Being a Telemarketer Saved My Life

It’s 6:00 a.m. and you’re eating breakfast. Your phone emits a sudden, cruel cacophony and begins dancing across your kitchen table. When you grab the phone to see who’s calling, you don’t recognize the number. You hesitate.

“It’s probably just a telemarketer,” you reason, but you greet the unknown caller with a cheerful “Good morning!” to be polite.

“Good morning!” An equally cheerful voice responds. “This is Alex with Aspen Publishing. I’m calling you today because we are the leading publisher of legal reference guides in the United States. We design our guides to take the complicated and confusing legal language that will often confuse a normal person, and translate it into plain, easy-to-read English…”

Dammit, it is a telemarketer, you think. Your irritation grows.

“…and what I would like to do,” the cheerful voice continues, “is send you our OSHA compliance guide free of charge! We send it out at no cost to you, and you are free to review the guide for 30 days. If you want to keep it at the end of the 30 days, the cost is only $287! If not, just send it back! Sound good?!”

“Jump off a bridge, douchebag,” you reply.

I was that douchebag, and I almost did jump off a bridge. Not literally, of course — but during my year as a telemarketer, I contemplated suicide often.

I’d been out of jail for just a few weeks when I was hired at the call center. I was strung out on heroin and living out of a beat-up 1984 Ford Tempo. Still, I’d gotten a job, and it helped to feed me (both with food and with drugs). I showed up for work every day I was supposed to, even though work was very unpleasant, and even though I was regularly told to kill myself.

I possessed a certain je ne sais quoi for telemarketing, which surprised me — but, then again, I was highly motivated and I didn’t have much to lose. I made 820 calls per day, and I averaged over four sales per day. This made me an undeniable rockstar in the telemarketing world.

I wasn’t afraid of being rejected. I only cared about getting more pain pills, and to do that, I had to make sales.

I saw a lot of people come and go from the call center. They came, they tried, and they quit. All of them needed that job and the paycheck that came with it. They were felons trying to rebuild their lives, drug addicts struggling to get clean, single moms who wanted to get their kids off the street, and Gulf War vets who couldn’t get by on government benefits alone.

They would call and immediately be rejected. For the first 100 calls, they could take it. But, inevitably, their resolve would weaken. Failures would accumulate in their mind, and doubt would take hold. They would take more time between calls, or they would hang up on prospects before those prospects could hang up on them. Sometimes, they wouldn’t attempt to make any calls at all. Occasionally, they would scream “Screw this job!” and hurl their headsets across the office.

Only one thing held those poor but amazing souls back from achieving greatness in the sad, but necessary, role of telemarketer: They couldn’t bring themselves to wade through a mountain of failures to find just one gem of achievement. The rejection was too much for them to bear.

Ironically, their fear of failure is what led them to actual failure. They were scared, so rather than take risks, they gave up and lost their jobs. Sometimes they ended up back on the streets because they were scared to be told no over the phone. I often heard depressing stories of my former co-workers’ lives after they left the call center: prison, addiction, overdose, and worse.

In hindsight, I realize how silly and misplaced their fears were. Is being told “no” several hundred times over the phone worse than being unemployed, in prison, or dead? If you call someone you don’t even know, who you will probably never meet, and who cannot hurt you in any way, what’s the worst possible outcome?

I wasn’t afraid of being rejected. I only cared about getting more pain pills, and to do that, I had to make sales. To make sales, I had to make calls. More calls equaled more sales, so I would always make more calls. My animalistic need to get high created an elegant and effortless telemarketing strategy.

“Wow!” my colleagues would exclaim as they turned toward my desk. “How do you do it?”

“I call people and talk to them,” I would tersely reply, as I instructed my auto-dialer to interrupt yet another random person’s day.

I didn’t care if someone told me to jump off a bridge or to do unspeakable things to my own posterior. The only way to fail at telemarketing is to stop trying, and I believe that is true with almost everything else in life. Every squandered opportunity or failed phone call always leads to a new chance at success. Each phone number is another chance at a sale.

Our fears are often way out of proportion when compared to the harm that will befall us if we fail.

It was a Tuesday afternoon when I called Allen Humphries. It had been a long day, and I hadn’t yet hit my numbers, so I was cramming in as many calls as I could before the office closed. As his name and number popped up on my computer screen, my mission was as clear as it always was: I was supposed to sell him a satellite TV subscription.

“What?” he shouted as he answered the phone. Loud electric guitar music was blaring in the background, and I recognized the artist. Good, I thought, maybe this will help me make the sale.

“This is Alex, and I’m calling about your satellite TV bill,” I replied.

“What about it? I paid that shit.”

“No, it’s not that. It’s too big.”

“What’s too big?”

“The numbers on it.”

“They’re 12 point Arial. I think they’re the perfect size. The design is nice, too; it’s effortless to read and comprehend.”

“I was speaking figuratively, not literally.”

“Ah, I see. Well, I’m jamming out right now. So, perhaps you might do me the favor of taking a quick journey to an ethereal place from which there is no return,” Allen stated in a tone of brusque finality.

I didn’t miss a beat. He hadn’t hung up yet. There was still a chance at a sale.

“Wow! I’ve been told to kill myself quite a few times, but that was the most poetic one yet. Nice!” I felt myself growing genuinely amused. “I jam myself from time to time. I love Joe Satriani, and I crank it up, just like you do, based on what I can hear in the background. My favorite album is Crystal Planet.”

A few seconds of silence passed, but he didn’t hang up.

“You like Satch, huh?” he finally asked. “And, I’m guessing you read quite a bit, too, based on the way you talk.”

“Yes, and yes.”

“Interesting,” he continued. “You sound like a smart kid. What the hell are you doing telemarketing?”

“Drugs,” I instantly answered, and to this day, I don’t know why I responded so honestly. “I fucked my life up with drugs, and now this is the only job I can get.”

“Yeah… I’ve been there…” he replied in barely more than a whisper. “Hey, listen. Keep your head up, man. You don’t seem like a bad dude. You can get out of that shit. There’s a better life out there; you just gotta climb through hell to get there.”

I had a hard time holding back the emotion in my voice when I answered. “Thank you… truly… you have no idea how much that means to me right now.”

I had saved up 30 oxycodone over the past month, and for the previous three nights, I had spent hours staring at them, trying to find a reason not to down the whole bottle.

“Yes. I do know,” Allen declared. “That’s why I said it.”

Tears were streaming down my cheeks, but I gathered myself, gathered my dignity, and spoke.

“I was supposed to sell you satellite TV. It might’ve even saved you some money… Who knows?”

“Don’t worry about it,” Allen reassured me. “Hey, whereabouts do you live?”

“Near Portland.”

“Hmm. I’m in Denver… but I’m guessing you already knew that. Hey, you already got my number. If you’re ever in Denver, hit me up and I’ll buy you a coffee, or something.”

“Okay. I will.”

After a few more perfunctory but kind words, the call ended.

I sat in my uncomfortable office chair for a while, and for once, I didn’t immediately move on to the next call. As I stared blankly at my computer screen, I felt something strange. I knew something extraordinary had just changed about how I looked at the world. Something had just moved deep within my soul.

I knew I’d probably never meet Allen, but I put his number in my cheap flip-phone anyway.

Six months later, my life was beginning to look a little brighter. I’d gotten clean, saved some money, and decided to take a little road trip down to Colorado. It was the fall, and I had pleasant memories of spending the fall in Southwest Colorado during my youth.

I’d almost forgotten about Allen, but when I arrived in a little town called Ouray, I went through my phone and saw his name. I remembered our conversation and his offer, and I knew I was only a half day’s drive from Denver.

So, I called him up, and he greeted me like an old friend.

“I knew you’d call me someday…” he said. “You’re clean now, aren’t you?”

“Yes.”

“My man! Yes!” he shouted into the phone.

Those two words made me feel better than I had in well over two years.

You never know who might change your life.

We ended up meeting at his house in Denver the next day, and I ended up staying with him for four more days. We shared stories about the dark, evil places we had been and marveled at how beautiful the world is when you poke your head out from the darkness. We talked for hours about music, art, and the dance of words across a page. I learned he’d been a heroin addict for over 15 years of his life, and he’d even lost his son to a heroin overdose at the age of 17. We jammed a little, too, on his small collection of respectable electric guitars.

Even though he was almost 40 and I was barely old enough to drink, we knew we were kindred spirits. We’d forged a friendship that would conquer both time and distance.

After that trip, we didn’t talk for over a year, but when we did, it was Allen who called me.

“My life’s in the shitter again…” he said. He had relapsed on heroin, lost his job, and was homeless.

“I got you,” I told him, and I offered to let him stay in the small warehouse I was renting at the time. I’d made it into an interesting space, full of scrap metal and wood, paintings, and sculptures.

When he made his way up a few weeks later, he was in a bad way. He was strung out, malnourished, and broke as broke can be. Still, he had a place there with me, and I knew exactly how to help him. We broke out a few buckets of paint, a few sheets of plywood, cranked up the stereo, and painted our hearts out.

Within a month, he was clean again, had a job, and was ready to find his own place. When he moved out, we stayed in close contact and saw each other often. He developed into a fantastic artist and guitarist, and he even managed to find a girlfriend who would put up with him.

He got married, had a kid. I moved back to my hometown and was about to start a family of my own when his wife called to tell me he’d passed away. A drug overdose, she said. He’d been clean for over four years but had relapsed again. It had ended his life.

I was angry at him for a while, but eventually, I forgave him. These days, I’m immeasurably grateful for the friendship we shared. I will always remember the random guy I called up, the guy who said the words I needed most when I least expected to hear them. I will feel forever thankful for the man who kept me from ending my own life, and I’ll never forget the lesson he paid the ultimate price to teach me: Life is beautiful, but it can be lost with one wrong decision or one unfortunate twist of fate. You never know who might change your life.

I still remember the last thing he told me: “I’m proud of you, Bone.”

I placed my second most memorable call after I’d been a telemarketer for about nine months. It was 3:00 a.m. in the Pacific time zone, the perfect time to catch people on the east coast before they left for work.

I was calling someone named Steven, who lived in Boston.

“Hello?” A tired voice answered.

“Hi, this is Alex, and I’m calling because I’d like to save you 90 bucks a month on your satellite TV bill. Does that sound good to you?”

After I finished, I heard the man take a long and tired deep breath. In that breath, I learned a lot. I learned this man was exhausted, sad, stressed, and more than a little hopeless. You may think it’s crazy to divine so much from one breath, but you know precisely the type of deep breath I’m describing. It’s one we’ve all taken—where the weight of the world rests squarely on your shoulders and squeezes the air out of your lungs until there’s nothing left.

He replied: “Alex, I appreciate the phone call. I know you’re just doing your job and trying to make an honest living. I respect that, but I have to tell you: Right now, I’m sitting in a hospital waiting room. My wife is in the other room, receiving radiation treatment. She’s doing another round of radiation even though the doctors think she’s too far gone. They think she only has six months to live. The cancer is everywhere now, her breasts, her liver, her stomach…”

I said nothing. I was stunned by the horror of his words, and the horror of what was happening to his wife and family. I stayed silent for over 10 seconds, waiting for him to hang up. But he didn’t hang up, and after enough time had passed, I was able to gather the courage to speak.

“I’m so sorry… I can’t imagine what you and your wife are going through,” I said, my embarrassment only eclipsed by my sympathy for the man on the other end of the line.

“It’s okay,” he replied, and I could tell he was on the verge of tears. “You’re just doing your job. You didn’t do anything wrong.”

Tears were building within me as well. “I know, but still… I can’t even begin to offer an adequate apology for bothering you with something so trivial during such a difficult time.”

“It’s okay…” He said again. I could hear that his tears were flowing freely.

“I don’t know what I could possibly do to make things better, even though I want to,” I revealed, “So, I just want you to know that I’ll be sending you prayers, or positive thoughts, or well wishes… whatever you’re willing to accept. I hope a miracle blesses you, and I hope you and your wife get to spend many more years loving and being with one another.”

After a moment of silence, he replied: “Thank you.”

Then, he hung up.

For the rest of that day, and the rest of my time as a telemarketer, my numbers suffered. Within that conversation, something had changed about how I looked at the job. The sale seemed less critical now, and the actual human being I was calling was more important. It wasn’t about numbers for me anymore. It was about connections, and about being a positive influence in someone’s existence, as opposed to just trying to sell them some useless product they didn’t need.

I began to understand that perhaps, even though I was just calling someone on the phone, I might be hurting them. Maybe I was creating negative feelings that would last much longer than the length of a phone call. Perhaps breaking the peace of 800 people a day, while only genuinely helping one or two, was not the best thing I could be doing with my life, and not the best thing for humanity as a whole.

After that call, trying to sell something to someone who didn’t need it seemed like a rather regretful thing to do. I began to listen when people told me they were busy or had more important things to do, rather than manipulating them into staying on the phone for just a minute longer. I started to see things differently, and the values that struck a chord of truth in my heart began to assert themselves through my behavior.

I realized that many things were more valuable than money. Spreading goodwill was now much more valuable to me, along with being a positive influence in a stranger’s life.

When I tried to call Steven again a month later, there was no answer. After another month had passed, I called again, but still, there was no answer. I set a reminder to call back a month later. This time, he answered.

“Hello…”

“This is Alex. I’m the telemarketer guy that called you three months ago… I’ve just… I’ve been thinking about you and your wife, and I was wondering how you two were doing…”

He was silent for a few moments, and I heard him take a deep breath. It was different than the one I had heard at the beginning of our first call. It held more grief, but it was also lighter, as if the breath was able to provide a semblance of relief.

“Thanks for the call, Alex,” he finally replied. “I’m truly sorry to tell you this, but my wife passed away several weeks ago. Apparently, six months was a generous estimate.”

“I’m so sorry for your loss…” I whispered.

“Me too…” he whispered back as his voice broke. “Me too… Take care, Alex.”

Those were the last words we shared.

I quit my job a few seconds later.

Looking back, I believe that if I had lost that job, I might not be alive today, or I might be in prison. I would’ve spiraled downward and turned to crime yet again to feed my addiction. Instead, I stuck with the job, I kept calling people, and after a few months, I decided to go back to rehab. After I kicked the pain pills, I saved up enough to rent a house, and I gained enough self-confidence to pursue my passion for music and writing once again.

The days of telemarketing were dark, but they helped me plant the seed of a life I love. It is only through the dumb courage of not caring what was said to me that I am where I am now. Anyone facing a dark time of their own would benefit from a healthy dose of dumb courage, just like I did.

Quotes in this story are recalled from memory. Names, locations, and dates have been changed.