I was 19 or 20 when I decided that I didn’t want to work at a supermarket while I was home for the summer. So I opted to look in the Pennysaver for a position and I got rid of the super half of the word and replaced it with one that will live in infamy: tele… as in telemarketing.
Before the time of cell phones in 2004 or 2005, landlines were still prominent and I believe that’s about the time we got a cable modem instead of dial up. But it was decided that I would be a telemarketer at Union Chimney in Deer Park, New York.
There are a few particular memories I had at Union Chimney:
- Making $10 an hour and working 4 hours a day and some days a week
- The radio always being on Z100 and hearing the same 5 songs every day in the same 4-hour span… ridiculous
- One employee being the “chimney master” named Dominic who always got a lot of sales and always said “Union Chim-mah-ney” instead of Union Chimney
- Being threatened by a 92-year-old sick man that he would kick my ass if I called him again
- Being told “take me off your list” and there was an actual list we used
It was a good enough job at the time and even went to telemarket for a real estate company the next summer, but they were a lot less organized and had us trade lists the same day and some names who wanted to be off the list were not crossed out since they didn’t do that at the time. I was selling mortgage refinancing and got let go on the day I wanted to quit, so that’s lovely.
But my time at Union Chimney was fun enough for the summer and I made more than other home-from-college supermarket workers. I’d never work there again, but it gave me some fun memories.
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