Soo...I start a new job Monday at *cough* Cendant *cough, cough*

It's not that I'm ashamed...

Well, maybe it is.

I don't think I'm above call centre work. And I don't think there's necessarily anything wrong with it. Everyone's gotta live. And that means everyone's gotta make money. And call centres happen to provide that means. Mostly brainless work and for more than $6.70 an hour.

I'll take that.

I guess it's just the stigma attached to call centres that bothers me. When I go home to Miramichi and my parents' friends ask, "So what are you up to these days?" saying "Oh, I'm working at a call centre" just doesn't demand the same respect as "Oh, I'm finishing up my B.A. and applying to grad schools."

That doesn't mean one is necessarily more fulfilling than the other. There's certainly no great benefit to studying something I have no interest in, but I still can't get beyond all the connotations associated with call centre workers: that they're derelicts, spineless 20-somethings, those with no strong moral values, no sense of self, phone monkeys, those willing to do anything for a paycheque a few dollars above minimum wage, salespeople of the worst kind who spend their eight-hour shifts eating cheesies and surfing the web while simultaneously talking people into services they don't want...

(Oi.)

Now, I know that's not all true. And that call centres aren't all bad. Someone's got to take car/hotel reservations. And they're a good opportunity for people who didn't have a chance for postsecondary education to make something more than slave wages.

They're also, I'm told, a good place to figure things out. And I definitely need to figure things out.

It's been about a month since I decided to take a year off school. A month of no classes. A solid month of resumes, cover letters and interviews. A month of open days. A month to figure out what I want to do with my life.  

But I'm still not sure.

A month to figure out what I should devote the next 45 years of life doing.

Hmm...

Maybe it'll take two months.