I know it wasn't your intent Internutter, and I'm sorry I sounded so harsh. It just brought up a lot of bad feelings. They are call centers, too. And actually, we don't "call out". Almost all call centers, both here and abroad, have "auto-dialers" that simply call random numbers until someone picks up. For sales jobs, and I did have to do cold-call selling, you're given a script that makes little to no sense, you read though it to the point where you can repeat it, verbatim, in your sleep, and if you don't make a certain amount of sales, you're out on your ear. I hated that job. And you had it right where you mark certain numbers as "potentials" by someone picking up or not. That actually does happen.

Though I do have some very sweet memories. Working for FTD is one of my favorites. People buying flower arrangements. Sure you had to upsell teddybears, balloons, and other items, but other than calls for funerals, it was one of the sweetest jobs I've had, and loved to pieces. But there is one memory that is my happy place when I am really down. I think of it during times when I'm depressed, and it helps cheer me up.

I worked for Walmart's call-center, for their web site, and walked people through ordering, took complaints about products, and so forth. I got a call from a woman who was getting some medical supplies, durable medical equipment, and our computer systems went down because the building was having a power outage - gotta love bad thunderstorms. I told her we could chat over the phone while we wait or she could call back later. She opted to chat. She asked me what I did besides work the phones and I told her about how I'm trained as professional photographer. She told me how she'd've loved to have been a photographer, she used to do modeling work and admired them as they did their jobs. But she said she had a bad accident and ended up permanently in a wheelchair and "that dream's gone now". Apparently it was her dream job to do after she got done with modeling.

I told her that no, that dream isn't gone. That I knew multiple professionals who were award-winning photographers who were in wheelchairs or had other disabilities. She went really quiet and kinda squeaked out really?. So I walked her through different starter DSLR Cameras, the types, their features, what was more economical, what was more expensive, what was "too expensive because you're just buying for the name not the quality" etc. When the systems finally came back online, she not only ordered her equipment she needed, but she ordered an entire camera set, basic lenses, books on photography, and she was CRYING. She told me that, even though I was some random stranger over the phone, I'd given her hope again. That she could do what she really wanted to do. It sounded like happy crying you know? My performance review for that call was incredible and she left huge amounts of compliments for me on the survey form. I was glad that my lunch break was right after that call because I was crying, too. I had, had a really crummy day before that, and I'm... well I'm a bit terrified of storms and was nearly freaking out due to the sound of the hail outside. So to know that, in the worst day, I managed to help turn someone else's life out of their slump and give them something to smile about. I got to read a second survey that named me from the woman saying that, apparently thanks to me, she enrolled in photography classes. But that's all I know of what happened with that customer after that interaction.

But, despite the hell of the call center trenches, that happy memory, that one, glorious, piece of gold among all the dung, is probably my greatest, most precious, possession.