Nextel

Here, by popular demand (i.e. Kevin), is my illicitly-kept journal from the 4 days I spent working at Cyberrep. It is very long, and also very depressing. ENJOY:
CyperRep: “So! What is it about this company that interests you?”
Me: “ummmm…well, I have lots of experience with customer service, and…uh…cell phones…” (trails off)
CyperRep: “go on.”
Me: “oh! Uhmmm…well, the company is located in a part of town that is easy for me to get to on my bike (becoming briefly, falsely animated), the atmosphere of the workspace really feels good to me…(fading)…the people…are nice…it’s…uh…the job is full-time…the pay is acceptable…” (trails off again. Starts daydreaming about being a contestant on “the weakest link”)
CyberRep: (inexcusably perky) “great! So, what are your short term goals?”
Me: “to finish recording this record that’s due to be released in December.”
CyberRep: “…and how do you think CyberRep can help you achieve those goals?” (note: she, reading from a typed page without looking at me, has actually said “those goals,” though I only mentioned one)
Me: “well, in order to finish my record, I need to be alive. And to do that, I need to eat food, and live in a house. To do those things, I require money. That’s where YOU come in.”

Day 1 of Training:
I hate my CyberRep-issue mug.
I hate the woman sitting in front of me, and the one diagonally to the right. It is cold in here. Everything is depressing. I hate it here and I hate my stupid boring life which has led me to this depth of sorrow. I don’t want to work on “the floor.” I hate “pajama day.” I need money. I like the guy sitting next to me, who keeps muttering things like “goddamn it” bitterly under his breath. The only thing keeping me here is a paycheck. The exact situation our hippie forebears attempted to teach us to avoid our whole lives. For this I went to college! My parents must be so ashamed of me. I would be ashamed of me if I were my parents.

I have just been informed that we got “way better mugs” than anyone else. I guess that makes me feel great, though I am still freaked out by the rule that we may only drink from our CyberRep-issue mugs and no other beverage receptacle. What does it all mean? Are they afraid I might spill my beverage were I to contain it in a different kind of receptacle? However, I must point out that if my personal mug were capable of spilling, so must the CyberRep-issue mug. This point is moot, as are most points made here, as this rule is “in the rules,” and since no one knows who made the rules or who has the authority to change the rules, since Nextel employs roughly eighteen billion untrained, surly “technicians” and no one actually even knows how to work a cell phone, all the rules go unchanged and unquestioned, for all eternity.
11:00-We’re now nearing one hour of talking solely about “being on hold” and how “sucky” it is. I just made 9 dollars.
Now we are telling stories about times we have been on hold, and times our friends/mothers/fiancés have been on hold. How this relates to training or our job in general (or the 9 bucks I just made as we speak) is unclear, but I’m sure it’s “all good” (“Jesus Christ,” mutters the guy sitting next to me. I like him.).
12:30–back from lunch. I have just realized that there is a wet, muddy splotch on my butt, due to sitting on a curb in the rain to eat my lunch, which was a piece of dry bread and an apple. Rather than filling me with dismay, I am instead infused with hilarity. Jake delivered pizza here, to the managers, and we laughed when we saw each other.
12:36–my class filters back in. I literally can not wait to hear what they all have to say.
1:03–M (our trainer) deals mainly in rhetorical questions. For instance, to illustrate one of his many points, he might say, “if someone offers you 50 bucks, and someone else offers you zero, which one are you gonna choose?” Things of this nature. One of the women I hate sits tensely, waiting for the chance to mention her boyfriend, his “fear of commitment,” and the fact that she owns a cell phone and “knows about these things.” The woman sitting next to her screams with laughter and bangs her fists on the table whenever anyone makes a joke such as “so, when is our scheduled afternoon nap?”
(M has just said, “if you talk to your computer in English, will it understand you?” the class choruses, “NO!”)
1:06–I am mortified to have to raise my hand when M asks “has anyone here sold cell-phones before?” My seatmate, the bitter mutterer, laughs at me. I like him. We talk in whispers about bands, and music, and how emo Nextel is, and how funny it is that they keep trying to tell us how great Nextel is.
1:12–“if you call and change your rate plan around, it’s like you’re throwing a rock into a lake–” begins M, before he is interrupted by the screaming woman, who cries helpfully, “or a puddle!!!” M pauses, then says obligingly, “yes, or a puddle.”
1:14–It’s as though I am suddenly in an alternate universe. The man in front of me laughs like Robert Mitchum. He is unearthly and frightening.
1:17–It’s not that I think I am better than these people, or that I think they themselves are the problem. It’s this job. It’s jobs like this, spreading across the world like a cancer. Jobs that are better than McDonald’s, and worse than almost anything else. It’s like a feedlot–turnover is unbelievable, only instead of being killed and processed into cheap hamburger like the unfortunate denizens of our nation’s feedlots, the inhabitants of this building freak out and either quit or are fired. They hire millions of people, train them poorly, throw them into the work and then when the people burn out and quit or fade away 3 months down the line, they hire another million. They pay the bare minimum for this kind of work, and they wait 3 months to pay your benefits because they know you’ll quit before then. There is a strict dress code even though we work in a warehouse and there is no scenario in which we would be even vaguely seen by a client or customer, or even by an actual representative of Nextel. There are hundreds of people in this one huge room, no natural light, no windows. You have to clock in and out for all your breaks. If you’re late, the clock beeps and you have to get a manager. You can’t check your email, you can’t make a personal call, you can’t eat at your desk, you can’t use your own coffee mug. You get half an hour for lunch–barely enough time to run to the Burger King and buy the horrible, fattening, nutrient-void food that is all you can afford on the $280-a-week-after-taxes you make at your shitty job. You aren’t allowed to make your own schedule even though it literally doesn’t matter what hours you work. You don’t get paid sick days. You don’t get paid vacations. You work as much as you possibly can, as many days a week as you possibly can, and all the time the managers are asking you “can you come in on Saturday? Can you work a 10 hour shift?” until you are used up and you move on to the next demeaning, robotic, soul-sucking job that barely pays your rent. I am not mad at the people in my class. I am mad at this ridiculous system which saps our quality of life and makes it hard for us to support our children, and which preys on uneducated, under-privileged yet slightly-competent people who are the system’s fodder. I know that this life is not for me. I know that I am only passing through it, that I am going to move on to better things. But there are people in my class who are in their 40’s, their 50’s. They don’t have a college degree because no one can afford to pay for college. They don’t have the luxury to look around for anything better, or hone their skills or take a resume-writing class, or a class on how to use the internet, because they have to spend literally all their waking moments learning how to help people fix cell phones for 9 bucks an hour without benefits. It’s a vicious cycle and just being here in the middle of it makes me so upset. I hate to see these people cling to this job. I hate the way they try to please the manager, who in some cases is 20 years younger than they are. I hate the way they worry about their “stats,” about being late. I hate that they aren’t allowed time off to take their kid to the doctor.
1:30–3 hours. I can do this. I hate this. I’m losing my mind. We are still talking about “call forwarding.” I hate it here. Come on, second wind. 3 hours. Come on, that’s like watching “Schindler’s List.” I can do this with my eyes closed. God, I wish I could do this with my eyes closed. I am reminded of high school, when I opened my Biology book and found that someone had written “5 more minutes” 100 times on one of the chapter pages.
1:31–M has just described a customer care call as a “dark, glooming, luminescent cloud.” “Wow!” I thought. I am reminded of my dead ex-boyfriend who was so amazing at making up words. Tormentatious. Youness. Fattishly.
1:35–“Now,” he says, continuing his extremely long explanation of what Nextel’s info line will do for you, “how many of you have been to Red Robin?” Many people raise their hands, chattering about fried zucchini. “How about The Spaghetti Factory?” M asks. More hands. “Now,” he continues, “do they take reservations?” A chorus of “uh-uh”s. As he begins to speak again, the main woman I hate shouts “NO!” then adds, very deliberately, “it’s FIRST….COME….FIRST…..SERVED!!”
1:46–“Monday is a high volume call day,” M says, “anybody have Mondays off?” It’s one of his rhetorical questions. Obviously no one has Mondays off. That is the point of what he has just said. “No,” everyone says. “Right,” he continues, but is cut off by the Boyfriend Woman, who cries, “I have Wednesdays off!” There is a pause. “All right,” says M.
1:47–I am considering working graveyard shifts. It would be so bizarre and slow. We are now talking about parking. “Can I park by that yellow thing outside?” asks a quiet woman in the back. “I think water comes out of that,” mutters my seatmate obliquely.
2:00–We’re on break. I refuse to let this job beat me. I have made a pact with myself that if I ever find myself making big decisions, such as Tour, etc., with my job in mind, I will quit. I hate it here. Next week we’re having something called “be a sportsman day” or something, when we will dress as our favorite sports team. Can I be a nitro girl? Or, even better, a jockey? Maybe I will dress up in a huge, grotesque dog costume and say my favorite sport is “the track.” Most likely, I will never dress up at all, except for when I make a mockery of the “casual Friday” policy. 2.5 hours. Almost done with 1/5 of my work-week. I am morbidly unhappy. Reminding myself that orphans in Bangladesh have it much, much worse only makes me feel small and petty, as well as morbidly unhappy. I would rather just feel morbidly unhappy. Damn those Bangladeshi orphans.
2:15–Break’s over. I can’t believe I’m working here, at this point in my life. For this I went to college? Yes. For this I went to college. What am I thinking? Is playing in a band really worth all this? Why don’t I just get a job in a bank somewhere? But that would be just the same, only it would look nicer and I’d make more money. I don’t care about making a lot of money. I just want to be happy. Well, here I’m neither making a lot of money NOR happy, so, again, what am I doing here? 2 things to curb my belligerent malaise: One, I am lucky to live a privileged life, compared to many, many other people who would love to have even this crap job. Two, this must motivate me to force my way into grad school, or into the life of the traveling bohemian like that guy in The Sun Also Rises who got his genitals shot off in the war.
2:20–I’ve calculated that there are roughly 450 waking hours in a given month, and I will spend 200 of them working here.
2:25–A wave of excitement! A paycheck! The reality of a paycheck is hitting me! It seems too exotic to actually be real. I was unemployed for four months after the dot com I worked for went bust. I will get enough money to fix my car! Pay Bones some of the money I owe him! Buy a CD! Get my much-discussed Old Navy low-rise jeans!
Consumerism. This is how they wear us down. In the end, we all eventually want low-rise jeans from Old Navy. Even though said low-rise jeans are made by abused 3 year olds in Indonesia. I hate everything.
2:30–We need to finish the album. I need to get it all done, and get the info to Muffie in time. I’m so excited she’s doing the artwork. It will be great. I’m nervous about finishing everything on time.
–Mike just walked by. He smiled conspiratorially at me. It made everything better. Note to self: ask Mike if he hates it here as much as I do.
3:10–M keeps saying “over-exaggerate.” I dislike when people use this term.
(“Is 20 bucks different from 2,000 bucks?” Asks Matt. I resist the urge to make some variation of the “does the pope wear a funny hat?” stock response. Instead, the Mitchum Laughing Man in front of me yells, “OH YEAH!”)
tonight:
laundry, Evan, Rachel–finalize boggle plans, rice, Steve, buy Triscuits
tomorrow:
soymilk, warmer clothes, Triscuits
3:58–Tonight I need to do something wondrous and exuberant to make myself feel alive again after the unmitigated brain death that has been this entire day.
4:19–I need to find a way to not think of this as a big part of my day. Perhaps I could start taking a lot of speed.
4:23–Hi-liters. I love them. What are they made out of? Plutonium? I find I have written “robot” in cursive over and over again in my employee handbook.
4:30–FREEDOM!! What will become of me? There are no windows in this room.
Note upon reaching home: I have stolen all the “Sir Marksalot” markers from work.

Day Two:
8:35– “If you’re worried about sounding like a robot,” M says, “don’t be worried about sounding like a robot.” Okay, M. I’m not worried about sounding like a robot.
8:45– “eliminate distractions,” M says, “if someone’s talking to you while you’re on a call, you know, take a strip of duct tape and stick it over their mouth (wild laughter in the class)–I’m just kidding.” M is a sweet boy.
9:15– Can’t keep my eyes open. No! I don’t want to need more sleep! No! I want to stay up until midnight! 7 hours should be enough sleep! Maybe I’m just not used to it yet. Ugh.
9:37– Oh dear god. I can’t keep my eyes open. It feels like my college bio class, with the dark room and the theater seating…so…warm…
10:30– Coffee, and I am okay again. My wonderful seatmate, Justin, the bitter mutterer, has just jokingly showed me “nascar.com” and said, “your favorite website?” sarcastically. He is shocked when I begin talking basic drag racing with him. Due to the dead ex-boyfriend, I was once a mild, if largely ironic, fan. His shock lets me know I have been pigeonholed. I don’t know how I feel about this. Actually it’s probably just that I have a vagina.
10:55– I actually just asked a question. M doesn’t know my name yet, so he just kind of pointed. Here is what I asked: “But isn’t NEWT where we’re supposed to be at the END? I thought we used TRIS to work on the call!” M said, “it goes NEWT, TRIS, NEWT.” “Oh,” I said.
11:20– I went and got coffee and peed and hung out in the bathroom for awhile and when I came back we were still discussing the same screen. I asked Justin what I’d missed, and he said, “nothing. We’re arguing about stupid stuff.” I like work better today than I did yesterday.
11:21– I am excited for lunch.
11:25– Why do my hands smell so bad?
11:28– I can hear Mike’s class next door. The guy is yelling something about “bags of nickels.” My seatmate and I are giggling about all the funny ways telemarketers say my boyfriend’s last name. “Beckman?” I say, “Betchla? Beckington?” Justin snickers and puts his head on the table.
11:36– “Now,” says M, “what if someone has lost their bill, or, you know, the dog ate it or something? Okay, you just–” “If it was MY dog, he probably WOULD eat it!” cries Boyfriend Girl rapturously.
11:40– I am glad I sat in the very back. Must remember to get new social security card. Must remember to get time off for christmas. MUST BUY TRISCUITS.
1:30– ended up getting an extra hour of PAID lunch, due to Matt having phone problems. sweet. Spent the extra time talking to Justin about the WTC and various govt. conspiracies. He showed me a website about the theory that the moon landing never happened. Justin is rad! We talk about how our govt. lies to us, and how questioning our actions in Afghanistan is not synonymous with being “unamerican.” It is important not to let the rest of the class hear this conversation, as they are mainly people who think that the “America’s Most Wanted” deck of Islamic leaders cards is “fucking hilarious.”
1:45– The bathroom smells so bad. I’ve finally identified it. It smells like the dark, forgotten bathroom off the quad at school, that was not heated in winter.
2:07– M just said to Rob, “I would agree with you, except that you’re wrong.”
2:22– M asks, “how do you use stupid, annoying and helpful to describe the same thing?” a thousand humorous answered flit through my mind. I say none of them.
3:00– I am reminiscing about lunch with Mike and how amazing it was, the clouds breaking and the sun shining through, laughing about the job and fantasizing about working graveyard shifts together. Justin is looking online at a story about Osama bin Laden. One of the quiet girls walks by and says, grinning, “my boyfriend has a t-shirt with his face on it, and it says, ‘fucking die’ on it!” she giggles sweetly, “isn’t that great?” “mmmmm” Justin says neutrally. I think of the Onion and want to ask, “oh, you mean so in case bin Laden sees your boyfriend’s t-shirt, he’ll know he can fucking die?” Instead, I say nothing.
3:20– “so,” says M, “that’s like 5 states under the same rate plan! Isn’t that incredible?” “Jesus fucking christ,” whispers Justin. I look over and find that he is using a primitive “paint” program on the computer, and is drawing what looks like a big blob. He sees me looking, then says, “Afghanistan,” by way of explanation.
3:25– I find that some long-ago person who took this same training class has put “Turd Ferguson” into the computer as a fake customer name.
3:30– One hour to go! I can’t believe I’ve only been here 2 days. I feel like I’ve been here my whole life.
3:57– I just glimpsed the handbook of Laughing Hyena Man, and he has literally hi-lighted the ENTIRE PAGE. Meticulously. Every. Single. Word.
3:58– Justin has just told me that Joey from “Full House” was one of the main actors in “A Clockwork Orange.” I just can’t argue with that.

DAY 3: I QUIT:
So, I quit my job today. Walked right out. It felt terrible and wondrous at the same time. I told them I was “freaking out,” that I “hate this job,” that I “am not an asset to the company,” and that I am feeling very “emotionally fragile” right now. All these things are true. They told me that they’ve had “much worse” trainees than me, so that I “shouldn’t feel nervous,” and that “everyone feels this way during training.” they also tried to blackmail me. They are apparently desperate not to lose trainees over there. I don’t know why. I just said “no thanks. I need to quit.” So I left. “Katie, here is my key-card. I am quitting.”