I started the worst summer job ever. I'm working for charities (Fondation de France, Médecins du Monde -- Doctors of the World) to collect donations by phone. It's 450 phone calls a day harrassing people and trying to persuade them to give some money to your cause, whether it's homeless people, funding research for cancer, or another fundamentally great thing. Everything is calculated : if you are late for 3 minutes, it's written down, if you are late 5 times by 3 minutes, you lose a quarter of an hour of pay. Everything is registered and they can listen what you are saying when they want. We all have the same names. I'm Simon Rollin when I'm calling, and every girl is Emilie Quentin. We have a script to follow -more or less- and we have to say the exact same thing almost everytime. Sometimes, it's emotionally heavy because you can hear a grandma explaining to you for 15 minutes all the horror of her life. You are the only person who can be here for her, so you aren't going to finish the call even if your boss asks you so. Sometimes, you asks to speak to dead people. At another moment, you asks people with great heart who have a little pension to give some of that to a great cause, even if it's going to be hard financially for them.
Anyway, I think I'm going to finish this week and the one after that and call it a day. It's not for me and I don't understand how in 2015 we are still requiring that kind of work to let charities be fonctional. We should built up a website with clear and concise actions/goals by charities and transparent financial reports and let people give what they want, not harrassing them. It's a never-ending process : We are calling everyone. You don't know us ? Here's our great actions ! Could you help us ? You gave us some money ? Well, it's been 3 months since your last donation ! We are really thankful and we are just going to remind you our actions, blablabla, can you help us some more ? Great ! Hey, it's us again, here's what we do again ! This time, do you think you can help us every months ? Would 10 euros per month be conceivable ? Hello, It's Simon Rollin again ! Blablabla - You are helping us 10 euros per month, do you think you can help us 5 euros more per month ? Astounding, we thank you for your generosity ! Hey you ! It's another charity. Oh you give some money to them every month ? It's great. Why don't you listen to our great actions and help us too ! And so on.
On another note, I'm accepted in a really great French Business School (EM Lyon) and it more or less gives me almost every opportunity I want, which is great since I want to work as a consultant for 2-3 years and as a project manager on innovation in the energy industry after that (the idea might evolve, but I think it's going to be that).
I like that you buried getting into EMLYON after all that horrid stuff :D Congrats man, that's great news– I hope you make the best use of those opportunities. As for the summer job, considering all the craziness that your management has got itself caught up in, it seems like a great opportunity to subtly fuck around with your job. Is there always someone listening in? Maybe you can have fun with it, or relieve tension when you're on the phone– talk casually and in a friendly way instead of a rushed and oppressed summer employee, it does wonders surprisingly. I've had to write a ton of e-mails recently, that are all very awkward to write (asking for letters of recommendation, organizing meetings and schedules and appointments, talk to college admissions, etc.) and it's one of the most uncomfortable things I've ever had to do. Then I started dropping the annoying formalities and (still being respectful and appropriate) I wrote the e-mails like I would speak to the person out loud. It made everything much easier, and I even started getting better responses from everyone I spoke to. Good luck!