Free If Truth Be Told: A Monk's Memoir by Om Swami

had no capital to start anything. Having said that, I didn’t require a million dollars or even ten thousand. I just needed someone to say, ’Don’t worry about the five thousand for next year’s college fees and don’t worry about food and living for the next six months,’ and I would have thrown myself into building a business. However, I didn’t have this kind of breathing space at the moment.
    I soon discovered that there weren’t enough software job openings in the local newspapers and no one was prepared to give me work because I had no local experience. To get in touch with more companies, I would pick up the Yellow Pages every day and call fifty potential employers. I would have even called a hundred but Arun had a quota of a certain number of free local calls from his landline, and I didn’t want to exceed that. Once, I called someone who heard me out and said, 'I just felt I was listening to a robot.'
    Robot? I had obviously failed. Here I was, trying my hardest, and the fact that the person at the other end thought I was a robot could only mean I was sounding like a machine. What he said next corrected my view. 'I don’t have any IT requirements, mate,' he said, 'but would you like to come work for me? I need someone who sounds like you over the phone.'
    This was the first compliment I had received from an Australian. I was still hopeful of finding a job in programming, so I politely refused.
    With every passing day, however, I was getting increasingly desperate. A week later, I got a telemarketing job offer and snapped it up. This company was based out of a suburb called Baulkham Hills, and it was literally a ‘home business’: the employer had converted his house into an office. My remuneration was set at $12 an hour plus commission, and I couldn’t resist calculating what I would do with that money; it felt like a lot of money all of a sudden.
    My job was to pitch our services to small businesses. Once the customer was interested, we would fax them an order form and the deal was done if they signed and faxed back with their credit card details. My employer, an elderly man, had a specific process though. You had to make calls from 9 a.m. till 1 p.m., send faxes in the afternoon and follow up on the phone either in the evening or the next day.
    I did not break for lunch or tea. I just called and called. I found out that other telemarketers would manage to get one or two customers interested in the morning. On the very first day, I had over eight such customers in the morning and fourteen in the afternoon session because I made fresh sales calls all day. As soon as I had a customer interested, I ran to the fax machine, sent them a fax and made an immediate follow-up call so I could close the deal. The first day, I bagged six customers. Wow, I thought.
    The boss had a different opinion. He did not appreciate my faxing at unscheduled hours. 'You have to follow the process,' he told me the next day. 'We only send faxes during the lunch hour.' I apologized and went back to making calls at my desk. I had nearly thirty keen customers but no deal closures on the second day. As far as I was concerned, you had to strike when the iron was hot. It was simple, a no-brainer.
              The third day, I sought the help of the operations manager, an older lady who reported to the boss. I explained to her that I could exceed all my targets provided I was allowed to send faxes right away. She took up my request with him while I waited outside his cabin. After a few minutes, he came out with her and said in my presence, 'Tell this idiot to get outta here.'
              I had never been spoken about in this way. I needed money, sure, but I wasn't prepared to be insulted. Like they say, there’s always a first time; this was my first time, and I had been caught off guard.
    'Watch your language, man,' I said.
    'F**k you,' he replied.
    I stood there stunned. The lady hastily asked me to leave