Strang Types Of Bonding

This morning, my boss walked into my cube and called my cube-neighbor over. That never, ever means something good is going to happen. Our general manger declared that the organization was going to call every single person who walked up to the box office or ordered tickets online in 2009. A list was compiled, and several thousand names were on it. It was broken up amongst our sales people late last week. I emphasized with them, it was a large, daunting task that would probably suck for them. Little did I know, it would suck for all of us.

My boss gave us the rundown. The entire marketing department was going to be given a couple of hundred names apiece. Even me, our media/pr guy. I guess the Web site and social networking sites would have to wait. Holiday charity program? Forget it - there were calls to be made.

For the record, my boss did tell me that any of our usual tasks took precedence over calls.

We had a handy instruction sheet that told us to expect 90 percent of the calls to result in voicemails. We were not doing hard selling, we wanted to let people know that we had ticket plans available for 2010. If they were interested, we would explain a couple of plans (pushing our holiday ticket package) and direct them to the Web site. My boss told us to shoot for 60 or so calls a day, with a goal of finishing our lists by Wednesday.

When I got my list, is was roughly 185 names. It could have been worse, the other marketing folks were looking at 250.

If it was 90 percent voicemails, I could probably do it. I read through the script for voicemails a couple of times, and dial the first number. Hello real person that doesn't like telemarketers calling your cell phone, meet someone who is really not prepared to talk to a real person. Please enjoy a couple of moments of awkward conversation before you hang up on me. Well, the first one was a complete disaster, but at least it was out of the way. I'd knock out a couple of voicemails, get a rhythm going, and be done with my 60 in no time. It couldn't get worse than the first one, right?

The second number was also a real person, and I still wasn't ready for actual interaction. Another disaster. Sigh.

The next few were voicemails, and then I found a groove, and then I started humming. I stopped for a bit and wandered around the office for a while. All my fellow grunts were surprised that I had to do calls. They were even more surprised I wasn't surly about it. I guess I have a tendency to get a little crabby when things I do not think I should be responsible for are pushed on me (see also 8 a.m. Louie appearances an hour or more away from the stadium).

What I did not tell my co-workers was that it was one more thing I could use to pad my resume, and it was a doozie. Cold-calling. Sales. Now I have experience. I am that much more valuable to any potential employer. Not that I am really looking to move on at the moment, but a Tom has to keep his options open.

Not only did I embrace the opportunity to make calls, I wanted to bury the task. My boss said make 60 calls. I wanted to do 120. I had to break my calls into different sections, because I did have actual responsibilities tied to my job that I had to attend to (such as sending out about 50 Facebook friend requests, and believe it or not, that takes time). I got into a friendly rivalry with another guy in the office who beats me in every fantasy sport the office does. He was shooting for 100.

All in all, I hit it pretty hard. At the end of the day, I finished a mere five calls behind my adversary. He made 90, I made 85.

While calling is not fun, I guess it is an integral part of the industry. I did some griping to the sales people about how much their job sucks, and I think they appreciated the sentiment. It certainly gave me some perspective on their positions, where calling is a regular duty.

That was bonding with the office. When you have as many people that dislike each other as much as our office does, you take what you can get.

After work, I went to the gym for the first time in forever. Two months maybe? I am not sure, I have been at GameStop so much during the off-season, I have not really thought about it. I got ripped as hell, the end.

Well, not quite, it was a pathetic work out and I am all kinds of out of shape. After a long, hot shower I was feeling pretty good so I went to the grocery store. I already spaghetti and meatballs at home, and I picked up a big loaf of french bread and some salad stuff. I went home and cooked Spaghetti Feast for my roommates, and one of the broke out a bottle of wine that had been left behind at a party at our place. It was the first time the three of us had done anything together outside of getting ridiculous at one of our parties. It was a good time.

One day, two huge bonding experiences. Just another day in the life of "the" Tom.