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Telemarketers are like cockroaches, there is an abundance of them and all you want to do is get rid of them. But as an employed person, I have to take a step back and remember that telemarketers are not cockroaches. They are people who are trying to earn a living so they can put food on the table and clothes on their backs. With that in mind I try not to be outright hostile when the phone rings just as my fork attempts to deliver my tasty dinner to my open mouth.

Ok, I will admit that my first job was in the telemarketing industry. I was sixteen years old and my parents were going to buy me a car. I don't think I can even express the excitement that consumed my body and soul when I found out. Then my parents broke the news. There was a catch. My car wasn't for my driving pleasure. It was so I could get to work and back without them having to drive me. Work? Who said anything about work? I wasn't planning to work at the age of sixteen but my parents had other ideas. I needed to learn the value of earning a dollar. I had to get used to working because it was an activity I was sure to be participating in for the next fifty years. If I wanted that car, I had better find a job.

What kind of place would hire a teenager? My search was half-hearted because we had just picked up the car from the lot. I didn't realize that I wasn't allowed to drive the machine until I had said job. I began the search anew and found that several other girls from my high school were employed as telemarketers by a photo studio. If they could do it, I could do it. I marched right over to get an application and was hired on the spot. There was no interview, no promise of a call to discuss employment. It was pretty much a when can you start conversation.

I had my job and now I could have my car. I went the following day to my office in my new (well, pre-owned) vehicle and reported for duty. The first day would be training. I expected to be taken into a training room where I would be given a manual and learn the products. In fact, I was taken into a large room that was crammed with desks and people. Each desk was outfitted with a phone, a phone book, a laminated script and a call list. My "training" was sitting next to one of the worker bees and listen to them call people.

Prior to that evening, I had no idea what I would be selling. Turns out that I was selling portrait packages to random people. It was literally opening a phone book, pointing to name and dialing the number hoping that someone

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