Career Aspirations

A few weeks ago my office announced a wee marketing campaign that they hoped to foist upon the masses in the form of a contest.  The idea is to call our members who have attended our annual conference in past year or so but haven’t signed up for this year’s, and then harass them into doing so.  Nicely, of course.  The prize for the most registrants?  An iPod Nano.  Sweet.

Now allow me to make two points.

1.  An iPod Nano is exactly what I planned to get the Boy for Xmas, the Most Expensive Gift of the Season Which My Mother Would Have Me Hanged for Even Considering.

2.  I am an accomplished telemarketer.  I worked in the usual, most deplorable occupation of all style of telemarketing for two summers in college.  And I was good. 

(Oddly, I also read and did crossword puzzles while I was on those calls.  I shudder to think how many old ladies and under-educated folk I could have fleeced out of their money if I had applied myself.  After college but before moving to the DC area, I did another telemarketing stint.  This one was for a locally-owned gym that was moving to a newer, larger facility and hoping to garner new members.  My town is so small every third person I called was either related to the gym owner or just pleased as punch to hear I was back in town after graduating.  Since I was only signing people up for tours, letting someone else do the hard sell, I did very well at that, too.)

So I’m thinking this telemarketing thing should be a snap, right?  Well, I have my list to call.  I received it Tuesday afternoon.  And I have done everything in my power to avoid it since then.  I seem to have developed telemarketing stagefright!

However, I have tired of the other tedious work I have to do, and I did volunteer at least partially to avoid the tedious work, so I guess I need to take the plunge.  I’m just calling our members, they love us, right?