When I was 21, I flunked out of the telephone company.
That was quite a long time ago. I’ve never completely addressed the subject, because I didn’t then--and possibly still don’t--know exactly what to make of the experience, but at the moment I feel like trying, so here goes:
I was a recent college grad, with a motley B.S. in Animal Science (by way of anthropology, art, and French, + 3 undergrad colleges.) So I was certainly not facing any obvious career path, and this explains why my father--a loyal executive (retired) of C & P Telephone--felt that pursuing an inroad into telephone company management might be a thought. So he put me in touch with a former colleague who suggested--strongly--that I NOT enter from the ground up--that is, by means of an entry level operator-type job--but rather wait until an entry into the management track opened up. My dad, meanwhile, ever mindful of honest work, suggested the opposite. Why not do the phone rep training track while I was waiting? As it turns out, I think the first guy was on to something. But I listened to dad. Here’s what happened:
At this point I can’t even remember what the job title of the position I began training for was. Some kind of service rep thing. A phone answerer/do you want fries with that type of person. I commuted daily, with a red-haired guy whose name I’ve forgotten (but who drove a VW Bug he retrofitted himself,) 1 hour each way, to the training facility in Hunt Valley.
For what ultimately would have amounted to maybe 8 weeks, I (and my fellow job-seekers) engaged in a step-wise, semi-self-paced program in which we simulated the behavior of real service reps by taking phone calls from remote training personnel (playing the role of “customers.”) Gradually, we’d add a new trick to the list of topics to cover, or sales hints to plant in every telephone encounter with the other side. And at certain pre-determined junctures, they tested us by means of a similar simulation.
Said hello the right way. Check. Inquired as to whether customer’s equipment was working satisfactorily. Check. Proposed an upgrade to more expensive equipment, without being obvious that the equipment was more expensive. Check. (This was the old days...when phones were owned by the phone company. Within a matter of a year, equipment privatization happened, and people bought their own crappy phones.) But, see...this was where things started to get weird. Because the check-off list of things we were required to cover, in any and all customer encounter, became so specific and picky that I believe, essentially, my brain rebelled. Do you have kids? Do they play in the basement? Could you use a phone in the basement? How about in the doghouse? Does your baby need a phone? Do you have a baby? Are you planning to have one? It was actually kind of sick and pathetic.
You were not allowed to miss a trick on these test calls. I do not know, to this day, whether I was capable of passing. All I know is, I could not say all that crappy stuff. Whether I actually forgot parts, or whether it was simply so contrary to my nature to fit into somebody else’s box, I cannot say. But what the manager lady told me--and I remember this distinctly--is that I did not “meet the objective.”
I did not know how to respond then, and I still barely know. The objective? What was going on there? Clearly, there was no leeway for personality or even a glimmer of independent thought in that gig. Was I too dumb? Surely I was not less intelligent than all telephone service reps of the 80’s. Too stubborn maybe. Too ornery, also maybe.
I asked myself afterward: Could I have passed? Was it possible for me to have done so? And I still don’t know. I failed. I don’t know what it was a failure of, but I don’t think it was a failure of intelligence.
I suppose, what I honestly believe is that the program was, essentially, a screening process for automatons. You would be filtered out for a faulty memory, no doubt, but you would also be filtered out--of this I am certain--for free thought. The process was meant to squeeze out any who could not, amoeba-like, conform themselves to a service-rep sized box.
You know what? That’s not right. My sister (smarter than I by most measures) would not have flunked out. Maybe I was just dumb. Or maybe I was just exceptionally stubborn in the face of rigid expectations. I don’t know. I still don’t.
But I do know I would have stunk at the telephone company. Even as a manager.
5 comments:
When one lives one's life online, I suppose that there exists a tension of what to say to those who follow the life from afar without revealing too much to those who are the same life from a much closer vantage point.
In the past when you have had long periods of silence, I thought this might mean depressing news about Jeff. Now I suspect that you don't want to reveal too much because your audience has probably expanded.
I do want you to know that friends are still with you in cyberspace as we wish you well in your new ventures. This is the only way I could think of letting you know that people out here care for you.
Thank you Prof! (for posting this note, though it's hidden way back here in 2009!)
Jeff is in hospice stages, and essentially infantile in the level of care required. He has not known me for almost 2 years. I see him most days, and keep his supplies stocked.
Maybe my reduced posting has to do with two things: 1, I have become busy and not so homebound, and 2, there's a degree to which I worry that the level of happiness I've found with another man isn't quite "appropriate," and I am reluctant to broadcast it with the enthusiasm I actually feel.
I am glad that you are happy. I am an old-fashioned type, but I don't know what I would if I were in your situation.
I assumed that the captain of the boat is the host of the transplant that you referred to in a previous post.
Dating is not easy when one is young. I can only imagine that it does not get any less confusing as we get older. I treasure my wife and would not want to have to re-do the process that led me to her the first place.
I hope that your new friendship is one that replenishes your emotional energy. I can only imagine that your tank has been low in that regard.
I think, from afar, that you are a caring, talented woman and I hope that you are surrounded by people who do not let you dwell too long in self-depreciation. I only read this post as I was looking for a place to stick my note to you, and it is quite sad. I have met many gifted and exceptional people who would not do well in the job you described in this post. Your sister may also be very gifted, but the fact that she may be more compliant and conformist, and perhaps more traditionally thought of as intelligent, should not lessen your appreciation for your own giftedness. The idiocentric (my made up word) add lots of spice to life and that quality of yours is what attracted Jeff in the first place.
Don't worry Prof...I don't self-deprecate in any serious ongoing way!
I wouldn't want to re-do the process of forming a beautiful long-term relationship either! Never thought I'd have to! But here I am. That ship was going down, and what many of us doing spousal caregiving have to ask ourselves is--do we want to go down with it? Are we obligated to be alone?
As it happens, the man I met has been through some tough roads of his own, and we happened to both be, at the same point in time, ready to engage in the process. Neither of us would have a year or so earlier.
For me, it has been just that--that I did treasure my marriage and husband and relationship--that has made me willing and interested in throwing myself, heart and soul, into another one. I appreciate that you are an old-fashioned type. So is my mom! I would say she's teetering on a sort of balance between discomfort with my choices and relief that I have companionship and support.
Me too, for that matter...at least a little bit. Objectively, I have assessed my life, my obligations, my beliefs, and--with the encouragement of my kids and friends--have made a choice. That does not mean I don't sometimes have confused emotions about it. But I do believe in experiencing and embracing life.
No one knows what he/she would do in this situation until he gets there.
"No one knows what he/she would do in this situation until he gets there."--I fully agree, which is why I am very slow to judge the actions of another. Please know that though I am old-fashioned, I have not implied any condemnation in your choices. As I said, I may very well make similar choices in similar circumstances--who knows?
"Objectively, I have assessed my life, my obligations, my beliefs, and--with the encouragement of my kids and friends--have made a choice. "--This sounds like a very reasonable process, perhaps even "old fashioned" in its own way. You may be more structured than you let on in your posts.
I life coach as part of my income producing activities, and one thing I pay careful attention when helping others is what activities/relationships provide emotional energy and which ones drain. One can not avoid certain draining relationships and commitments--parenthood can often be an emotionally deficit relationship but we honor our commitments. Jeff amply made good deposits into your "emotional bank" but his illness created severe withdrawals. You need relationships and activities that will make new deposits.
My hope for you is that this good man you have befriended will continue to deposit far more than he withdrawals.
In my experience with Alzheimers, grief is prolonged with each noticeable decline. In some ways, you have about maximized your grief because you are about at maximum loss. When my mom died, it was not as much grief as liberation (which sounds terrible). I had long ago lost her in real ways, and now she was beyond suffering. With her death, I was able to make a variety of different choices since I was no longer so bound to the Baltics.
Sorry to be so long. I miss your posts and I want so much for your story to move in a happier direction.
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