Roger

When I was at BYU, I worked a few hours a week for Sears. I was in this HUGE call center where I would schedule repairs for people who called. It was awful! They were already mad that their appliance was broken and then I had to tell them how long it would be before it could be fixed and then try to sell them laundry detergent! Oh, it was not fun.

And then for several horrible weeks from when I passed the Virginia bar to when I started another job, I worked several temp jobs. One awful temp job was in Washington, D.C. where the company I was working for tried to stir up grass-roots action on several legislative items. It was my job to call small business owners and try to get them to sign a statement of support for a bill under consideration by Congress. Ugh. It was horrible.

I swore after those jobs that I would try to be nice to people that called because you just never knew who you were talking to and why they had that job.

And then there was yesterday. . .

A telemarketer has been calling the house every other day for about two weeks now. He always asks to talk to Garry. And I always tell him that (surprise! surprise!) Garry is not home at noon. He has a very very heavy Middle Eastern accent and so usually I do not understand everything he says. But yesterday he started his discussion by telling me that his name was Roger.

Whoa. Did you just claim that your name was Roger?

Holding on to my previous commitment, it took all the strength I had to hold my tongue and say that there was no way on Allah's green earth that his name was Roger. As it was, I may have guffawed. Loudly.

I make no promises for being so disciplined when he calls tomorrow. Roger.