Hey hey, page three.
December 18th, 2002 | by Scott Jennings |Our long national nightmare, the one where I shaved my head every morning for the past five and a half months, is finally over.
It wasn’t because it was getting cold, that was no big deal for my trusted blue hooded sweatshirt. It wasn’t because it was getting wet, I could just wipe the sleeve of said sweatshirt overtop the dome and be all set. It wasn’t because George Carlin and my brother agreed that I looked like a giant uncircumcised penis, because I thought it looked fucking cool and I don’t take style tips from no-longer-relevant comedians or my brother.
Let me put it to you like this: standing in my bathroom, just after a shower, my skin still moist and warm, a towel wrapped around my waist, wiping the fog off the mirror to see my reflection, a handful of hot lather over my head, dragging the razor front to back, front to back, at every angle to catch every hair, until my head becomes flawlessly smooth. It’s an indescribable release, to take every hair off your head until you’re completely unencumbered and free. And then I stand there, wearing just a towel, looking at my reflection and my symmetrical skull, holding a razor… and my eyes inevitably start to work their way downward.
It’s a slippery fucking slope, dudes.
I don’t want you to get the wrong idea; I only shaved a little tiny part of my chest, and I only did it once. But it was enough to scare me straight. I don’t want to have fantasies about shaving my entire body, head to toe, beads of water rolling off my glabrous skin. It’s just not cool. Shaving one’s head is one thing, that’s not terribly unusual. But what if I felt a bit impetuous one morning — how would I explain the arms? I wouldn’t be able to deal with the consequences.
And so I put the razor down on Friday thinking I may not pick it up again, and made up my mind on Sunday. It’s for the best. And I have beautiful hair anyway.
I’m working as a customer service representative for a major undisclosed electronics manufacturer. Or, as I should say and am frequently reminded, I’m working for a major undisclosed staffing firm, and I’ve been assigned on an indefinite basis to a major undisclosed electronics manufacturer.
There is absolutely nothing at all to this job. Nothing. People call, they ask questions, I answer them, they thank me and hang up. They call me to ask me about the features of the products made by this undisclosed electronics manufacturer, then they call me back when they realize that these products really suck and want to send them back. Just like any major electronics outfit, disclosed or not, some of the products have known defects and issues, of which I get to pretend to be completely unaware. I talk to people who have either accepted their ignorance, have made foolish mistakes, or have grown frustrated and beligerent trying to decipher operating instructions poorly translated from a major undisclosed language. I mean, if you can’t figure out how to work your phone, you take it back to where you bought it and get a new one, right? If you can’t get a dialtone on your phone, first you see if the other phones are working. If they are, then you move the non-working phone to another jack to test it. If it’s still not working, then it’s probably broken. You don’t need some dude wearing a headset to tell you that.
This area has a whole lot of call centers. Many major undisclosed companies locate their call center operations here because the area has a large population, very inexpensive land, and a low cost of living. It’s a great place to build a 100,000 square foot office building and fill it with people making just north of $20k. Based on my observation, I believe that there is a class of worker indigenous to this area who make their career hopping from call center to call center, travelling the circuit. The work is very stressful and unrewarding, the pay is bad, the environment saps the very soul of those who occupy the cubicles, and there is little wonder that there is so much turnover. This workforce is almost entirely young black women.
This particular call center is unique in the area because it is operated by this major electronics manufacturer, and thus the nature of the work is of a slight technical bent. And so, alongside the travellers of the call center circuit are a good mix of young men with technical backgrounds and aspirations who haven’t been able to land a real IT job in this climate and economy. (The thing is, about 90% of the IT work around here is government contract, and requires a secret government clearance. And the easiest way to obtain such a clearance is to have served in the military, so most of those IT jobs go straight to discharged Navy personnel. Neat little scam they have going.)
And so this is the situation: those with the technical skills find themselves incredibly bored once they get a basic grasp on the product line and feel patronized by the micromanagement of every moment of every day and are constantly in search of another job and turn over quickly, and those with the call center skills find themselves in over their heads trying to troubleshoot technical issues and grow frustrated and turn over quickly to the next stop on the call center circuit. And some find their niche and stay a long time, but there just aren’t many group pictures taken for some reason.
But the fates have dropped me off here for now. Probably to teach me about humility.
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