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Yes, God yes. Every weekday morning I drive to a huge glass and metal corporate complex, swipe my plastic id through the card reader, pop open the locked down door, say hi to the eighty-year old security guard at the front desk, (God only knows what she is supposed to do should a security emergency arise, but at least she's friendly), walk up three flights of stairs to my six-foot square beige cubicle, plug in my headset, sign into the computer, then proceed to listen to verbal abuse for eight hours straight.

I am the person at the other end of that 1-800 customer service number. You know the one I mean; the one that has a sixteen tier phone menu that loops back onto itself so many times that when you finally get a human being (me), the veins are bulging out of your neck and forehead, your face is beet red, and your voice has gotten eight decibels louder and ten times faster. And that's if you are basically a nice person the rest of the time. Trust me, lots of people are NOT basically nice people the rest of the time, and I get to listen to them too.

I first started doing this kind of work six years ago after an unpleasant set of circumstances left me jobless at forty-eight years of age in one of the most economically depressed regions of the United States. I had heard that call center work could sometimes pay well and was fairly easy to get, and I found that to be true. I got an interview. I got hired. On the spot.

From the beginning I made decent money. I got regular raises and bonuses year after year. My medical and other benefits have been excellent. I have also gained twenty pounds, a phenomenon so typical at call centers that researchers have actually coined at term for such workplaces: "obesogenic". It's what happens when you make people sit in front of computer screens, immobile, for hours and hours without interruption, and then reward them with fattening foods like pizza, doughnuts, and chocolate. They puff up. Fast. I also have carpal tunnel syndrome and TMJ, stress-related chronic pain problems that I never had before I started doing this. I have recurring nightmares about not being able to sign in to my computer on time. Weirdly, I mentioned this once at work and found that nearly all of my coworkers have the same recurring nightmare.

Before I started out working at call centers my confidence was at low ebb, and I was easily intimidated. But after about six months on the job, something in me snapped. I realized that really, the whole thing was absolutely

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