Pays the bills

After marriage, the biggest change in my life is my job. In fact, I have swapped jobs twice now. Back in April 2008, two days before Altaa arrived for the first time, I began my foray into telemarketing. After a day and a half of training (midday Monday and all of Tuesday), on the Wednesday my new employment began in earnest. I was working for New Appointments Group (NAG), by far the best job recruitment agency I have been involved in, in support of the Telegraph Media Group. Essentially, I was selling subscriptions of the Daily and Sunday Telegraphs to people who have signed up in the past, but subsequently lapsed in renewing it or to those people who have had contact with TMG in the past (say by booking a holiday) and provided the details that would allow them to be called. The latter group were a lot harder because they were only occasional readers of the Telegraph at best. They could be quite abusing on the phone, though I, by and large, did not get as much as some other people, especially the women employees. The most amusing angry comment was in my first two weeks when someone said “newspapers are all run by criminals.” Considering Conrad Black had just been convicted and sent to jail, it was hard to disagree, especially further back with Robert Maxwell, while Rupert Murdoch is hardly a savoury figure beyond probity. One of the other women who had come in with NAG was told “you’re all a bunch of fascists,” which makes you wonder why someone would get a Telegraph subscription in the first place, though over the months you could get some people were really quite innocent about the political affiliations of the Telegraph. I myself had initial reservations, but the sheer improvement in terms of job status was enough to assuage this. If the newspaper I was promoting was anything more downmarket than the Telegraph I might have had to quit.
One of the pleasures of the job was seeing all these quirky addresses such as Steeple Bumpstead, Heol Nazareth or Eureka Road. On such location in Scotland was called the Nith Quadrant which sounded like something out of Star Wars; as the person on the other end was speaking with a heavy accent, they might as well have been a wookie. Mentioning this to a colleague next to me and impersonating a wookie sound, he said of the Scottish voices “and that’s just the women.”
It wasn’t solely selling the Telegraph. Occasionally, we were shifted to promoting Barclays Bank to get people to have a one-to-one meeting with a financial advisor from Barclays. This was a lot harder because whereas people can be blasé about buying a newspaper, when it comes to their finances, they can become a lot more defensive. The bank was paying one million pounds to TMG if they could get a certain number of ‘quality’ leads. The key word there is quality. One guy smashed all expectations about targets and we were all amazed, until it transpired that he had actually been committing illegality - this was along the lines of talking to a daughter who would sign her mother up to be called by Barclays to arrange the meeting. Quite a few of us had strayed into that dodgy area, until we were told in no uncertain terms not to do it. They guy who had inadvertently committed massive fraud got a severe ticking off and sent home early that day. He did return the next day but his results were nowhere near as impressive. Quality also meant not just persuading reluctant people to accept a call from Barclays since the real value was in getting them to the face-to-face encounter so they could have financial products pushed at them. This line of work wasn’t very pleasant. The work felt more sleazy, there were no bonuses (nominally yes, but the targets were always too high for everyone) and it was more boring, because it was more of set script - the same fifty words over and over again, whereas there was bit more of a cut-and-thrust with selling subscriptions, a bit more of a conversation, with going forward and parrying. There were opportunities for revenge. The clients did not have to go to a Barclays branch for a get-together; Barclays were prepared to send out agents to personal abodes. I got a man from the Shetlands on the other end of the phone and he was quite adamant that as there was no Barclays presence on the islands, it wasn’t necessary, but I got him to agree because I was also insistent that Barclays would send out an agent to meet him on the boat. I can just imagine this be-suited Barclays worker in an outboard motor boat, windswept and lashed by spray from the sea as he goes out on their mission.
Days after my birthday in 2008, there was an opportunity to escape what was increasingly dreary work and get a permanent position for Births, Deaths and Marriages page in the Daily Telegraph. I almost bungled it when on the last days of submissions I forgot my CV at home and had to get my dad email me a spare copy he luckily had on his work computer. I even got the name wrong of my interviewer, who was Caroline, but that did not hinder my chances greatly when I achieved considerably above 40 words a minutes (on two finger type) with only one mistake. My greatest bar was when Caroline, consulting my CV, asked if I might not be off after a few months to a better job and after giving my assurances that I was here for the long-term, at least one year, maybe two or three, it was plain sailing. Caroline called me and another girl called Mandy in; there were three internal positions available, but by only beckoning two of us in, I was fearful. Caroline said “We would like to offer you the job.” I was waiting for the ‘but’ yet it never came. So on that Friday in July, as I walked out of the interview room having walked in expecting the worst, we were applauded by the whole fourth floor which was a kind thing.
After training and probation, my position became official on 1st September 2008 and I’m still here more than one year later. I don’t think it’s too controversial or will affect my employment to comment on it now, but best to be on the safe side by leaving it so long. It doesn’t change my opinions of the Daily Telegraph reportage - characterised by contempt for the EU and all its works (though there are a few good people who stand up against integration), contempt for the Labour party (though there are a few good people who stand up against left-wing nonsense) and contempt for the BBC (though there is Radio 3), with more than the occasional salvo aimed at public sector jobs, Barack Obama and the climate change consensus. My views are naturally counter to these opinions; however, what I do is of a decidedly apolitical tone. I would have serious qualms were I offered a place on a non-’quality’ paper and many of the stories before the comment sheets in the Telegraph are bipartisan in their appeal. If I want to have a laugh, I do read the reparative (to my mind) stalls set out around the leader column. Boris Johnson is the most famous of these though also the most disappointing. Ken Livingstone criticises him for being a part-time mayor, yet actually he’s a part-time Telegraph columnist, with each piece containing two sentences of meat amongst a multitude of fluff - perfectly amiable at a dinner party, distinctly lightweight in a national newspaper. I’ve got to be circumspect when proffering the produce of my critical faculties with regard to figures who could easily deem that I am ‘surplus to requirements’, even if expecting a reasonable final warning missive (given that I have knowledge of aspects of the internal apparatus). I largely appreciate the contributions (genuinely) of George Pitcher, Christopher Howse and Tom Leonard. Benedict Brogan is a class act. The leader column, essentially the voice of Will Lewis, can be the source of a good chuckle - advocating abolishing the minimum wage, while a few weeks later saying that dukes need more support; even if the latter idea was whimsical, it was still a self-parody for a paper with contributors who consider £75,000 per annum to be a poor London wage or interviewing a man earning £150,000 a year over his threat to emigrate over the raising of income tax bands for the rich, since he’ll have to pay “ a few hundred pounds more” to the government. But outside these formulations, which do allow dissenting penning from time to time, is the seriousness of an upmarket paper. Of course, the MPs expenses exposé was a classic public service duty of journalism. And now, having wittered on for more than 1,500 words, I bid you farewell, until next time.