On being one step away from telemarketing

As I look around, I'm happy to see that I'm once more surrounded by gentle readers (you are being gentle aren't you, because I can tell you it's a bitch to find someone to shampoo the carpets in cyberspace) who, even if they aren't amused, understand when I'm joking. If I were to say to you, "I wouldn't mind gas prices so much if it didn't take so long for the pump to siphon out 9 gallons of my blood," you might roll your eyes. However, you most definitely won't say to me sternly, "You had better be off to the hospital. It's hardly safe to lose 9 gallons of blood, young lady." Sometimes people don't get my jokes, so I'm glad to say all of you do.

Work goes quite well though. People laugh at my jokes, and don't look at me all funny-like and say, "You're so funny." (Which a few people did while I was at Woodberry. One the other hand, I did suggest they get a toy train track to deal with the problems they were having with motion lights).

I was at a law firm for about 4 days, which was surprisingly quite fun. I got to hear Sarah Weddington (one of the women who argued Roe v. Wade, successfully) speak. She had me sold on law school for the whole of her speech, but I thought better of it about 5 seconds after I left the room. I also met someone who reads and watches Sci-Fi, and we're gonna go see Harry Potter when it comes out, in IMAX. This is good, as I don't think I've ever seen HP alone, and that would be kind of sad.

Now I'm at Ameriprise, which has cool people to work with. My official job title is "One Step Above Telemarketer." Okay, maybe two steps. I actually call to offer people a job in the company. It's a good job too. They train you, and in your first year you can make between $45,000 and $55,000. Still, I think it's the quotas and emphasis on making numbers even if they aren't quality numbers that weirds me out and makes me think of telemarketing.

I'm kind of enjoying my job as a temp. As Melinda, who's going to see HP with me said, "You know this is going in a book." Like the time that I overheard the first year lawyers having a very serious discussion on cereal. One was eating Rice Krispies, which the other hadn't had in years. And you know what they really liked that was at the cafeteria in their home office? Smart Start. But Basic Four is good, too. Haven't you heard of it? It's got all sorts of little bits in it.

Or the three male lawyers, who by nature of being lawyers have to be a couple years older than me, who were discussing a scene from Mean Girls.

Or the woman whose resume was titled, "Administrative Assitant" who had excellent 35 wpm typing skills.

Or the time that one of the London solicitors (I say this because they were solicitors as opposed to barristers. Yes, I asked. I am that dorky and keen to put my knowledge of British law to use.) wrote "London, England" for his home office, and I told him, "Thank God you wrote that, or else we never would have known which London to send this to."

So who's with me on the Nano Wrimo stuff? I'm hoping Tiff reads this and says yes. She and I have had some serious conversations about giving up this crazy, overambitious dream we have of being copywriters and instead writing trashy romance novels and becoming million--nay, zillion--aires. Any other takers? Don't say you aren't prepared. I have 7 days (one of which being the closest you can get to a religious holiday in San Francisco, yep, Halloween) to research the geography of Hell. Among other things. Where are blind poets obsessed with trilogies when you need them? Failing Milton, Dante might be helpful. Chrissy, what do you know about the inferno???