Called

Nightmare. I was skint, stony broke, financially embarrassed, short of dough, in the red, impoverished, out of bread… and any other synonym you want to mention. It was so ridiculous. I was a student during the long summer holidays – end of May to middle of September, just about – and I just couldn’t find a job. My overdraft was at its limit and I’d already splurged on skinny jeans, River Island shirts and an iPod when I’d first got a credit card; my student loan was a distant memory, and my Top Shop and Next store card bills (only £5 a month minimum payment!) were accumulating. I had no money coming in for three months. I could have given up and rented out my room over the summer, but then I would’ve had to go back home to my parents for the holidays, which would be even worse.

It was infuriating. I just couldn’t understand it – I had good qualifications, part-time work from when I was at school, extra-curricular activities and everything. What else did they want? I was a good team-worker, could take responsibility and was polite and keen to learn. But no matter how many jobs I called about, no matter how many application forms I filled in, no matter how often I went to the job centre, I couldn’t find anything. CV after CV handed in, inane application form after inane application form. We’ll get back to you. We’ll be in touch. Thanks for applying. Thanks for your interest.

The long vac was already three weeks in, mid-June, high summer. It was beautiful outside, with soft blue skies, full-flowered flora, full-sapped trees and pleasant breezes. A feeling of vitality and richness hung heavy in the air like heady perfume. I couldn’t enjoy it: in fact, it felt like it was taunting me. I didn’t have any money to go out with, so there was no chance of girls, and I was brimful of frustration. Long hours spent walking from shop to shop to restaurant to bar at every rumour of a “Staff Wanted” poster filled me with vicious self-loathing. How could I be unemployed? Okay, I was a student during the holidays, not some council house-living dropout. But the phone calls about the credit card and store card bills weren’t welcome; nor was the sudden inability to frequent the nightclubs I liked to patronise in my fashionable mod hat and skinny tie. And the overhanging shadow of the next month’s rent pursued me like some spectral stalker from the abyss. I had thought that being a student I’d glide through life serenely – term in halls, jobs or plum internships in the holidays, the milk round of Times Top 100 recruiters, a golden hello, a rewarding and comfortable existence. To my great consternation, those days did not seem to exist anymore. (All the internships I had looked at were unpaid).

It was Saturday – job day in the local paper. I got up around eleven, showered and went to the newsagent. Our flat was in a grubbyish area, “good for students” as the landlord’s advert has said. The dingy newsagent was the first I’d seen where the Daily Star sold as many as the Sun; two whole top shelves were filled with porn and good deals on beer and bad wine.

“Hello Zafar,” I said to the owner, handing him the paper and a coke.

“Morning!” he said. “How are you today? Eighty pence please.”

“Not bad,” I bantered, handing him a precious pound. “Yourself?”

“Oh, not so bad,” he said. “Early start but early finish, you know.”

“Sweet. Get your feet up this evening.”

He grinned and shrugged. “I doubt it. Twenty change.”

“Ah, one day…” I joshed. He looked sceptical. “See you later.”

Home; job adverts. The newspaper said “HUNDREDS of jobs every week” which was a barefaced lie, though it also listed the job centre adverts. Poring through them was a frustrating experience. Half of them I had applied for already, or got in touch and it’d been made clear I wasn’t the right kind of person (whatever that was). There were adverts for call-centre staff, for commission-based mobile phone shop salesmen, for forklift and bus drivers, for commis chefs and kitchen porters, for “outgoing and bubbly” (i.e. female) shop assistants, for daycare centre workers and electricity meter readers…

I did see a few bar and shop jobs and circled them in red; I could always work two part-time jobs. Then I saw an advert saying “Trainee sales and marketing position. No experience necessary! FT and PT positions available. Good salary + bonus.” It sounded interesting – especially the marketing bit. I could see myself discussing the signification of logos and brands, how to reach different demographics, using social media like Facebook and Twitter, the whole thing. I called up right away.

“Hello, Aberforce,” a female voice answered, rising on the last syllable.

“Hi there, this is James Davidson; I’m calling about the trainee sales and marketing position advertised.”

“Oh, I see. Hold on a moment… Okay, James is it? How old are you?”
“Nineteen.”

“Okay. And what are you doing for work just now?”

“I’m a student.”

“Right, that’s super. You see we work mostly evenings and weekends, so we need people who are flexible on their hours.”

“Well, I’m certainly flexible, yes, no problems there.”

“Great! Okay then, the best thing to do would be to come over and fill out an application form.”

“Okay, no problem.”

“Do you know where Institution Street is?”

“…Um, is that near Bedford Road?”

“No, sorry,” I could hear her grinning, “it’s by the Esso garage at the Netherhill roundabout.”

“Oh right.”

“There’s a courtyard at number 158 Institution Street. We’re in unit 16, you go up one flight of stairs.”

“Hold on a moment,” I said, grabbing a piece of paper and jotting down the details. “16… up a flight of stairs… Okay. I’ll call you on this number if I can’t find you.”

“That’s what to do.”

“Alright then, I’ll come by today.”

“Great! See you then.”

“Thanks, see you then.”

So that was something at least. And they sounded hospitable to the fact that I was a student. That’s what came of intelligent recruitment.
I wasn’t sure exactly where the office was so I checked it out on Google Maps. It was quite a trek, and nowhere near Bedford Road (Constitution Street was), but I was used to walking. I dressed up in a smart shirt, trousers and shoes and toddled off after lunch.

It was about 2pm by the time I got there. I walked through a linoleum hallway and arrived at the door of unit 16. It wasn’t the salubrious offices I had imagined, but a rundown concrete block in a light-industrial area. I checked myself in the doorway reflection and went in. To my great surprise there were about a dozen people in jeans and tracksuits sat at desks, talking on bog-standard phones – not even headsets! They were facing away from me, but turned to have a quick look with what might have been pity in their eyes, then turned back to stare glumly at their desks. Large charts with names and days of the week adorned the walls, obviously some kind of performance measure. The desks were split by an aisle down the middle, at the end of which sat a woman facing the rest of the staff. She shot an administrative smile at me.

“Hi, James is it?” she asked: it was her I’d spoken to. She was mid-20s, with gingery hair, a tomboyish figure, and measuring eyes.

“Yes,” I smiled.

“Come over here and you can fill in this application form,” she said. “I’m Tina by the way, I’m the Team Leader.” I could hear the capital letters. I went over to her desk and she fished out a form and handed me a pen. “If you take a seat next to Nicholas -” she nodded at a young guy sitting at the nearest row – “You can fill it out then you have a go, okay?”

“Right,” I said, completely confused. What the fuck was she talking about? Maybe they were talking to clients on the phone. But how could I have a go? I didn’t have a clue what they were doing.
I took a seat next to Nicholas, a slim guy about my age, with curly hair and a pale face. He was wearing a t-shirt which said “I have nothing to declare except my genius – Oscar Wilde”. “Alright?” I said, and he smiled sheepishly, then returned to his phone.

I looked at the application form. It was a bad photocopy and was barely legible. The area for “Qualifications” was far too small, and I had hardly anything to put down for “Work Experience”. But as I wrote, I could hear everyone talking.

“Hello there, is that Mr. Moir? I’m calling from Aberforce and I’m happy to tell you you’ve been awarded a free premier home survey on your windows and doors - ”

“Hello there, is that Mrs. Baxter? I’m calling from Aberforce and - ”

“Hello there, is that Mr. Davidson? … Can I speak to Mr. Davidson please? … Hello, Mr Davidson, I’m calling from Aberforce and I’m happy to - ”

“Hello there, is that Miss McNair? I’m calling from Aberforce and I’m happy to tell you you’ve been awarded a free premier home survey on your windows and doors … Well, what it is, we come around and draw you up a plan for new windows and doors so you can see what it would look like. It’s all absolutely free and there’s no obligation whatsoever …”

Tina came over, peremptory, like a school matron. “Finished?”

“Um, yeah,” I stammered, trying to think how to get out of there. I handed her the form, and she gave it a cursory glance. “You want a go now?”

“Well…” I said, uncertainly. “I can see this is sales, but where’s the marketing aspect? That’s what the ad said, you know, trainee sales and marketing positions.”

“This is the best form of marketing training you can possibly get!” Tina said fervently, engaging eye-contact missile-lock. “If you work here, you’ll get to know what approach to take with any kind of customer. That’s invaluable experience! And if you’re successful, you can do really well here. You get £4.50 an hour, plus commission for every sale that goes through – 5% of the total sale. That’s possibly hundreds of pounds of week!”

Hundreds! I had less than twenty pounds in the bank. “Right,” I said. “Okay...”

“Okay then, let’s give you a go. Here’s the script,” she handed me a piece of paper. “You can change it around to suit your way of talking or whatever, that’s fine, but you have to include the main points about the free home survey. If you get them to agree to one, if you get a ‘bite’, pass their details on to me or Crystal here,” she nodded to a girl on the other side of the aisle, a repulsively fat girl wearing several rings (one sovereign on each hand), a bracelet on each wrist and three necklaces. Crystal looked over and smiled in self-affirmation, acutely resembling a pig, the small greedy eyes, the porcine cheeks. “You write them down on these forms here, and you work your way through these lists of phone numbers,” Tina explained, handing me some slips and A4 lists of names, addresses and phone numbers.

“Uh, okay,” I said, moving to a spare seat as far away from Tina and Crystal as I could get. I looked at the sheet, its ambiguous promises, its Delphic lies. In exchange for letting Aberforce go to your house, they would draw up a plan (for free!) to replace your windows and doors. This was “no obligation”, but any idiot could see that they would put the hard-sell on you once they were in. I looked up at the charts on the wall. There was a big sign in vivid red saying, “Miss a shift? Lose a days’ pay!” Next to that, Nayim, Davey, Nicholas, Ruth, Shona, Saz and Paul were in a grid, their names on the left, the days of the week on the bottom. Crosses indicated bites - most had only one or two bites a week (though Nicholas had five or six). And 5% commission on the total sale! If your average doors-and-window package was about £3000, say, that was £150, on top of my hourly rate. For £5000 it was £250. I’d be swimming in money! Simples, I thought. Most days I wouldn’t even have to get one and I’d be doing as well as them. No doubt I’d be better than those useless clods! Most of them looked like they’d never even seen a book, never mind read one. They were all late-teens and early-twenties, most of them in tracksuits, probably attending the local college or unable to find a proper job like I was going to get when I graduated.

“You ready, James?” Tina called over.

“Oh, uh, yeah.”

“Well, that phone doesn’t work itself, you know?”

“Right.”

I picked up the phone and looked at the first number. Mrs Sylvia Reid, 48 Links Road. I dialled. Ring-ring.

“Hello?”
“Hello, is that Mrs. Reid?”

“Yes, who’s calling?”

“I’m James calling from Aberforce and I’m calling to say that you’ve been awarded an absolutely free premier home survey on your windows and - ”

“Sorry, I’m not interested.”

“Eh… ” I couldn’t think. “Ah… well, as I say Mrs. Reid, it’s absolutely free and there’s no obligation to yourself - ”

“We had our doors replaced three years ago, our windows five years ago. We don’t need anything from you. Goodbye.” She put down the phone.

It’s nearly impossible not to feel wounded at overt rejection, even when you know it’s nothing personal. But a small part of you dies when someone puts the phone down on you. You feel like a squashed insect. You feel like a piece of dogshit scraped off someone’s shoe.

I crossed off the first number and dialled the second.

“Hullo?” came an elderly voice.

“Hello there Mr. Buchan,” I said as pleasantly as possible. “I’m James calling from Aberforce and I’m calling to say that you’ve been awarded an absolutely free premier home survey on your windows and doors.”

“I’ve what?”

“This is a no-obligation opportunity to see what your house would look like with new windows and doors, Mr. Buchan. Our designers would come round and draw up a plan for you, just to let you see what it would look like.”

“Oh no no!” he said. “This is a corporation house!”

I had no idea what he was on about. Did he mean a Barrat house or something? “I see, Mr. Buchan. But if you’d like our designers to come round, they can give you a free plan, just for your own benefit, to see what it would look like.”

“This is a corporation house!” he shouted, like a tremulous foghorn. “It’s the corporation that does the doors and windows and that.”

Shit, he meant it was a council house. “Oh, I see, Mr. Buchan!” I said obsequiously. “I’m terribly sorry about that. I’m sorry for disturbing you.”

“Aye, well, too late for that,” he grumbled.

“I really am sorry about that. Sorry for wasting your time. Bye.”

He put the phone down.

That was how it went. Sometime they’d be more aggressive, sometime ostentatiously polite, sometime they’d put the phone down as soon as I said, “I’m calling from”, sometimes they’d barrack me personally, sometimes they’d rage exasperatedly. All of this I got in just the two hours that afternoon. I didn’t get a single, solitary bite. Most of the time I didn’t even get to the end of the first two sentences.

Towards 4pm, the voices in the room gradually quietened, the hubbub diminishing. At 4, Tina stood up and said, “Only three bites today! Oh dear team, that’s not very good, is it?” No-one answered. “Is it?”

A few murmurs of “No” and “Sorry, tough day.”

“Well, we’d better do better next time then, eh?” she said. “We can only pay you if we’re making sales, team, that’s what it’s all about.” She sighed. “Okay, on you go.” We left, dismissed.

I got talking with Nayim and Davey on the walk home. Nayim was a slim, pretty Indian-looking girl, Davey a shaved-head acne-scarred beefy-looking guy.

“Sucks this, eh?” I said.

Nayim made a face. “It’s terrible really, but it is quite easy money.”
“How long have you both been here?”

“Five weeks,” Davey said. “Too long already.”

“I know,” Nayim agreed. “I’ve been here three months.”

“Three months?” I exclaimed. “How can you handle it?”

She shrugged and smiled. “I just don’t let it get to me.”

“Have you ever got commission?” I asked.

“Nope,” Davey said with relish.

“No, never,” Nayim said. “It’s such a stupid way to try to make sales. You just annoy so many people. Do you think you will stay?” she asked me.

“Dunno. Think I’ll probably have to.”

“I know that feeling,” Davey said, puffing on a fag. “It’s shit, but at the end of the day…”

“You know TeleDirect? They pay £4.75 an hour,” Nayim added.

“£4.75, eh?” I mused. “I should go there, eh.”

“Aye, me and all,” Davie said.

But I never bothered. It just seemed easier to keep on with Aberforce.

I didn’t want to go back. I really, really, didn’t want to go back. But the cold fact of £4.50 an hour was hard to dismiss. It was literally work there or starve. The shifts were five hours long (4-9pm weekdays, 12-5pm weekends), and by going six days a week I could earn enough to pay rent and buy food. That was it. But it was all I had, so I had to keep on going. The work never improved. Some demanded to know how we got their number, saying they were on the TPS system which was supposed to prevent telesales calls. Of course, I had no idea how we got the numbers; all I saw was a spreadsheet of names, addresses and phone numbers. I would courteously agree to take them off our “database” and just move onto the next number.

But each failure, each rejection, each phone slammed down or whistle shrieked into the line – each one scalded my soul. I thought I’d build up an immunity to it, like doctors dealing with death, but no. Each one was as painful as the last, if not cumulatively more so. Inevitably, the team would sometimes get down. Depression and anxiety hung in the air. Tina therefore took it upon herself to provide motivation. She opened the start of each shift with a motivational speech: “Okay then team! It’s 4pm and we’ve got five hours to do as much calls and sales as we can. Let’s get as many bites as we can, and then we can have a good weekend, which is what it’s all about! Okay then team! Let’s see how well you do tonight!” Variations on the theme were minimal.

At other times, if targets weren’t being met, she would be more forceful.

“Come on team!” she would hector if we’d got through the first hour without a bite. “This isn’t good enough!” She looked petulant, like a toddler suddenly deprived of its dummy. She thumped her desk, with her forehead wrinkled in anger, her eyebrows facing south, and a citric mouth. “Now COME ON!”

The voices in the room surged with a gasp of energy, like a brutally-flogged horse making one final effort. It never lasted more than a few minutes, then ebbed away, even under Tina’s peremptory eagle’s eye. Then resentment, frustration and loathing filled the office like static electricity and noxious farts.

I hated that fucking fat ginger bint. All the anger and frustration the job caused I displaced onto her. She was a joke, a nonsense. Yet she had the ultimate power over me. I was obviously much more intelligent than she was, I think I was only a little younger (she looked about twenty-two) and yet there she was, my boss. What a joke!

After a few weeks, I couldn’t take much more of it, and one day took a sicky. I doubted it would make any difference – I always got next to no bites. I contemplated phoning in, but the job a joke, so I didn’t bother. What did it matter if I didn’t show? It wasn’t like it made any difference. So I stayed at home and luxuriated in the freedom and nothingness, so familiar from my student days. I stayed in bed, wanked a couple of times, played my PS3 and ate pizza. Just like a real student.

Next day, nothing was said. Some people’s attendance was really erratic – Davey rarely worked two days in a row – and anyway, Tina always went round on Sunday and asked what days we wanted to work. It didn’t matter.

But the next Friday I got a shock. Crystal was handing out the pay slips and little brown envelopes as usual, at the end of the shift. Mine had only four days pay, but I had worked five. I worked six out of seven, and I’d taken one extra off – five days. I kept trying to add it up and figure it out, but it was clearly calculated and denotated. 16 hours x 4.5 = 72.00.

“Uh, Tina…?” I said.

“Yes James?” she said, making a show of not looking at me.
“I’ve only been paid for four days last week, but I worked five.”

“Yes, and you missed a shift. It says on the sign there”-she pointed to the wall-“if you miss a shift you lose a day’s pay.”

“But… Eh, but, you can’t-”

“You miss a day, you lose a day’s pay, it’s as simple as that. The sign is up there for everyone to see.”

She turned away and started attending to her desk. I saw there wasn’t any arguing with her, but she was twisting it. I was losing a day’s salary for a day I had worked. They couldn’t do that, surely? I glared at her, but she was ostentatiously not taking me on.

I gave up, turned and stomped out of there. That fucking cunt! Those thieving, robbing bastards -what a ridiculous company! I was shot of them! And as for that bitch Tina...

“Steve, Steve!” came a shout from behind me. I ignored it. “Steve!” I turned around: Nayim was dashing to catch up with me. I wasn’t called Steve.

I stopped and waited for her. “Oh Steve, you’re right. That was so unfair of Tina! They can’t take money off you for work you’ve already done.”

“I know, but…” I shrugged cynically. “What can I do though? If I see that fat bitch, I’ll… I don’t know - ” I gesticulated.

“You should complain,” Nayim said.

“Who to?” I said, all bitterness.

She didn’t answer.

“It doesn’t matter anyway,” I added, aware I’d been too harsh on her. “No way I’m going back!”

*

Monday. 4pm.

“Hello, is that Mrs. Gallagher?”

“Yes, who’s calling?”

“I’m James calling from Aberforce and I’m calling to say - ”