What It Was Like Working For A Billion-Dollar Sham

[progressoid]

I typed that I was quitting into the AOL chat box. It was 2001. My manager wrote back, “Why?” I wrote a screed about ethics. She closed the chat window and vanished into cyberspace.

...

"Call me now!" Miss Cleo said in her fake Jamaican accent. The commercials for the Psychic Readers Network were ubiquitous and Miss Cleo was practically a household name. It was one of the few jobs that seemed legitimate (I use that word loosely). It didn’t require me to pay for my own training, like the “medical transcription” gigs I read about. And with Miss Cleo, I’d make my state’s minimum wage of $7.25 an hour. Considering that I did not have to get dressed or leave my apartment, it seemed like the perfect opportunity.

I cannot recall exactly how I applied, but I believe it was by email. Communications with my manager took place over AOL chat. I had one phone interview prior to being hired. The manager asked me if I had psychic abilities. I said something like, “Well, as a woman, I believe I have great intuition. Men don’t really have intuition, in my experience, so I’m more gifted than half the population.” She laughed and said, “Good enough.” That was that.

Training consisted of learning about Tarot cards and how to weave the meanings of the cards into stories. I bought two Tarot decks: the classic Rider-Waite deck and another which had the meanings and interpretations printed right on the cards (which turned out to be extremely helpful while on the phone). I learned the five-card spread, the Celtic cross, and the ellipse. I found templates online for various financial and relationship spreads. I learned about the Major and Minor Arcana. I memorized things to say about the Fool, the King of Cups, the Magician, the Tower, and so on. With the cards, and a manual of Tarot spreads, I trained myself for about two weeks before I took my first call. I did not have any one-on-one training or any practice calls, but I was warned that any caller could be a quality-control test — a fake caller from within the company could evaluate my performance at any time.

Before actually becoming a phone psychic, I imagined I would need to talk a lot during these calls. However, it turned out that most people who called were lonely and wanted someone to talk to. They had the stories to tell.

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http://www.refinery29.com/miss-cleo-psychic-readers-network-first-job

[Warpy]

1. The only complaint I ever had about those people was the price

Lonely rich people can pay psychiatrists to listen to them. Lonely poor people have no options but trying to buttonhole meter readers and calling telephone psychics.

This is an alienated, lonely culture. Miss Cleo offered the only friendly, understanding voice a lot of her customers ever heard. If she hadn't been bankrupting them with high per minute prices, chances are her employees would still be taking calls and praised for providing a service.