Persuasion is just Coercion having a casual day.

	Working in a call center is... loud and annoying and incredibly boring. All of that is brand new information, I know. I was just as shocked as you probably are now. Brace yourself for another surprise: I'm really good at talking complete strangers into giving me their money. I wish I had known that before. I wouldn't have bothered with the job. I would have simply cracked open a phone book and started dialing numbers. I would definitely consider myself a charity case at this point. But, it's getting better. I'm no longer non-profit. That's a serious upgrade. Breaking even would have been an upgrade, actually. So, everything else is excess. Never thought I'd consider an extra dollar as excess. I'm getting used to living well within my means. It's about time, I suppose.
I average about 1500 calls each day. That is a ridiculous number of phone calls, I know. Nearly 80% of those calls end within a matter of seconds when the person hangs up on me in mid-sentence. This actually doesn't even bother me. I'd rather be hung up on than have to waste my time trying to convince someone that I'm not a con artist while I try to con them out of their money - whatever the magic dollar amount for the moment happens to be. I've only had a very few belligerent individuals, which is surprising. I might have one each day that either wants to heatedly and poorly debate the issue with me or just wants to release their stress from the day by screaming, ranting, and raving at me. It's much easier to deal with people like this on the phone than it is in person. It's almost not even real to me when it happens over the phone. I just don't care.
	I like the dress code. Let me clarify that: Now that I completely understand it, I like the dress code. There was some confusion on my part. There's about twelve pages that explains this incredibly elaborate dress code. It became painfully obvious on my first day of orientation that I had somehow misread the dress code and was only dressed appropriately for a female employee. It sounds much worse than it actually was, but it was still moderately embarrassing and awkward for me. Anyway, I've really missed being able to dress up for work rather than down. I really do enjoy dressing the part. It compliments my pseudo-elitism and mock snobbery perfectly. To be perfectly honest, it just makes me feel better about everything. I also take everything a little more seriously when I'm dressed so smartly. It's impossible for me to ever take anything entirely serious, but this gets me as close as I'm ever going to get to absolute seriousness. Also, I look really good in this wardrobe, so... that's the only reason I need to do anything. I can be incredibly superficial and vain. But, you can't argue with the results. Presentation is everything when you're selling ideas. I mean, it's not like there's an actual product here. It's all make believe. I'm a magician, conjuring up dreams and lies and half-truths and propaganda and campaign slogans and party rhetoric and fear and hope... I'm a mathematician calculating and playing the odds. A prophet for profit, a silver-tongued devil paying lip service to your favorite cause or movement, a communicator. That's the politically correct term, by the way. We're communicators. I thought that was somewhat ridiculous. I know what I am and communicator is the very least of it.
This Tuesday is my first team meeting/potluck dinner. My new supervisor loves to cook and he organizes these events for his teams constantly. Participation, of course, is mandatory. I like the idea of it, I guess, just not the actuality. I have no freaking idea what I'm going to make/take for this. I'm still working it out. I have two days to figure something out. Also, the fitness center was a little disappointing. It might be slightly larger than the fitness room in the clubhouse for my community. I may still use it, but it definitely wasn't what I had expected. Serious let down there.
	"If you don't give me $200 right now... Obama is going to eat your baby!!! He may already be inside your home! But it's not too late, if you act now, we can stop him! I just need your 16 digit credit card number followed by expiration month and year..." Ok, not quite, but sometimes it feels like that. You wouldn't believe the things they pay me to say. I hardly believe it, sometimes. The scripts are... interesting. See also: aggro, intense, propaganda. There are some incredibly bold and horrifying statements that I make repeatedly throughout the day. I don't even hear the words I'm saying most of the time. Which is good, because I'd probably choke to death on my own bullshit. This has been a very educational experience already. I didn't realize how susceptible people are to scare tactics, sensationalism, fear mongering, propaganda, yellow journalism. It's as equally amazing as it is sad. It's almost like a parody or farce, but it's real. I can't reconcile the absurd reality of it.
I feel like a spy. I feel like I'm deep under cover and behind enemy lines. Everyone around me is ultra-conservative, highly religious, and militantly anti-... Well, anti-just-about-everything-I-am. It's awkward. I don't say too much to my co-workers. If they initiate conversations with me, I try to keep my responses short, impersonal, and vague. That relieves me from the burden of having to lie to everyone all the time. I'm the quiet guy who saves it all for his clients/donors. I honestly don't have a word to spare for anyone else, so this isn't inaccurate. After spending all day long on the phone trying to persuade people to part with their money, there's not a whole lot left of me. Also, I really don't want my personal life and professional life to even be aware of each other. They seriously need to be compartmentalized and segregated. This isn't a new approach for me, but it's never been more true or necessary. Not that I have much of a personal life these days. I sleep the majority of the time I'm not working. Unfortunately, I know my lines so well that I can and do recite them in my sleep. I have a lot of political dreams now in which I'm debating any number of issues with various celebrity guest opponents. I don't remember the identity of any of these famous speakers when I wake up, I just know they're all dead. I really don't want to know what that means, if anything. I hope it doesn't mean anything other than I'm completely psychotic or over-stimulated by the propaganda produced by my new employer. Speaking of which, I think I'll refer to my new employer as Propaganda, Inc. Very fitting.