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Interesting story I want to get down before I forget it. (I do this mostly because it has become one of my most favorite stories to tell girls. It shows I have earthy life experience or something. Actually, I just think it's a decent story that doesn't involve puking.)A few months ago I was working at Lavalife. Lavalife, for those not in the know, operates a phone dating service (as well as a webpersonals site. (The webpersonals site is actually not relevant to the story, as I did not work there. But I want to indulge us all in the wonders of hypertext.) So, working at Lavalife (for low pay as a temp in a shitty, shitty job - that previous article about Silicon Valley's temps? There for a reason, I assure you), one listens to the ads these people put up on the interactive phone system, and cleans up the ads that are deemed objectionable by the powers that be. There's the obvious (people who say "fuck", those who use slurs, stalkers), and then there's the sorts of things that are less obvious, but once they're pointed out to you, you say "oh yeah" and slap your head because it's obvious when you think about it (prostitutes using the ads as free advertising, for example). It's simultaneously a very boring and very interesting job. It's boring because, like all office temp work (like all temp work period, really), it's long and dull, and above all it's repetitive - after a long, long time you can recognize regular callers by voice. (My favorite was always a fellow named Scotty who lived in Atlanta - you could recognize him easily by his calls, which showed that this was a man who lived without punctuation. "Hey there this is Scotty Scotty works hard Scotty plays hard this is Scotty he's a man who keeps the Lord in his heart and the Devil in his pants this is Scotty 35 got my own business work six days a week rest on the seventh like God this is Scotty love to dance love to cook love to pamper a woman this is Scotty so all you fine ladies of respectable character can call me buzz me blast me and Scotty will get back to you this is Scotty Scotty will show you a fine time this is Scotty.") More than regular callers, you can recognize regular types of people, which is depressing. Endless parades of late-thirties men trying to cheat on their wives, and describing themselves as "sincere". (One of the most morally repgunant things about working at Lavalife was having to assist these sad bastards in infidelity. It makes you feel dirty, and cheap, and it's telling that they specifically address it in training.) Every unemployed guy in Atlanta has a fourteen-inch dick. Giggling high school girls who think they're being really clever. San Franciscans tend towards the more sexually prone side of the scales, but Minnesotans are a lot freakier (there's not a lot to do in the winter except play ice hockey and screw). The most prevalent type, though, is sad - it's someone in their mid- to late-forties. They're just divorced, or recently widowed, and they're "just getting back into the game again" (they always use that phrase). Sometimes they have kids - usually they're grown-up or at least at college, so this person is really alone for the first time in ages, and they're scared, and you can hear it in their voice. Sometimes they're just sad. Sometimes they're brave. Sometimes they whine, sometimes they're resolved. The type is a category, and there's room within it. So once, I'm sitting and this incredibly long ad comes on. It's ten minutes long (the usual ad is about ninety seconds), and it's a sob story, so others start listening. (A ten-minute ad justifies attention all by itself. It's the story of a fellow named Roy, in Minnesota. Roy tells us all about how he came to be in Minnesota. He used to be a stockbroker in New York City, and now he's unemployed in Minnesota. He used to have a wife, until she cheated on him with his business partner and then divorced him. His business partner sniped the business out from under him. His wife got everything in the divorce. His children are grown up and long since gone. Roy couldn't get a job in New York City, because he was always the quiet partner in his business team, and his former-partner-now-enemy has sabotaged his reputation within the circles he travels in, so he can't get clients, can't get hired on even in a junior capacity, and all his friends have abandoned him like flies. Except for one friend, his best friend back in high school. His best friend in high school owns a deli in the suburbs of Minneapolis, so his best friend says he can crash in the empty apartment above the deli for free, and since Roy has no money left and his wife got the house in the divorce, he has no choice. So Roy is living, penniless, jobless and nearly friendless, in his old hometown, divorced at 49, and that's not a good time to start over from scratch on every front imaginable. And we've all been listening to Roy tell this story in far greater detail for nine minutes and thirty seconds, and there are tears in some people's eyes, because this poor guy has got the ultimate example of life kicking you in the balls. And then Roy ends his call with "And you know....there's a lot more niggers around here then there used to be." You've never seen eyes dry up so fast in your life. The moral of the story is this: Even racists have really bad days. And if that's not comforting... what is?
posted by
Christopher Bird at 9:57 PM
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