Condoms vs. Contact Lens

I was hired to be a customer service rep at an online company that sold contact lenses. It was owned by a former emergency room doctor. On the side, along with a number of other things, they sold condoms. They had at least 13 websites that were all theirs, all different names which gave you the idea you were calling different companies. Different phone lines meant answering the phone with a different company name. A co-worker that had back surgery was fired while she was recovering and the locks at the business were changed, not in that order.

She had taken care of the condom part of the business. When she was fired I was asked if I could take it over, and they gave me new responsibilities like putting new items on the several condom websites they owned. Have you ever been paid to research dental dams, condoms on a stick and lubricants? Not to mention the sex toys you ran into while researching them, along with other graphic content. Im no prude, btw. I was told if I did a good job I would get a raise. I thought of it as a step to something not dead-end.

My immediate boss made me go into the doctor's office when I wasn't ready to discuss what new products to put on the condom site (I hadnt missed any deadline). I told her no, which she wouldn't take for an answer. You didn't want to aggrivate her. We sat down in the doctors office and she blurted out 'what about chocolate titties on a stick'. I don't know if it was my imagination but the doctor's face turned a million shades of red. I wanted to become invisible. I even came to work one day and found new condoms on my desk with pictures of female porn stars on them.

In another meeting in the doctor's office we were told not to look at the website on his computer so of course, I looked. Sexually explicit. I was in the meeting with the one professional female there and the IT guy. I wasn't sure how to feel. I was hired to be a customer service representative for contact lens sales. My immediate boss was a country woman, with the additude to go along with it (toby keith, boot up your a**) sorry to country music fans. She berated people, looked at them like she would beat the crap out of them, had a mouth to go with it and wore spandex bike shorts, flip flops, and a ratty tee shirt almost every day (shes not exactly in shape).

She asked me questions like 'have you ever had a one night stand?' and when she became angry you couldnt do anything but say ok. There was an unwritten rule that you couldnt socially talk to people in that office. We worked a 7 and a half hour shift and would get a half hour for lunch. in the 18 months I was there I dont think I was ever able to take a half hour lunch; another unwritten rule was to scarf down your lunch as fast as possible, and it was a bonus if you were not interrupted by spandex short lady who would tell you 'the phones are out of control get back on yours!' They switched their health insurance and the form that you had to fill out was given to their office manager, whom I saw reading the health forms with the doctor.

I'm not that private of a person but in such a small somewhat threatening office I did not feel comfortable with my entire health history being known by the owner and a woman who wouldnt even speak to you. My coworkers included a woman who would hyperventilate, took drugs, cussed like a sailor and pulled a knife out of her purse and showed it to me one day, a woman who had a picture of her stoned out of his mind boyfriend on her desk, a christian zealot who would preach the gospel from her desk and a co-manager who would be so rude to customers I wouldnt do business with this company again if i were one. I always thought working for a doctor would be more professional, more classy, even if it was just a lowly customer service position. I was wrong.

One Christmas when we were having a gift exchange I was told by the manager not to get the doctor any gifts because he had received gifts in the past that he had thrown in the trash in the office. By his employees that couldn't afford anything else because of what he paid them. That Christmas eve when the phones weren't ringing the doctor made us stay the entire day to do inventory. Thats normal I suppose. For Ebeneezer Scrooge.

I missed my christmas get together to do inventory on contact lenses. And I still bought the doctor a christmas gift. I never saw it in the trash. And I never got any advancement out of the erotic job duties. But I did get to sample a bananna flavored dental dam. Wouldn't reccommend it.