Ok so this time last year I was coming off my Vegas birthday trip and realizing that I still didn't have a job. I guess it wasn't a good idea to quit my job back in May but nonetheless here I am happy and broke as hell. I really didn't want to go back into publishing (even though that is where all my mad skills are). So I looked in the paper and thought what would be the best, easiest, perfect job for a new slacker like me. I was often told by my friends that I have a great phone voice and that I should do phone sex for a living. I think it was the message I got from my friend "Pumpkin" that said it the best: "Helloooooo Kelly, ... Um how the hell did my pants just get around my ankles?" So I decided to try it out since I had nothing else going on and frankly, the job market was in the shitter.
I answered an ad in the back of the village voice. The ad said "PHONE PERSON WANTED NYC Longest est. service seeks capable phone person industry exp. Pref. but will train right person excellent salary and top commissions night sifts must be reliable mature and dependable" so I naturally thought it was for phone sex. I called the number and the woman that answered was just a little mean to me. Her first question was "Why do you want to work for an escort service?" I was like whoa I am calling for the phone person position she said it's the same thing. I really don't know why I didn't cop on then but I thought est. meant, "Established" not "escort". I called back Wednesday afternoon around 4:32. The woman who answered the phone was Lily. She said that she needed to meet me so I should call back on Saturday earlier in the day to set up an appointment.
Well Saturday around noon I called Lily to set up an appointment; she was still sort of mean to me on the phone but I just thought she was trying to see if I was for real. I was told to go to the corner of 53rd street and Lexington ave. for 5pm well I of course was running late caught in the cross-town traffic. (Maybe subconsciously I didn't want to go.) I thought this whole thing about going to a corner was a little sketchy but what the hell I was being adventurous. I was 20 minutes late and called the number I felt like someone in one of the office buildings was looking at me (so I kept moving in case they had a sharp shooter pointed at me - I get paranoid sometimes). I thought for a moment I was about to be part of an operation sting for illegal business but alas Lily gave me directions to the office. "You know you are 20 minutes late," she said and I was like "yeah I got stuck in cross-town traffic sorry."
The entire floor to this office was pink. I entered the small office on the left and finally met Lily face to face. She was nothing like I expected, I don't even know what I expected - she was definitely not it. I was told to fill out an application and then they would talk to me. There was one other girl in the office with us and they were watching a video it was some movie with Andy Garcia with a mullet haircut not sure which one but all I remember is them talking about him and his haircut. Lily was slightly older than me but still a punk at heart. She had the dyed black hair and the black makeup and a few piercings - some in her face. The other woman (whose name escapes me now) was completely opposite long red hair partially up in a bun with wire rim glasses and a JC Penny's suit. She looked very much like a homemaker out selling cookies. The interview I thought went very well Lily did most of the talking and I shook my head and nodded every few minutes. I was told that the job was in fact an operator at an escort service. I would be the middle person between the person that owned the place and the girls that worked there. I would be booking the girl's time making sure I had enough girls for any given evening and interviewing new girls and doing some bookkeeping type stuff. I would really have no contact with the clients but it sure sounded like I would be a pimp. Does this sound like a pimp job to you?
One would think the pay for this type of job to be pretty decent. Not only did the pay suck but the hours were ridiculous. It was something like $6.25 and hour for the night shift and $7.25 for the day shift. You had to do three 12-hour shifts and the other 2 days would vary so you would almost always be doing over 40 hours a week. You would get commission based upon how many bookings you handled you commission percentage would go up with the amount of bookings the lowest percentage I think was 3% the highest 10% each booking had to be an hour long at $250 an hour and the girl would get $125 the house $125. If you had 40, bookings that would be $5,000 for the house so you would get 10% of that your commission would be $500 not bad but what guarantee is it that you can get 40 bookings a week. By the end of the interview, Lily was very nice to me and even apologized for being mean. I told her I understood she was just trying to weed out the riff raft. I called her back on Monday to tell her I could not take the job she said if I changed my mind I should call her back. WOW, I thought they liked me; they wanted me to do the job.
This was not my first attempt into the world of phone sex. Stay tuned to Part II .....
