the restart room

After working at CUTCO, selling the world's finest set of cutlery, I found a telemarketing job at a place called The Restart Room. The office was really close to my apartment and San Diego State University, the college I was attending at that time. Although I was not thrilled at the prospect of telemarketing, I had a really flexible schedule and had the opportunity to pull in a decent hourly wage if I could hit my bonus.

The job itself was pretty brainless. I called past newspaper subscribers from all over the country and tried to get them to renew their subscriptions. We wore head sets and read scripts off computer monitors. If we could renew 3 subscriptions per hour, we would bonus. The sales manager kept track of everyone's sales on a big white board in the center of the office with our initials and hash marks.

The people that worked there was the most interesting part of the job. Most of the people that worked there did not want to be face to face with the public for whatever reason. You had the very overweight man with thick glasses who was the funniest and nicest person you would ever meet, the OCD Puerto Rican who always made the most sales and perfected the art of gloating and my favorite friend Manny, who was in a wheel chair but was one of the happiest people I have had the pleasure of knowing. He made working fun, we usually sat next to each other and we would play cards, Scrabble and even Monopoly to pass the time. I remember he used to bring in homemade ceviche, it was so delicious! When I wasn't playing games, I was studying and doing homework.

Granted, I don't want to go back to telemarketing but I did enjoy my time at The Restart Room. I left after my first year of college when I moved back to Los Angeles for a short time before my highly anticipated move to New York City.