Selling Lives

I am currently in the business of selling lives. Children's lives.

Every ten to fifteen minutes from 1 pm until 9 pm I must try to act my way through a script that is designed to make people part with £18 - a month.

I must tease/manipulate/induce guilt/empathise/cajole people whilst remaining 100% impartial and committed to the cause at hand. Do not deviate. Big Brothers are watching. There's one Big Brother per 'grad bay', though there may be more listening: every call is recorded. We can get fined £5000 is a 'declaration clause' is not tacked on to the beginning and end of every call.

It starts with: "This call may be recorded for training purposes", and ends with something reassuring the caller that we only take £337,000 in admin costs for "calling people like you."

I have to talk to the elderly: the unemployed, the terminally ill, the students, the time-wasters, the insane, those too young to commit, yet eager to answer the phone whilst mummy struggles with the youngest. All walks of life and the others you forget about. The ones everyone forgets about - that's why they're the worst to interrupt as they've been storing up all their jaw-mangling spite just for you because you're the first person insane enough to call them. Not my fault: the system picks numbers at random.

It's not uncommon to talk to the same person three/four times in a day, (partly due to others pressing 'Call Back' when they can't be bothered to record a proper outcome) but as you've already spoken to many faceless voices in between... you're stuck in auto-pilot mode and they get the impression that the bond you formed earlier was a false pretense. Well it was.

And yet the numbers keep coming, and there's barely a moment to regenerate you self-esteem and bolster confidence levels.

Some people here have been 'on the phones' for between 5 to 12 months. On the phones. Reading a script. How is that possible?

I have no desire to be here longer than it'll take me to re-claim the training hours we put in (three days worth)... but clever people above the Big Brothers only dispense that after a month on the phones. On the phones. Clever, very clever indeed. I need that money: I must count down the days before it is mine.

I've never done a job like this before: I never will again. I'm a creative not an actor with a heart of gold. I respect the cause, I enjoy the lunches in the park with the other 'Grad Bayers', but this is not real life.

This is selling lives.

Have you guessed what I am yet?