Do not rejoice O Israel, do not be jubilant like the other nations. For you have been unfaithful to your God, you love the wages of a prostitute at every threshing floor. Threshing floors and winepresses will not feed the people, the new wine wil fail them. They will not remain in the Lord's land, Ephraim will return to Egypt and eat unclean food in Assyria.
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For a brief time I had a job working at MCI. I was one of those telemarketers who would be calling you up right at dinnertime trying to get you to switch your phone service. Actually, it was while I was working there that Bush instituted the national do not call list. The job was not easy. Having nine customers out of ten hang up on you before you finish your first sentence is not fun. Having nine out of the ten remaining politely say no as soon as you pause for your first breath isn't much better. No, it wasn't fun, but I was good at it.
While in my training group I was getting easily twice the sales anyone else could manage to scrape up. Once we were mixed up with the rest of the telemarketers (we called ourselves telephone sales representatives), I was usually in the top ten percent for the company.
I was good at my job and I was making money. I think only my job at Bank One did I have a better paying job. The thing is, I didn't last long because I couldn't stand myself and who I was becoming as I tried, day after day, call after call, to get people to switch to MCI. When in training I thought we had a pretty good package to offer that I would be pushing. But over time as I became more aware of all the fine print involved that they don't teach you about, and as I also became more knowledgeable about what similar programs were out there I realized that at least 95% of the time, the people that switched were getting a worse deal than what they already had. I actually began feeling sorry for every person who I suckered into accepting my offer.
Even though I was making a lot of money doing it, I was compromising my morals and values in a job that did not benefit myself or anyone else. No, that is too polite. I was making a conscious effort, day after day, to drag down myself and society all for the sake of a dollar. From my seat, through the phone lines, I was prostituting myself. But the money was good. That is why I ended up working there about four months rather than the three or four weeks it took me to fully grasp what I was an active participant in doing.
It was that time that helped me reach a decision that I will never again let the money be a deciding factor in what job or career I take. I might have said this or thought it in times past, but until I went through the experience I didn't really grasp the reason's why I need to be selective in what I chose to put my efforts and abilities. How can I ask God to bless me financially if all the money I am making is coming in through my lying and cheating? How can I expect Him to bless my gifts of being able to read, connect with, and convince others if I am using them for purposes so contradictory to His nature and who He has called me to be? Isn't that a bit like a bank robber praying that God would keep him safe right before he pulls his heist?
So spend your working hours doing? Are you using your time and talents to benefit society or does it just benefit your wallet? Does your work week build up anything besides your bank account? God will not, He cannot, bless you if you are not being a blessing to others.
What I have most found effective and discovered it about myself is that I cannot lie. It's not that I believe that lieing is wrong (according to the Bible) even if I didn't care about what the Bible said about lieing, I know that I'm not a lier, simply not because God has changed me after I accpeted Him but because I'm just not good at it. All my co-workers know this as well. I mean it takes time to fully figure out what it is that your being asked to do, your being asked to sell, in other words so your company will advance further right? I'm not a good sale's person, I mean I can motiveate people to buy a certain outfit from Macy's even if its got a small rip, even if I show them that the outfit has a small rip I'm still able to motiveate people to buy the outfit but have them chose weather they want to buy it or not. In cloths retail customers know that they can always either alter their stuff themselves or they can use our Alteration Department to do that. I mean I don't know what its like to work for a big major company like MCI but personally what has helped me is to also point out what flaws there might be or already are. But then again Macy's and MCI are WAY two different things.
My name is david and i'm a member of your occult study group on myspace. I will post there as well but this topic seemd to merrit a personal word as well. If you can not live with what you do, then by all means you should not do it. I myself have experienced what your talking about first hand except my job was to give online servays. I saw the need for that, because we actually improved products. However, i quit because i don't see the need to bother people repeated who don't want to take it all in order to get you quota. I commend you for taking your beliefs into consideration. May the blessings of the divine be upon you in abundance. You are without a doubt one of the more moraled people that i have had the pleasure to talk to.
