a desk in a room with a door that could
actually close for the boss. It seemed that they did other things during the day -- some employees
left as I arrived, though what they did I do not know.
Like most jobs of this type, there was a script to be followed, and a general procedure.
You were handed columns of numbers from the Haines criss-cross directory (a phone directory
listing phones by number), and called each non-business number on the list. You had a name for who you
were calling, etc.
After about three calls, I was told
to shorten my Slavic surname to something that wouldn't scare children.
Most employees, including myself, were cold calling people in an attempt to pull the
"required" minimum of $100 a night.
My fellow employees were an interesting bunch. First, there was the aforementioned boss, who seemed to just sit in his office. To
get an idea of what he looked like, think of the comic store guy from the Simpsons. Now remove the long hair,
and make him uglier.
There was a woman who seemed to do a lot of the office manager type tasks -- preparing the lists,
getting the pay distributed, and occasionally making coffee.
Another employee who was a seasoned salesman called those who had donated
in the past, rather than the cold calls. Also, while not really an employee, there would
almost always be one of the police officers there to answer any questions someone might abruptly
have, presumably.
Most of the rest of the employees were high school students from the city that the town adjoined.
One of them had a boyfriend who would always forget to pick her up. I would drive her home to
one of the bad areas of town. She was always nice, and I never worried about having trouble --
a rusted-out Taurus wagon hardly indicates affluence.
Of course, I had my share of unhappy people at the other end of the line. Let me tell you this --
the people who just hung up were the nice ones. The ones who started cursing were no fun, but the
worst was someone who completely freaked out that I had their number, since it was unlisted.
She began demanding all sorts
of things. I got to put the office manager-type person on with her to calm her down.
Of course, I figured I'd be let go a week in since I wasn't quite getting $100 a night, but apparently
I was doing good enough for them to pay me. Pay me they did, in cash. They had us all as independent contractors. They kept me on until I left, and while I could work as few
as four days a week, I took as many as I could get. I was desperate, after all.
While it was nice of them to keep me on, nothing would beat the intra-office experiences. One time the boss told me I was doing
something wrong, and I apparently looked at him wrong, at which point he said "Don't
get pissy with me." I wasn't ticked off at him before he said that, but afterwards... let's just
say I didn't earn any more that night because I stopped putting forth any effort.
Another night I was writing up a successful call when I heard the officer that was sitting in that
night talking. Now, my mother very carefully brought me up so that I wouldn't be afraid of the police.
She never told me anything like "Eat your vegetables or I'll have the policeman get you," because
she knew that I would need to be able to trust them if I needed help.
The officer was complaining about a call he had to go to. I do not remember all of the exact
words, but the situation was that a little old lady thought she heard something and wanted them
to look around. He was complaining that she made them look everywhere, like she didn't just trust
their cursory look. Now, I might have understood had the town been a high crime area, but it
hardly was, especially in the morning, which is when they were called. I found myself wondering
if he remembers who pays him.
At one point I pointed out that there was a large group of numbers, all with the same address, that
was actually a nursing home. I had figured this out from my calls to these numbers, none of which
were successful and all with the same explanation. They told me to keep calling these numbers,
that some of them could be persuaded into it. I didn't do that. I realized that I needed calls that were
likely to succeed, so I just crossed those numbers off.
Later, I received an exchange that was partly in the town but mostly in another. Again I pointed this out,
but the boss told me that they would be happy to donate -- they might pass through our town on the way to work
and appreciate the work a police officer had done. After 100 more calls, I begged to differ and
smuggled the sheets home (a big no-no), pulled out a map, and crossed off most of the list.
Eventually, it was time for me to leave for college. I had realized I was a valuable employee to them
a few days prior when they had made most everyone else but me stop calling to get a lecture on
the work ethic. They told me that if things didn't work out at college I could always return.
But at that point, I was ready to shake the dust from my sandals. I talk about it with a smile
on the humor it holds in hindsight -- it was an eye-opening
experience for me, and one that is too amusing to find utterly shameful.
But I'll never, ever do it again.