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A good job for talking with real people is working as a telephone market researcher - basically a poller. You have a huge list of randomly generated phone numbe

A good job for talking with real people is working as a telephone market researcher - basically a poller. You have a huge list of randomly generated phone numbers, and a handful of questions about brands, current events, and politics, and you just call people randomly, asking what they feel and how they like subject X, Y, or Z. I worked as one for a month. It was a very enlightening experience - actually listening to what people wanted and felt - and answering to the hostile respondents as well. On any given day, I would talk to over 100 of my fellow citizens, and got them to tell me their income, what they felt about politicians and the law, which banks and credit cards they use, how they like their barbecue set up, how often they surf the web, which websites they repeatedly visit, etc. It was great fun at times - but a hard, grinder of a job - the turnover rate was massive.

Estragon 16y ago
Working on a suicide hotline was educational for roughly the same reasons.
woodall 16y ago
That really does sound like an awesome job. Was the grinding the reason you left? Did your opinions change after hearing other people's woes, or did it help to reaffirm them?
- barkingcat 16y ago
  The grind and performance targets were the reasons I left. That and the low pay. Every time you hear on CNN or on TV that according to so and so opinion poll or market research company ... it means that a whole army of pollers had to call a ton of people to get that information. The pressure is on to get a statistically meaningful sample, and there are tough time constraints. To make things even worst, you are encouraged to be automatons, and need to follow the script. It was a total grind. But it did change my opinion of people, their wealth, and how they know their world. I've spoken on the phone with people who routinely charge hundreds of thousands of dollars a month to their credit cards, and they'd turn out to know not much more about the world than the average joe in a suburban home, with 3 kids and a hospital bound spouse. The seniors are who you need to watch out for! They're smarter than every other age group, and know what you're after - they make you work for every answer. They don't hesitate to challenge whatever you ask - sniffing out trick questions and assumptions built into the surveys. And also offering the most amount of reasonably intelligent alternatives for tough questions and current events issues. My personal opinions about the issues at hand usually didn't change, but talking to people did teach me a ton. During the presidential elections, I got a professor of political science on the line, and he basically dissected the entire political landscape and tried to tell me why Obama would win. It didn't help me with the boss though - they were concerned that I was spending too much time on the call.

Estragon 16y ago

Working on a suicide hotline was educational for roughly the same reasons.

woodall 16y ago

That really does sound like an awesome job. Was the grinding the reason you left? Did your opinions change after hearing other people's woes, or did it help to reaffirm them?

barkingcat 16y ago
The grind and performance targets were the reasons I left. That and the low pay. Every time you hear on CNN or on TV that according to so and so opinion poll or market research company ... it means that a whole army of pollers had to call a ton of people to get that information. The pressure is on to get a statistically meaningful sample, and there are tough time constraints. To make things even worst, you are encouraged to be automatons, and need to follow the script. It was a total grind. But it did change my opinion of people, their wealth, and how they know their world. I've spoken on the phone with people who routinely charge hundreds of thousands of dollars a month to their credit cards, and they'd turn out to know not much more about the world than the average joe in a suburban home, with 3 kids and a hospital bound spouse. The seniors are who you need to watch out for! They're smarter than every other age group, and know what you're after - they make you work for every answer. They don't hesitate to challenge whatever you ask - sniffing out trick questions and assumptions built into the surveys. And also offering the most amount of reasonably intelligent alternatives for tough questions and current events issues. My personal opinions about the issues at hand usually didn't change, but talking to people did teach me a ton. During the presidential elections, I got a professor of political science on the line, and he basically dissected the entire political landscape and tried to tell me why Obama would win. It didn't help me with the boss though - they were concerned that I was spending too much time on the call.