(November 1, 2006) — Students have a whole lot of different things to balance. Rigorous academics, teenage love, raging parents; mostly people—but what about work? Most high school students need or want a job, whether its to fund those extremely expensive articles of clothes, or a car (be it a piece of junk or G35) they need the money. But how does that fit in to the already hectic, filled plate of the normal high school student? I for one have experienced the horrors of trying to balance your work and play, a disaster that I must account, simply as a warning and advice to those getting ready to expand their dominion into the work place. So I present to you this humble memoir of my experience. It all started about the end of this summer, it was my very first job. A teenager has a very limited range of possible work positions. You have your food services, your retail, and your newspaper delivery—but I got stuck with the worst of the worst: telemarketing. It’s dinner time, serene and relaxing. You’re eating with your family after a hard day, some tranquility…finally. Something’s awry though. You hear the telephone ringing. RING RING RING; it doesn’t cease—it’s not a wrong number, you’re sure of it at this point. Your family signals for you to pick up the phone; it’s at the fourth ring as you rush to pick up the phone. “This better be important,” you think, tearing yourself from the harmonic moment. “Hi my name is Richard with ‘Annoy-You Corp and today we’re selling a great number of products— ” now following that dash is one of three things. The first and most common is a click (time to dial a new number); the next and very common is filled with loud voices and expletives, time to go cry in a corner; the last and extremely rare is a genuinely interested person, time to you can sell something. This a really just a general format of what can happen, but sometimes your faced with an extreme. “Hi my name is Richard with ‘Annoy-You Corp and today we’re selling a great number of products— ” “Excuse me sir, I’m in bed and I have no clothes on,” he moaned and sighed lustily. His hard breath hit my ear, my mouth was completely agape. It’s going to be a bad day—I know it now. Well guess what? I can’t hang-up and I have a weirdo middle-aged man in Colorado trying to solicit me: a poor, innocent, untouched, supple 16 year-old. I look to the ceiling, past the walls of my cubicle. I pray, pray for a click, a click to end this terror which is ruining my entire day—my life. CLICK. It’s done. I worked this job for two weeks during the school year before realizing that I couldn’t do it. Not just because I was almost sexually abused over the phone, but because it just really took it out of you. It was like putting myself, vulnerable, in front of every person in the world. It was like walking into a Star Trek convention dressed like a Stormtrooper (Don’t get it? Stormtroopers are from Star Wars…c’mon people) All nerdy similes aside, it really sucks, a lot. So I leave those ambitious enough to invest their time and energy in the workplace with a few pieces of advice. First, ask yourself—a lot—if it’s worth it. Do you really need that paycheck to enrich your material life? Next are you ready, no matter what job you get, to be possibly mentally abused by complete strangers? Last—and most importantly—never, I repeat NEVER get a job in telemarketing. Honestly, the industry is complete poppycock. So please if you get anything from this column, take that last piece of advice as seriously as you can.