His plan worked for a couple of weeks, but popularity grew despite the fee and by the end of month six E-Nonymous had 100,000 paying users and had evolved to a fully functioning business.
Sami had no problem connecting with angel investors in the Valley and accepted an offer of eight million dollars in seed funding to help grow the app into an actual business. He had limited knowledge of business, so he hired a friend from Stanford’s business school to assume the role of Chief Financial Officer.
E-Nonymous opened their first official office in downtown San Francisco during the summer of 2011. The original team of ten psychologists assumed roles as executives and upper management, along with ten others located across the country. Over the following year, with some wise investments in marketing and engineering, E-Nonymous grew into a juggernaut in the industry and reached five million downloads of the app. This rapid growth led to the need for expansion and Sami decided on Denver for the location of their new sales and service office.
“And that’s how we got here today,” Jason said.
*****
The remainder of day one’s training flew by, after a deep dive into the company’s products and service. Jeremy’s brain felt fried from the knowledge packed into it after the long day.
He went home that night knowing that he now worked for a company that cared more about its employees than its executives. The feeling was so overwhelming, Jeremy had trouble sleeping that night.
The E-Nonymous mission statement hung on the wall in the kitchen: Use our intelligence and care to help those in need. The first week of training moved along, with hours of information to digest, but Jeremy loved every moment of it. He tried to remain a silent sponge, absorbing all the information, but sitting next to Patrick made that difficult.
Patrick was a natural social butterfly, always talking with those around him, and raising good points during group discussions.
“So what do you think, bro?” Patrick asked Jeremy toward the end of their second day together. “Pretty easy job.”
“I’d say so,” Jeremy said. “Answer the phone, connect people to the doctors, and chat with others on the internet. Doesn’t seem too bad.”
Jeremy downplayed his passion with Patrick. He looked forward to helping their clients. There was even the chance someone would call in to the main line and need to be talked off the ledge, literally.
“I hope you’re all ready to get on the phones this afternoon,” Jason said on Wednesday, the third day of training.
They looked at each other in puzzlement, enticing a laugh from Jason.
“I’m kidding!” he cackled. “You’ll just be listening, to get an idea how it’s done. Come back from lunch prepared and ready to ask questions.”
When they returned from lunch, each of the trainees was assigned a current employee they would sit with for the remainder of the afternoon. “Call shadowing is the most important part of your training,” Jason said. “This will be your first exposure to your job, so be sure to learn all you can. We’ll meet at 3:30 to discuss how it went. Now, head on out to the floor and find your partner.”
Jeremy was assigned to Roberta Gonzales. He followed the group out of the training room, through the kitchen, and onto “the floor.” Aside from a quick tour around the office on the first day, Jeremy hadn’t explored much outside of the kitchen.
Stepping onto the floor and seeing all the desks crammed together with no dividers between them made Jeremy feel at home. Everyone looked so relaxed; some even had their shoes off while they sat back in their chairs, mid-conversation. Nearly everyone was on the phone, creating a loud jumble of noise that spread across the room.
The desks were arranged in small groupings of six, two rows of three facing one another, with a seventh desk on the end, where the managers sat. Jason had mentioned that no one had their own office, regardless of their position. All the rooms surrounding the perimeter were used as meeting spaces. Jeremy noticed the department’s director, Shelly Williamson, seated at her desk in the middle of the floor.
That’s so cool, he thought, remembering how rarely Sammy came out of his fish bowl at the stadium.
He sought out Roberta’s desk, remembering her from a brief introduction in the kitchen. She was the only other older person at the company, likely in her fifties if he had to guess. She looked a bit ill, with pale skin and virtually no flesh around her bone, bruises and gashes spotting her arms and legs. Despite her crypt-keeper appearance, Jeremy found her to be a kind person, after their short conversation in the kitchen.
He found her at an island of desks with her headset on, speaking articulately to the person on the phone.
“Yes, sir, I know that’s what you were originally told, but I’m telling you how it really works,” she said, shaking her head as she scribbled notes on her pad. She noticed Jeremy, cracked a smile, and waved him over while she wrapped up her call.
Oh, shit. That doesn’t sound like a psych call, that’s a customer service call.
Roberta concluded her call and pressed her release button angrily to hang up the phone. “That guy was pleasant,” she said through clenched teeth. Jeremy watched Roberta fill out a form on her screen.
“After each call we have to fill out a case to track the activity on each account, and our productivity,” Roberta explained as the cursor jumped from field to field on the screen. She reached into a drawer beneath her desk and pulled out a second headset, connected the wires into her own, and handed it to Jeremy.
“Here you go,” she said. “You’ll be able to listen to my calls through here.”
The phone rang, flashing green lights. “It’s go time,” she said, and answered the call.
Over the first hour Jeremy listened to seven calls, back to back, with standard three-minute breaks of wrap up time in between. The calls seemed like standard customer service issues. E-Nonymous made its big money selling packages of their service to corporations. The calls he heard were simple billing or user account questions. He wondered where his psychology background was going to come into play, and asked Roberta if that hour stretch was the norm for her types of calls.
“Yes. We mostly handle account issues. There was a time when we would get emergency calls, but now those get directed to the doctors. Every now and then one will come through, but that’s rare.”
“I see,” Jeremy replied, disappointed he wouldn’t have the opportunity to help people, at least to start. He was also growing uneasy at the thought of fielding hundreds of calls with little break in between. At least at the Bears he could count on consistently slow times of the year. During the off season, receiving more than three calls in an entire shift was a busy day.
There’s no off season in mental health, he thought.
“You wanna take some calls?” Roberta asked, popping an old french fry into her mouth.
“Sure, why not?” Jeremy said. If it was just plain old customer service, it was no different from handling angry baseball fans.
Roberta wheeled back from her desk to clear the way for Jeremy. “It’s all yours,” she said with a grin. She handed him her headset and he fit it snugly over his head, positioning the mouth piece to its proper place. “Just take the calls and talk. I’ll be right here to walk you through what to do.”
Jeremy nodded and clicked to put his phone into ready status. Two minutes passed without an incoming call. He looked around in curiosity, as it appeared everyone else was on the phone.
He caught Kristan, the tall woman, across the room, watching him with a quizzical look on her face. She mouthed, “Are you taking calls?” to which Jeremy returned a proud nod.
The phone finally rang, and he felt his heart sink into his gut. He took a deep breath and answered, “Thank you for calling E-Nonymous, this is Jeremy.” He noticed his hand trembling on the mouse as he tried to navigate the cursor, causing it to zigzag across the screen.
He couldn’t have asked for a better debut call. The man on the other end had called in to ask about his
bill. It proved a simple task, with just a couple clicks to get to the correct screen. The call took all of two minutes before the customer hung up, satisfied.
“Good job!” Roberta said, scooting in to help Jeremy log his call. “You sounded shaky at first, but clearly you know what you’re doing.”
“Thank you,” he replied. “Was that a pretty standard call?”
“For the most part, yes. There will be varying degrees of difficulty; that was on the easier side.”
Roberta guided him through filling out his case, and he felt the nerves settle down. The first call was out of the way—before everyone else in the training class.
She may be a bit different, but Roberta just helped me get a leg up, he thought.
Jeremy took four more calls before their time on the floor ended and they trickled back to the training room, where Jason sat at the front desk, hammering away at his laptop.
“So how did it go?” Jason asked once they had all returned.
“Jeremy over here was taking calls already,” Kristan said sassily.
“Oh, really?” Jason raised his eyebrows as everyone turned to Jeremy. “Tell us about it.”
“It was good,” Jeremy said. “Roberta handed over the headset and let me go at it. I talked with four customers and they were all polite.”
“Very nice!” Jason said enthusiastically. “How about everyone else? How did the call listening go?”
They went around the room, each sharing stories of the calls they had listened to. The mood was relaxed as they all laughed and shared their stories, as if they were lifelong friends chatting around the campfire.
Jeremy knew one thing: he would do well at this job. With his experience from the Bears, he had no doubt he would have a long and successful career with E-Nonymous.
15
Chapter 15
May 2012
“I’m happy to hear everything is going so well,” Dr. Siva said.
Jeremy had finished his first week of training at E-Nonymous and had a meeting planned with Dr. Siva for that Friday evening.
“Yeah, I feel like I’m in a really good position, to use both my customer service skills and the things I’m learning in school.”
The bags under Jeremy’s eyes showed that the shift from a part-time job to full-time, plus school in the evenings, had started to take its toll. It wasn’t just lack of sleep, but also the overwhelming sense of constantly having something to do.
“Do you think you’ll stay happy there?” Dr. Siva asked, scribbling notes on a pad of paper. “Say, two years from now?”
“I think so,” Jeremy replied. “I mean, the people seem genuine, the stories about the culture seem legit. I can see myself working my way up and being happy.”
Dr. Siva’s brow rose in a look of surprise. “That’s great,” Dr. Siva said, without much excitement in his voice. “It really is. Job security is so important, as is being happy in your position. I just don’t want to see you lose sight of your goals. I’ve seen it plenty of times in our industry—someone is on the path, headed for big things, then they get comfortable and lose the drive to reach for those dreams.”
“I won’t do that,” Jeremy said defensively.
“I’m not saying you will, not saying you won’t,” Dr. Siva said, monotone. “It’s just some food for thought. I talk to fifty-year-old people every day who are sick with regret that they didn’t at least try to do something bigger with their lives than push papers at some office job.”
Dr. Siva paused, keeping an expressionless stare at Jeremy while searching for his next words. “I guess my advice is to remember that you only get one attempt at your life. Make sure to never leave a stone unturned.”
Jeremy pondered Dr. Siva’s words. “I appreciate that, doctor,” he said. “I know I can still do something with my life. I also know it’ll be easier once I have my master’s.”
“With all respect, Jeremy, that’s nothing but an excuse,” Dr. Siva said.“A master’s is just a piece of paper. Sure, it may open the door to some new opportunities, but there’s still plenty you can do now. I want you to consider something.”
Jeremy fidgeted in his seat.
“On average, a typical person knows roughly seven hundred people. Obviously not all are close acquaintances, but they are in the network. If you can truly affect one person—whether it’s a belief, or something as simple as introducing new music to them—you have the potential to reach seven hundred people through that one person. It all depends how much you influence them.
“Take politics, for example. One person can share their vision and get a room of a thousand people to also get behind that vision. Those thousand people share that same vision to their networks, and now our original politician has reached seventy thousand people with their one message.
“Take that concept and let it snowball, and that’s how you get millions of people to support you in an election.”
Jeremy nodded, unsure if he followed Dr. Siva’s message.
“The moral of the story, Jeremy, is to try and make a difference in one person’s life and see where that goes. I know you have this grand vision of your own, but it’s something that starts on a smaller scale than you might believe.”
“I can do that,” Jeremy said, suddenly feeling motivated. “I needed that perspective, thank you.”
Dr. Siva grinned for the first time that day. “Of course. It’s what I’m here for. Now go get to work on how you want to make a difference in the world.”
*****
With a new fire kindled within, Jeremy returned home inspired to complete schoolwork on his quiet Friday night. Jamie continued working evenings and rarely had free time. They had to settle for a short phone call each night, but Jeremy was too tired to care that he hadn’t seen his girlfriend in a couple weeks.
His latest assignment covered how to identify a sociopath and what goes into the mind of serial killers. He stayed awake past midnight to finish some reading and even looked into the history of serial killers in Denver.
He learned about Vincent Groves, who killed at least a dozen prostitutes over a decade starting in 1979. Groves disposing of all of his victims on the side of I-70 in Arapahoe County, their legs spread open and posed like mannequins.
He also read about Billy Edwin Reid, from the 1980s. Reid used a similar tactic in his own murdering of prostitutes: ditching their bodies in open fields, and sticking a crucifix up their vaginas.
Not much was learned about the psychology of these two men. Groves had died almost two decades ago, and Reid had been rotting away in prison since 2008 after finally being captured. There were some underlining themes behind their madness, as both chose prostitutes as their prey. Reid likely had a religious motivation, hence the crucifix.
“There has to be a way to identify these people before they start killing,” Jeremy said to himself before shutting down his computer. “There has to be a way.”
He fell asleep thinking of all the lives affected by these two men’s murders. How could tragedies like these be stopped?
*****
“Wanna go smoke some weed in my car?” Austin Sadowski asked from his desk next to Jeremy’s.
“I’ll pass,” Jeremy said, trying to hide his surprise at the question at nine in the morning.
“No worries, man, I’ll meet you back here in fifteen minutes,” Austin said.
The two parted ways, and Jeremy went to the kitchen to grab a cereal bar.
It was Monday, the new training class’s first official day on the floor. Jeremy was to sit with Austin for at least the first half of the day, to get accustomed to the flow of a typical workday.
When they met at Austin’s desk fifteen minutes later, Austin reeked like a skunk and had a hazy look in his eyes. “You ready, bro?” he asked.
“Yeah,” Jeremy said, glancing around to see if anyone else noticed the strong stench of Mary Jane. “You can work when you’re high?” Jeremy whispered.
Austin, originally from Long Is
land, barked, “Yeah, buddy! Welcome to the start-up world. Seventy percent of the company is high, and no one gives a shit as long as work is getting done.”
No one in their immediate area paid any attention to Austin’s shouting.
“That’s cool,” Jeremy said. “I can’t imagine getting high at work. Doesn’t the day feel two weeks long when you’re stoned?”
“Nah. Don’t kid yourself. They may make this job sound all important and shit, but at the end of the day we’re just a customer service team and they’re a sales team.” He cocked a thumb across the office toward the sales department. “The best way to get through a day on the phones with these fuckers is one puff at a time.”
“Yeah, I’m not too thrilled with the customer service.” Jeremy said. “I thought we help people in need.”
“Bullshit,” Austin said flatly. “Even before they made the changes to our call routing, we were nothing more than a glorified phone operator. You won’t get to help any of the loonies even if you happened to connect with one.”
Austin noticed the disappointment on Jeremy’s face. “I know you have the psych background, so you’ll get your shot to move up here. I don’t, and that’s fine. I’m here for the sweet benefits. Just make a good impression, hit your numbers, and kiss the right asses. You’ll be out of this department in no time.”
Jeremy let the advice sink in, realizing he wasn’t as close to helping people as he’d thought. “Thanks for the tip, I’ll keep that in mind.”
It’s okay, Jeremy thought. I work for a kick-ass company. I’ll have my master’s in no time and will have my chance. This is a start-up, I can help it grow.
The work phone rang, interrupting his conversation with himself. He took the call, pushing his thoughts to the back of his mind for the rest of the day.
*****
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