2011

Portland, Maine

“What the hell is a call center?” I ask my friend Matt.

“You know the movie “Boiler Room?” he says as he unloads the 30-rack of Pabst Blue Ribbon from his beater.

“I love that movie,” I say as we walk up the driveway to my girlfriend Bri’s house.

“So what do I have to do?” I ask, popping a beer and slumping on the bed.

“Just learn this script,” says Matt, dropping a two-page document on the bed as he downs his beer in one.

We're in our late teens, so this is how I prep for the first legit job of my life.
I'm about to prep for the first legit job of my life...
But hey, we're still just teenage kids.

*****

I quit selling drugs just two weeks before.

I had a real close call when the FBI came a-knockin’ one night looking for one of my dealer pals.

The cops had arrested him earlier and he escaped from the car so they launched a huge manhunt.

And I had secretly stashed a load of coke and guns in Bri’s Mom’s house.

The FBI didn’t find it, but I was like, fuck me, what kind of asshole am I?
These folks took me in when I had nothing, man.
It's only been a few weeks but I love this girl more than I ever thought possible.
I can't do this anymore.

So I offload the stash and after years of slinging drugs, I don't know what to do with myself.
I had been pinballing from house to juvie to group home most of my life, and had come to believe what everyone told me: that I was a worthless waste of space.

Pretty soon my money runs out…

And I’m a day or two away from going back out for “one more deal.”

Then out of the blue Matt shows up and says he’s got me a sales job at the call center where he works.

I was not going to pass up this chance to go legit.

So we devour that 30-rack and rehearse that sales script a hundred times.

There are a couple of discovery questions up front, but the most important thing is the disclaimer that you have to read real fast and word-perfect at the end of the call…

Because that’s where the call center makes the real money.

Man, for those first few hours of rehearsing, Matt makes sure to let me know just how bad I am at this.  

But I’m damn persistent.

And I have a point to prove.

And somewhere around 1 or 2 a.m., it starts to click.

So I get up next morning and recoil at the sight of my hungover ass in the mirror.
“Am I gonna need a haircut?” I ask Matt as I pull on my Calvin Klein suit.

“I’ll do it for you,” he says through bloodshot eyes.

His shaky-ass hands fuck it up so bad I have to shave my head bare.

On the 90-minute drive up, we smoke some weed to tame our raging hangovers.

“So you’re sure this guy’s gonna be cool with me?” I ask.
“Don’t sweat it, job’s already yours,” says Matt.

“I bet you I’ll outsell you on my first day,” I say with the confidence the weed has given me.  

“Fuck you will,” he says, and hits the gas.

We roll into this super sketchy call center in an industrial zone.

The boss Seth comes out and says: “You’re 2 hours late, Matt. And who’s this guy?”

I look in disbelief at Matt, who carries on like he hasn’t spent the last 24 hours lying to my face.  

“This is the guy I told you about,” says Matt.

“I told you we’re not hiring,” says Seth as he turns to go back inside.

I elbow Matt and give him an earful: “What the fuck, dude? We came up all the way here for that?”

Matt runs after Seth, but in a way the rejection feels familiar, almost comforting.

I’d already faced a lifetime of it.

What’s one more kick in the teeth?

*****

2008

Lynn, Massachusetts.

My parents divorced when I was young, so I lived with my Mom.

We moved around so much that I could never really make any friends.

It didn’t help that my Mom was a real troubled woman, and hated me hard.

She told me I was a cancer who made everyone's lives worse, and she kicked me out time after time.

For years I bounced from group homes to juvenile detention centers and one time I tried to drink myself to death.
I failed.
And then they threw me in a children's mental hospital.

It was a nightmare - the non-stop screaming, the fighting, the boys' with the hollow eyes of old men - but it gave me some perspective...
Things could always be worse.
When I got out I stole food, robbed folks, dealt drugs…

I was in full-on survival mode.

All this anger and uncertainty led to my second suicide attempt.

I tried to shoot myself and the bullet got stuck in the chamber.

Dammit all, couldn't I do anything right?
While I was fishing the bullet out, I heard a voice telling me to go for a walk.

So while I was out, I called my grandmother.

Luckily for me, she answered.

I didn’t tell her the whole story, but I said I was out of ideas, I had no hope left, and didn't know what to do next.

“All you can do is take things one day at a time,” she says.  

That was a huge moment for me.

All I had to do was stay alive long enough to make it till tomorrow.
******

Back at the call center, my friend Matt is dropping more big lies on Seth…

“My buddy Ky’s the best salesman in the world, he taught me everything I know.”

The boss looks at me, a shaven-headed, hungover kid in a suit, not convinced.  

“You guys are idiots if you don’t hire him right now. Give him a chance,” continues Matt.

Finally, just to shut Matt up,  Seth nods and says: “Okay, start him on the phones.”

So we go into this dingy warehouse and there are 30 pairs of eyes trained on me,

the new hotshot, the savior of the call center world.

Seth shows me to an empty desk, and I put on the cheap headphones and wait for the first auto-dial customer to pick up.

I don’t have to wait long.

And from out of my stoned, hungover memory, I drag up that sales script I had practiced a couple hundred times the night before.

“Sir, you requested information on our best-selling e-cigarette products,” I say.  
“Not interested,” comes the irritated reply.  

“Did you decide to not quit smoking?” I continue.

“No, I still want to quit,” says the guy, a little less sure of himself now.

“So why don’t you want to move forward with this revolutionary product which will help you quit smoking in no time?” I say.

“It’s more than I can afford right now,” he says.

“Sir it’s less than the price of a carton of cigarettes. And what price can you put on your health?” I’m feeling it now.

“It’s too much,” he says after a pause, trying to match my growing confidence.

“Then this is your lucky day, sir. I can get you a discounted price,” I smile.

The rest of the sales team look on, waiting for me to mess up.

But Matt gives me a wink of encouragement.

“That so?” says the guy, almost relieved to give in.

So I run through some basic discovery questions, and by this time I’m freeballing with the guy, and I rattle through the all-important disclaimer at the end which means we’ll keep charging the credit card until he cancels the order.

Legal, but shady as hell.
But seeing as I was nearly busted for drugs and guns by the FBI a couple weeks before, I figured this was a step up.

“I’ve signalled the guys in back to start packaging up your products right way. You have a good day,” I say, and hang up to see a room full of open mouths.

Dammit all, I closed my very first sales call.

And soon after I closed my second.

And my third.

And as I’m about to start my fourth call, a HR rep comes running down the stairs yelling to Seth:
“Get this guy off the phone, he doesn’t work here!”

So they give me documents to sign, and send me home.

Seth shakes my hand and says:

“Come back tomorrow, you got a job here, son, we can use someone like you.”

Dammit all... someone I'd just met wanted to see me again?
Maybe I wasn;t so worthless after all.

*****
I was quiet on the ride back home.

I thought back to when I was 15.

I had been living at my friend Bobby’s house because my parents didn’t want me.

But after a year, we all went to court to decide who would have full custody of me.  

And no-one wanted me.

“Well someone has to take him,” said the judge.

I’ll never forget the feeling of four adults fighting in court over who DIDN’T want me.

But that was then.

Now I had a girlfriend who loved me and believed in my dreams.

A home to lay my head on.

And I had just been given my first shot at a legitimate job, and I was good at it.

I had had enough of the anger, uncertainty, and running away.

It was time to start building out those dreams…

One day at a time.