On Call 24/7

Last Saturday's schedule was so jam-packed! I was supposed to go to Batangas with Soya Ice to deliver the stall and sink to a party we're sponsoring but I just asked my driver to do it because I was so sleepy. In the afternoon, I had to go to a meeting for a retreat we're organizing for some college students, then Mikey texted me that he'll be in Distillery with some college friends! I was shy at first because I thought I'd be out of place since they're all journalists but everyone was so accommodating and friendly!

We got tired of Distillery's crowd - yuppies and foreigners - so we decided to go to my happy place, Ponti. On the way there, Mikey's friend (not sure if it's Toni or Aki) mentioned one of her assignments where they made a documentary about the promiscuous side of call centers. The leader of their project immersed himself in a call center company so that he can dig out and understand the facts more thoroughly.

One of the agents that was interviewed told the researcher about the kinky practices around their office and that he reached a point where he had sex 24 times in one week! Seriously, is that even biologically possible?!

I tried to run the numbers in my mind. Call center agents go to work 6 times a week then probably 10 hours a day. So that gives them roughly 60 hours to do the whole "cycle". The numbers tell us than this call center agent had sex (regardless if it's a quickie or not) every 2.5 hours for six straight days! I'm just not sure if they do it with a single partner or not.

When smoking isn't enough, they have sex to cope up with stress. What a way to release! Because of that very high frequency, I wonder how it will affect their future relationships. What are the long term problems that one encounters by giving in to these immediate thirst for gratification? Does "high" salary really compensate for your soul? Is it worth it in the end?

Maybe aside from the routine work, graveyard shift and constant companionship of technology, call centers can dehumanize us in a much deeper and irreparable state.