working at this call center

it's a physically horrible place full of ugly people wearing ugly clothes eating food that smells horrible  sitting in uncomfortable chairs.

the polls on approval ratings and such, by the way, are courtesy of minimum wage "data collection specialists" reading verbatim endlessly redundant and insultingly simplified questionnaires to people over the phone, tirelessly clarifying whether someone really "approves" or "disapproves" of "public schools." one can't talk to the person in any meaningful way outside of the words listed on the screen so as not to risk subtly biasing them. it's a job crying out for automation—if only we could celebrate the coming of the robots and not mourn for the loss of all manner of shitty work for wretched people because we've got a market economy in which people have to punch themselves in the face for a wage.

the surveying is kind of interesting though.  my first night's was about political issues for wisconsinites. their age, religion, means, stance on gun rights/control, immigration, borrowing, tax cuts, public schools, charter schools, etc. people's opinions on this stuff is remarkably piecemeal. i mean, i just talked to 5 people for about 20 minutes each. but the sheer lack of "ideology" in 'em, as in, some kind of coherent world view, was kind of amazing. the people i surveyed to seemed to see the world through the prism of What They Need In Their Little Life. something was either helping or hurting their household budget IN THE MOST IMMEDIATE SENSE, and that was the singular grounds for judging it. it was like government programs were an extension of their shopping list.

this was cheering and also kind of horrifying. cheering because people aren't ossified in some duped conception of the world, dogmatic about what something is. they just judge it on how it affects them. everybody was stoked on tax cuts. people laughed out loud when asked about tax cuts. i mean, fucking of course! that means my taxes are lower and that i personally have more money. i'd be curious to know how that reflexive response has changed, or not, over the years—whether everybody's always been so coarsely self interested. a big part of that, doubtless, is poor people who simply need more money, and the desperate obviousness of a tax cut cannot but appeal to them. can't fault them.

but there's often no ideology, no big picture, no vision. there's the simple insistence that government be the big version of your small life, something to pay for things you need and nothing else. the biggest abstraction i imagine somebody'd stand for, a thing deeply apart from their own life, is a good ol' war, and even that is probably connected up with their kids or their family history, is good jobs in the community and so forth. this leads to a lot of inconsistencies and silliness. there are a lot of minds to be won in this country, and they don't put up much of a fight.

this all reminds me of sarah describing campaigning for obama in iowa. she said people there basically said "make me an offer." they wanted something for themselves, for their state, for their support. this seems reasonable enough, what with pork and winning federal dollars for your state, and so forth. but it's a pretty insane idea in the end, and a very small minded one.

other notes: everybody's gotta swab down the keyboards and phones with rubbing alcohol before the shift. people are often yelling "pass the alcohol" which is funny but i guess it's happened too much now. people are treated like children, told to sit in their seats, told how to sit in their seats, told when they can go on break. you can go to the bathroom whenever you like, but if you take your cell phone it's cause for immediate dismissal. no cell phones in the bathroom. the computer times how long you've been away from your desk. the job pays $7.50 an hour. ALSO—how, statistically, do pollsters account for survey respondents being people who'll spend at least 15 minutes on the phone going through a survey? how does that not hopelessly skew the results toward the politics of people who are losers? is the loser demographic representative of this nation as a whole?