2002-06-26 - 7:21 p.m.

�There�s absolutely NO selling involved.� Except, of course, the selling of my morals, dignity and soul as I basically agree to be a footsoldier for the thinly-veiled corporate ravagings of Big Business UK Ltd. My self-respect is at an all time low (and remember, I have worked for the government), and has suddenly taken on the characteristics of accelerating concrete, about to smash itself into a thousand guilt-ridden pieces in the abandoned quarry that used to pass for something resembling my life.

�Confidentiality and anonymity are assured.� Well thank the lord god of colour-coded tabulated analysis for THAT small blessing. I have a new master now. We repeat our prayers in training sessions that feel like initiation ceremonies. �What do we want to find out? What the customers THINK, FEEL, PREFER.� �What method do we use to persuade the customer to help us? METHOD, EXPLANATION, EXAMPLE, RESPONDENT REASSURANCE.� Sir, yes Sir! I half expected to be asked to role down my breeches and limber up for a quick anal lambasting with the Market Research Code Of Conduct document. Thank you sir, may I have another one?! The high priest inducting us wears weirdly tinted sunglasses, even though we are in a WINDOWLESS BASEMENT, just so we can�t see the spirit that is so absent from his dull, unblinking eyes, years of jumping through every corporate hoop imaginable, �Have No Opinions� tattooed into his forehead in ink made from his own lifeblood. Never stray from the script. Never assume you know anything. Suck every obtainable morsel of information from every ill-advised consumer who naively agrees to help by giving their bovine fucking answers to your sordid, tick-like fucking survey.

So far away from my romantic Glengarry Glen Ross fantasies, cold calling through the night on a diet of coffee and non-filter cigarettes, always be closing and put me up on the board because that sale puts me over the top and you owe me a fucking Cadillac. But instead it�s eking out a meagre income in a windowless vacuum and I really wouldn�t do it but I need to eat something other than boiled rice sometime in the next fucking two years.

�Food comes first, then morals�. But may God have mercy on my soul.