Well, my contract assignment at Sarcom ended (for the time being) last week, so this week I've been scraping and clawing for ways to keep the wife and me in the apartment, and the electricity turned on, etc.
Today, that way was to report to some phone bank to do survey work.
Only today, the work was not actually a survey in the strictest sense. Some group of lawyers opposed to some tort reform in Ohio wanted to canvas Republican districts (only) and connect people to their legislators' offices and leave messages stating their opposition to this Senate bill.
Well, the script was filled with evocative language like "warning" people about "extreme legislation" that "helps drunk drivers, rapists and child molesters" "escape responsibility" for their illegal actions.
Even tweaking the script to be a bit more even-handed (such as "informing" people and allowing them to "voice their concerns" about the bill), I still felt dirty, sending 90-year-old widows to their representative's voice mail so they could say they don't want rapists to get out of jail or whatever. I appreciate that there are two sides to a bill, and I respect their efforts to motivate people to become involved in the legislative process, but blind phone calls (targeting "red" disctricts) to private homes from perfect strangers, trying to give them a 30-second primer on complicated legislation... unleashing a flood of uninformed voters runs counter to everything I was trying to do in the weeks leading up to the election.
I'm going to hell. I know it. Straight to hell. Do not pass Go, do not collect $200. Fired. Off the island. No substitutions, exchanges or refunds.
So I figure if I'm already doomed to eternal damnation for about $40 worth of labor, I might as well do it up right, like Lt. Col. Frank Slade in Scent of a Woman. Shack up at the Waldorf-Astoria, eat a $24 hamburger, make love to a beautiful woman, then blow my brains out. Who's with me?
Today, that way was to report to some phone bank to do survey work.
Only today, the work was not actually a survey in the strictest sense. Some group of lawyers opposed to some tort reform in Ohio wanted to canvas Republican districts (only) and connect people to their legislators' offices and leave messages stating their opposition to this Senate bill.
Well, the script was filled with evocative language like "warning" people about "extreme legislation" that "helps drunk drivers, rapists and child molesters" "escape responsibility" for their illegal actions.
Even tweaking the script to be a bit more even-handed (such as "informing" people and allowing them to "voice their concerns" about the bill), I still felt dirty, sending 90-year-old widows to their representative's voice mail so they could say they don't want rapists to get out of jail or whatever. I appreciate that there are two sides to a bill, and I respect their efforts to motivate people to become involved in the legislative process, but blind phone calls (targeting "red" disctricts) to private homes from perfect strangers, trying to give them a 30-second primer on complicated legislation... unleashing a flood of uninformed voters runs counter to everything I was trying to do in the weeks leading up to the election.
I'm going to hell. I know it. Straight to hell. Do not pass Go, do not collect $200. Fired. Off the island. No substitutions, exchanges or refunds.
So I figure if I'm already doomed to eternal damnation for about $40 worth of labor, I might as well do it up right, like Lt. Col. Frank Slade in Scent of a Woman. Shack up at the Waldorf-Astoria, eat a $24 hamburger, make love to a beautiful woman, then blow my brains out. Who's with me?
