February 15, 2002 | 11:40 AM

7C) ### Thurston Street*

INTERVIEWER:

I have a question.

ME:

Yeah. Go ahead.

INTERVIEWER:

This survey is really fucking stupid.

And so went a typical New Market Research Project Training at The Stupid Company.

I swear. It never ceases to amaze me how asinine Corporate America can be. Once, some twee-suited Shit-For-Brains actually paid the Stupid Company good money to call random consumers and ask them the following question:

So what do you typically wear while you are ironing?

WHY?

Why do we live in a society that rewards this kind of idiocy?

The worst thing about being a Supervisor at The Stupid Company is that you were (or rather I was) in Big Trouble if during training you said to the Interviewers,

This survey is retarded but lets all just suck it up and make the phone calls, �kay?

Oops.

Angus and I were in charge of the night crew, and Collin and Seth ruled over during the day. Collin was the Director of Data Collection, and Seth was Senior Manager of Data Collection. Angus and I were lowly Supervisors.

The Interviewers ran the gamut from college students working part time to semi-retarded old ladies to slacker alcoholics. There were many different personalities to deal with, but they all had one thing in common.

They all hated working there.

My primary job was to hire, train, and monitor the progress of the interviewers. Oh, and to edit and proofread their work since it was usually carelessly executed and laden with errors.

Like all Supervisors, I was promoted from the ranks, and I was close personal friends with a lot of the interviewers. I had behaved badly in the past just the way they behaved badly. The interviewer job was so fucking boring there was no way you couldn�t slack off eventually. I had changed my ways and as a supervisor I worked very very hard. But I knew what it was like to be an interviewer. It downright sucked. So my MO was to be real easy going, and only pull out the Big Guns if somebody was really fucking up, or if they were treating myself or anyone else like shit. I don�t tolerate rudeness yo�. I just don�t.

My methods actually worked well. I knew how to needle and cajole. I knew how to reward. I knew when to take shit and when to give it. The completion rates on my projects were always high.

I knew the Interviewers got high on break. I knew that none of them could ever get their asses in on time. I didn�t care. My motto was, just get your god damned work done and you have the run of the house. Make things easy for me and I�ll make things easy for you.

This was not Angus�s motto.

His motto might have been something like:

ACHTUNG MEIN INTERVIEWERS!!!!

It�s funny because for a total misfit who once woke up laying face down on the floor of a boiler room after drinking 13 hours straight and not remembering how he got there, Angus sure as shit took �Actionable Teleresearch� awfully seriously.

If people were late he would want to send them home.

If people were talking �too much� he would yell at them to stop.

If people were making personal phone calls without asking he would write them up.

If people had been noisy the day before, he would assign their seats the next day.

So we warred with each other over policy. This warring was intensified by the fact that we had slept together, and there were some as yet unresolved issues.

Still all in all it was a good gig. From August of 1998- September of 1999, I didn�t have a whole lot to complain about at The Stupid Company. I was surrounded by friends. Work was like one big social hour. I loved everyone there. They were crazy, arty, and fun. My social calendar was always full and I had The Stupid Company to thank.

This was John�s senior year in college and he worked as an interviewer part time. It was kinda strange being his boss but he wasn�t there all that often so it wasn�t a big deal.

Collin told me I was doing a good job, that my biggest strength was being good with people.

Anna�s really good with people.

Everyone always said that.

Back then I was thrilled. The Daddy Figure I tried Desperately Hard to Impress said I was good with people! The Stupid Company liked me! They really liked me!

The problem was that was all they saw.

Good with people.

Good with people.

Never mind that I organized all the files and reworked the attendance system.

Never mind that I consistently volunteered to work overtime whenever it was needed.

Never mind that I volunteered to be in charge of the toughest projects and edited Open ends �til the cows came home.

Never mind that I called a spade a spade and actually told people when they weren�t doing something correctly.

I was Good with People

Much later I realized the subtext inherent in that label.

Much later I realized that Being Good With People = Not Being Taken Seriously-- as a human being or as an employee of The Stupid Company.

Do you wanna know why I was considered so fucking Good With People?

BECAUSE I�M A FUCKING GIRL. THAT�S WHY.

And as everybody knows, Girls at work are good for two things.

1) Ogling

2) Being Good with People

God, I still hate that god damned fucking Stupid Company so much. I wish it would burn to the fucking ground.

Stay Tuned for Part the Twentieth...

* Yeah yeah�I know my apartment isn�t mentioned once in this entry, but it�s about the job I had while at the apartment. That counts right? Just trying to flesh things out for y�all

Hey, if you wandered into the saga and want to read the whole thing, click HERE

I often wonder whether anyone I know reads this. I mean, I am aware of 2 people in my "real life" who read this, but I wonder if there's anybody else who reads this but hasn't told me that they do.

I got a really strange email from someone a week ago or so, from an email address that looked like a fake email address asking if banana3159.diaryland.com is my diary and whether they had reached the right person. I replied "yes", then never heard from them again.

My life is basically an open book so I don't care if someone is poking around unbeknowenst to me, but I'm just curious because my psychic intuition is telling me that former friends or acquaintences are following this narrative. If so, howdy. Maybe you'll see yourself as a character, or maybe you have already. That's gotta be somewhat strange, huh?

I don't know. Whatever. Maybe it's just wishful thinking on my part. I make friends and lose them with equal fervor. Friends fall out of my life like change from a hole in a pocket, so maybe I'm just lonely and hoping that somebody has *re-connected* with me in some bizarre way. Anyway... let's get on with the show...