Chapter 8: The Boiler Room

"Mr. Fox I have to give two weeks notice. Would it be a problem if I started after that?" She had considered just quitting her cleaning job with no notice but this place was just way too nasty not to make sure that the cleaning company found someone to replace her.

There was a brief hesitation. "I think we can work with you on that."

"Thank you Mr. Fox." Hayden hung up pleased as she did a mental calculation of how much she was sure to make at the higher paying position.

~*~

Two weeks later, she was walking through the door of the same office complex that she had been cleaning for the last month and a half. However, this time, the office was a bustle with activity. She paused inside of the door as 19 sets of eyes met hers. 18 sets of eyes turned away, quickly dismissing her. She looked at the one person that hadn't looked away. It was someone sitting at one of the tidy desks; one of the few people here with home training.

Or… maybe not. He stared at her with dispassionate grey eyes as he talked on the phone, and the polite head nod that she was about to give him was quickly abandoned at his rude stare. Hayden headed to the back of the room where Mr. Fox's office was located. She knocked on the door now understanding that the faded stenciling read: "FOX VINYL AND MAP ADS."

"Come," said a gruff voice from inside, which sounded nothing like the polished man that she had spoken to over the phone two weeks before. Mr. Fox was holding an ink pen, which was poised over a document. His eyes swept over her body before settling on her face.

"Hayden Michaels?" he asked. He was sixtyish, fit and not totally unpleasant to look at.

She moved forward and offered her hand. "Yes. I'm Hayden Michaels." He stood and accepted her hand. After a polite exchange of greetings he had her sit in a plastic chair before his desk. He spent the next half hour "training" her and then showed her to an empty desk out in the main room.

Ah. It was the second neat desk in the room. No wonder… it was empty. She glanced over at the third neat desk and noted that it too was empty. Her faith in mankind once again diminished.

"Pam will be your on-the-job coach. If you have any questions, just ask her, though it is very simple and I don't think you will have any problems."

Hayden hid her doubts. That half hour discussion in his office wasn't very much in the way of training. When she looked over at her OJ coach, whose workstation was right next to hers, she saw the little old bouffant lady from the other week. The woman appeared to be in her late fifties with painted on eyebrows and crimson lipstick. Yikes. Pam gave her the once over before plastering a fake smile on her thin wrinkled lips.

She walked over to Hayden and offered her hand. Hayden accepted it, shaking it carefully as she was so thin that it felt like she had the bones of a little bird.

"Aren't you our cleaning lady?" Pam asked loudly. Mr. Fox raised his brow in surprise.

Hayden found herself already disliking Pam. "Not anymore," she responded.

"Oh, I didn't realize that you… um worked here before." Mr. Fox interjected and Hayden wanted to say that it would have been on her application if he had asked her for one.

"So you didn't like it, huh?" Pam asked with a smirk. Hayden suddenly wished that she could skip this part too; where she was expected to be nice to people simply because they were her co-workers. Where she also had to politely listen to them share stories about their tedious lives.

Hayden could feel her build up of tension suddenly disperse as she decided that there was absolutely no reason why she had to be that person. This was about getting to the money, and there was no time to expend on friendship, foolishness, or frivolity. So she gave Pam a neutral look.

"I'm Hayden Michaels and I understand that you will be my… OJ coach? Mr. Fox gave me some information but I have some questions if you don't mind?"

Pam sniffed when it appeared that she couldn't needle the new girl. "Oh… sure." Mr. Fox left them to it, retreating back to his office. As soon as he was gone, Pam's pleasant smile disappeared.

"You can double jack with me and listen to how I do things. Just watch what I do. You and I will be working the back half of the Detroit phonebook. There's a copy of last year's on the floor over there."

Pam returned to her desk and pretty much disregarded Hayden as she went about making her next call. Hayden retrieved the phonebook from a messy pile on the floor. The pile contained phonebooks from different cities; Norfolk, Columbus and then she saw Detroit. She grabbed it, finally seeing the vinyl cover where she would sale ad space.

It was covered front and back with ads for businesses, restaurants, hotels, etc. She noted that there was a clipboard hanging on the wall near Pam's desk with a mock up of a phonebook cover. Looking around the room, she spotted other clipboards with their own mock-up phonebook covers for the cities that were being called by the other telemarketers. It clicked into place when she saw people periodically jump up to jot initials or check marks on them indicating which ad space had been sold on the covers for the cities that they were calling.

Hayden opened the box that Mr. Fox had given her containing a new headset which she put together quickly before wheeling her chair to Pam's workstation. Pam pointed to a place on her phone where Hayden could plug in to listen to the conversation; double jack. The older women didn't offer her any explanation of what she was doing as she rapidly flitted around the script and fired amounts to her customers—amounts that were different than the ones listed in the script given to Hayden.

When that call ended, Pam picked up her copy of the yellow pages that lay sprawled on her desk and scanned it without bothering to tell Hayden what she was looking for. Hayden knew from MyKell that this was called cold calling. When telemarketers don't have a lead, they have to cold call.