'Telemarketers' and 'How To With John Wilson' introduce us to a constellation of East Coast weirdos while making high art out of scruffiness and failure.
How to with John Wilson is one of the few shows I genuinely look forward to each week. Telemarketers is pretty great in its own right so far. As someone that worked for Discover card in a call center for 6 months in my early twenties that definitely hit the mark for me.
Not that Discover card was running these unabashed scams but there is a inherent griminess to calling unsuspecting people and trying to sell them on whatever. I made way more money for that 6 months then I was at other retail jobs at the time but after 6 months I felt genuinely bad about where I was working. There were definitely people in their 30's at Discover, that remind me of Pat Pepsas. Just could endlessly bullshit on a call and not be phased by people telling them to 'get a real job' or to drop dead. Thanks for the post Vinny. You are man of refined taste.
In the late 80's or maybe the very early 90's I worked briefly in the local call center for the Canadian Lung Association.
This job was notable because they had about a dozen employees stuffed into one room making calls when there was also available another smaller room right next to it that had 2 or 3 nice workstations but was completely empty.
The difference? The smaller room was the non-smoking room.
Yes, the folks working the phones for the Canadian Lung Association were all smoking on the job. The room was just a complete cloud of smoke and a cacophony of coughing while we were begging people to donate.
I don't know, I'm feeling a bit like these are just as hard to watch as their polar opposites such as shows about boutique bakery owners that are also amateur sleuths.
We had to go all the way to the mall for our Sbarro and we were damned happy to have it too. Up hill, both ways.
Possibly the only good detail of Entourage was that before he managed Vince E managed a Sbarros.
Food courts in almost-but-not-quite shuttered malls should be call Sbarrios.
How to with John Wilson is one of the few shows I genuinely look forward to each week. Telemarketers is pretty great in its own right so far. As someone that worked for Discover card in a call center for 6 months in my early twenties that definitely hit the mark for me.
Not that Discover card was running these unabashed scams but there is a inherent griminess to calling unsuspecting people and trying to sell them on whatever. I made way more money for that 6 months then I was at other retail jobs at the time but after 6 months I felt genuinely bad about where I was working. There were definitely people in their 30's at Discover, that remind me of Pat Pepsas. Just could endlessly bullshit on a call and not be phased by people telling them to 'get a real job' or to drop dead. Thanks for the post Vinny. You are man of refined taste.
Telemarketers gives me so many flashbacks to jobs I've had, down to the drug use on the call floor, and those awful scripts.
I think it might just be because I was coming into it depressed today, but holy shit did that last episode of "How To" really bum me out.
In the late 80's or maybe the very early 90's I worked briefly in the local call center for the Canadian Lung Association.
This job was notable because they had about a dozen employees stuffed into one room making calls when there was also available another smaller room right next to it that had 2 or 3 nice workstations but was completely empty.
The difference? The smaller room was the non-smoking room.
Yes, the folks working the phones for the Canadian Lung Association were all smoking on the job. The room was just a complete cloud of smoke and a cacophony of coughing while we were begging people to donate.
I don't know, I'm feeling a bit like these are just as hard to watch as their polar opposites such as shows about boutique bakery owners that are also amateur sleuths.