telesales is a miserable, dead end occupation. You do seem to go through these dross jobs you keep getting, Tom; have you considered that you're flogging a dead horse somewhat? Surely you'd be better off just finding something that you really enjoy doing, getting good at it, and trading that as your skill?

I'm not being patronising, I'm speaking from experience. i have had lots of jobs, good, bad, and indifferent. I don't blame you for walking out, lotd knows I've doen that more than a few times, but unless you get some specific skills and experience, you'll be stuck in a succession of dead end jobs which will just continue to make you miserable. Working for a living is never a laugh a minute endeavour, but you'll get no job satisfaction out of these rubbish jobs and you'll just drift from one to another. I've done the same when things have been tight, but then I have a family to provide for so sometimes I have no choice. I've cleaned toilets, swept floors, done boring data entry, even <gasp> some telesales although i was rubbish at it. Fortunately I have sufficient skills and experience in IT and a natural enthusiasm for the task which means that even though I might be doing rubbish for a while to fill in, something decent comes along eventually.

Times are hard though; we've been heading into a recession for sometime, despite the blind optimism of our erstwhile leaders on both sides of the water.

Pete, that's the reason I'm going back to school. I should have done it a long time ago, but I was too damn bullheaded to see what needed to be done. No more. Granted, a certificate for network administration won't guarantee a job, but it'll open up more opportunities than if I didn't get one. As for the job I just walked out on, I won't lose any sleep over it. The reason I have to go for these s**tty jobs, is because there isn't much else out here for someone who doesn't have a college education. That's what I'm hoping to change for myself. I do appreciate your advice, though. I always do. It's always nice to get some perspective from someone who's been around the block more times than I have.

get a Cisco qualification (and some experience, even if it means working for nish for a while) - once you've got that, you'll never be short of work. Contract you can earn stacks, really coin it in.

I think the only telemarketing job I would even consider would be selling adult toys, surely I could meet some interesting characters

Only you, Mr. Potato, would offer to take such a job. :p

Dude, telemarketing is the probably the worst job in the world. You got hung up on with 95% of the calls you made didn't you? When a telemarketer calls my house, I simply answer and hang up, making the call last about 3/4 of a second.

(Sorry if I've hung up on one of you, but it sucks getting calls at six in the morning by some guy wanting to sell me something I'm never going to use.)

IF I NEEDED IT OR WANTED IT, I WOULD HAVE BOUGHT IT! I DON'T NEED YOU HARASSING ME UNTIL I BUY SOMETHING!

@Mee.....

What Pete and others said....

Cisco certification or maybe the MS one ... they don't require college degrees but they can be gut busters. Thing being they take less time to earn if done right. And, once earned, are as respectable if not more so than college degrees because of the more immediate practical expertise those certifications signify.

BUT, many employers scale the amount you can make in income based upon whether you have a college degree so, longterm, college degrees mean more moola. In your situation, maybe you can get the "better" paying job first with a Cisco cert., say, and then once employed go for your bachelors degree while working?

Way to go for going back to school.

@fleshguitar: Thanks dude. Good news on that part, I've just been accepted to my local college. I just need to fill out some small stuff before I can start registering for classes. But all is going well.
@Killa: I made about 5 or 6 calls before I called it quits. I had a real bad feeling about the job when I woke up yesterday. But I decided to go in anyway. What harm could it do? I didn't even last 2 hours. It wasn't the fact that they hung up on me, it was the fact I was trying to get them to at least register for information that they weren't going to use anyway. My mistake.

If it makes you feel any better Killa, I doubt they were trying to sell it to you I believe you need plastic to buy anything over the phone Correct me if I'm wrong *waits for wabbit to pop up cowwecting me*

Edited by - parabolix on 8/3/2006 10:02:42 AM

there's no need to wait for that long-eared purveyor of error and urban myth, my wabbit-hunting friend! Your Mullah, fount of information both useful and not-so-useful, can reliably inform you that in some cases, telephone sales are often paid for bu means other than the drastic plastic - direct debit from your bank account, for instance, or even Paypal (I've seen that a few times lately)

bp: adult toys like the full version of Scrabble with the really difficult spellings and high word scores?

Edited by - Tawakalna Qubt-ut Allah on 8/3/2006 11:25:01 AM

ever think of selling mattress's

wouldn't you get tempted to lie down on the job though?

Nah, you don't need school. Just become a male prostitute, it's almost impossible to fail at that.