8:10 a.m., background music: Bernard Herrmann's score for "Vertigo." The sun shines through the leopard paterned home sewn curtains. My fingers are cold, chilled through as they nakedly thud against the hard plastic of the keyboard to make these symbols speed across the whitened expanse of notepad like a white rabbit with diarhea rapidly hopping across a snowy plain. The outlook for the day is sunny and warm, 80^o. Of course I'll be inside a computer training room in Burbank with satan's air conditioner in charge of my comfort.

Am I already complaining about having a job after only two days of work behind me when all I did before getting the job was complain about not having a job? No, no. Definitely not. After the week is up I will be, but not quite yet. Yesterday training segued into the realm of behavioural thought conditioning. "Everyone get in line for Re-Neducation!" The hooks came down and pryed our smiles up. Happy thoughts! Think happy thoughts!! A long discussion is held on attitude and how to think in positive terms about yourself and others more than in negative terms. The standard positive thoughts, percentage-wise, for a day comes out to 20%, negative, 80%. Then we are given a list of supposed negative words and told to rank their negative intensity. We are told to do the same for a list of positive words.

Please Note: I shouldn't be writing about this online since it is either proprietary information of AT&T or TeleTech.

Basically, they're pushing some bizarre form of high self-image generation through positive thinking. Originally I was going to say they were promoting self empowerment through positive thinking, but I think what is being empowered is TeleTech and not any one given person's self. After this exercise of positive thinking, but not too soon after (don't want to make the cattle suspect a wrangling) we are again told about the great opputunities for advancement within TeleTech and all the lateral moves we are also capable of to avoid burn out because anyone experiencing burn out is most likely a gall-darn negative nillie. It's not the job. It's not the cubicle. It's not not getting holiday's off to be with family or friends. It's you and your negative thoughts, always believing the world is out to get you and believing that TeleTech is out to get you, and why would TeleTech be out to get you or exploit you?

The day of the robots continued with such avoidances of crass language as "H-E-double hockey sticks." TeleTech has made the robots afraid to say "hell" in front of a classroom full of, mostly, adult males all over 21. I have one for them I'm waiting to unleash and it goes like this, "Well, F-horseshoe-halfmoon-K you, A-crooked letter-crooked letter-old fashioned goal posts-doughnut-hockey stick-E!!" Fear the words. The amount of talk going on about how much TeleTech loves all people no matter what sex, religion or color you are is what I find disturbing. I thought that simply had to be the case. I suspect some old discrimination and sexual harassment lawsuits lurking in TeleTech's past.

My pre-work day should be much more productive than yesterday's. I have the time for Crime and Punishment, which everyone at TeleTech is very interested in,
"Whatcha readin'?"
"Is that a good book?"
"whoa, Dostoevsky. What're ya readin' that for?"
"Do you have any change I could borrow? Oh hey! Dost..."
and get done with the story of a teste in the afterlife and get back on the long story and the monkeys. My doctoral thesis: "The work environment as indoctrinating cult."

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