Living in Miami Beach Florida in 2001, I found myself in the difficult position where I was over-qualified for most jobs I applied for. Having only Swedish job references was also a problem, as most employers were too lazy to check overseas references, which meant I had to apply for jobs that were way beneath my work experience/skills and most of those employers realized that I would not stay with the company, once I found a job that I was more qualified for. Catch 22. I was damned if I did and damned if I didn’t. But I still needed to pay for rent, utilities and food, so I had to settle for what I could get and not a job I was qualified for… Out of principal, I refused to work at MC Donald’s or other fast food restaurants.
Found an advertisement in the job section of the local paper one day for a job as a phone a rep for an “entertainment company”, which meant working for a 1-800 number, selling phone sex… Figured, how hard could that be?? Having worked as an Exotic dancer and Escort for quite a few years, from the age of about 15 years old… Talking dirty on the phone, at least meant I didn’t have to have actual physical sex with God knows what/who… Applied for the job, went in for an interview, Auditioned for a fake sex phone call and I was hired on the spot…
I’ll admit that it was weird sitting in a crowded office landscape with perhaps 100+ girls, boys, older men and older women (Granny’s) which were way beyond pension age, which sat there talking/moaning on their phones, knitting cute little outfits for their grandkids, or filling out crossword puzzles while talking dirty on the phone, acting as if they were 18-year-old girls… First few calls were quite difficult, as you had to keep the customer interested but not so interested that he came in his pants after a sexy “hello”… I had a spreadsheet in front of me with different codes, which described what type of girl the client wanted to talk to… couples, transsexual, granny, dominatrix or whatever. Basically, their imagination was the limit and from the second the phone rang and you received the code for what type of phone call the client wanted, you had about 2 seconds to get yourself into the role/character of whatever they wanted… 18 year old school girl, girl next door, older married woman looking for adventure, pre-op transsexual, dominatrix, various fetishes and more… First calls, I of course crashed and burned…. Next problem I experienced, was that I sounded way too sexy on the phone, so after hello, I would just hear a moan and they’d hang up… Now, I know that I have a very sexy voice and that I’m also a very good actress. Have had MUCH training in that department… After a few awkward first days the phone calls became easier and automatic. You’d get the ghostly pre-recorded automatic voice over the phone when you’d picked up the receiver, telling you what type of phone call the client was paying for and off you went, trying your best to keep the client on-line for as long as you could, as you get paid for every minute you manage to keep them online… Yeah, you have a base salary as well but, that isn’t much…
I do remember some phone calls both sexual as well as the wonderful conversations I had with lonely men that just wanted someone to talk to and couldn’t care less if they got the sexy girl, or just someone who would listen to their problems. Loved those phone calls…. Especially one man who would call back on regular base and put in my rep number, as I was the one he wanted to talk to…. His name was Jack. Now when you work for a sex phone company it is illegal to gather any kind of information regarding the client you were talking to but after about 19 calls with the same man, it was more or less impossible not to remember is private info. I however respected the rules of the company and didn’t make any attempt to contact him outside of my job.
Seriously, I have never understood men… How in the hell can they believe that these 1-800 phone calls are for real? To be totally blunt, when most of you guys get an erection, your brains turn to mush and you think only with the head between your legs… These girls are actresses and get paid by the minute to keep you on the line for as long as possible, faking every moan. They are sitting in tiny cubicles in an office type setting, amongst hundreds of other girls/guys/whatever, talking dirty and moaning into their phones…
I had worked as a phone ho/rep for about 5 months when the boss called me to his desk one day. I had no idea why and suspected the worst of course… It turned out quite the opposite, as he offered me a promotion accepting/verifying credit cards/checks/age verification instead of having to talk sex on the phone. Or as he put it, he realized that I was over qualified for the job I was doing and believed I had the qualifications necessary of doing a more advanced job within the company… I jumped at the chance to get away from the sex talk and the day after I was working in the credit card verification department instead. Pay raise as well as a much calmer work environment. Worked in that department for about 3 months when things got really bad between my son and I and I crashed mentally and My PTSD exploded within me, causing me not be able to drive myself to work or be calm and not let my PTSD demons get the best of me. Put in my resignation and left, as the situation I was in was impossible to handle with both job and personal demons.
Once I had quit my job at the phone sex company, I tracked down Jack whom I had spent many hours talking to, as well as him paying many $$$ in credit card payments just to talk to me about everyday things going on in his life… Everything from his domestic problems to his problems at work… Joined a list he had on Yahoo which I had remembered the name of and after about 2 weeks of belonging to this list and assuring myself that he was legit, I wrote him a long letter, telling him who I was and that I no longer worked on the phone sex line. I also gave him my private, unlisted cell phone number and told him that he was welcome to call me for free whenever he needed to talk to someone, as I really and honestly enjoyed our conversations. He was quite shocked that I had managed to find him and it took about 3 days before he answered me. After that, we would talk nearly every day for hours and over time became good friends. Non-sexual good friends…
To be continued…
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Fighting My PTSD Demons 