On my drives to and from work, I go on hiatus from the morning palaver I normally half-listen to, or have on for noise. I drive with only the hum of the tires or cars going the other way, passing me with a gasp, or the occasional off-key brass section of an approaching train. Sometimes if I have to wait on a train I count the cars. Sometimes the trains are over two hundred cars long, and during drive time. I could write my congressman, suggesting there be restrictions on how long trains can be during drive times. Fifty cars or fewer seems like a reasonable expectation. My congressman is notoriously pro-commerce and with a well-funded hammerlock on his congressional district, so any response is unlikely. Accountability doesn’t apply.
During a momentary lapse from my hiatus I make a fortuitous discovery. I’m pretty sure it was Marge and Murray and not any of the other him and her morning drive-time concoctions, Bruce and Darla, Lefty and Carole, Johnson and Box. Marge says that would be a cool job, watching TV for a living. Murray says you can go to our page and check it out. On Marge and Murray’s page is a help-wanted advertisement for TV-watching positions in the UK or Ireland, for a well-known subscription service for movies and TV shows. If I’m willing to relocate I’m invited to apply. I think about moving to the UK or Ireland and watching TV for a living. Getting paid to watch TV might be worth the dearth of sunshine or living among people with jacked-up grills and pretentious vocabularies.
My cell phone number is like a porterhouse dropped into a river teeming with piranha. It’s on marketing lists cold-callers ply, the standard lists, not the high net worth lists. Occasionally I take these calls, usually not. Sometimes there’s an automated message telling me I’ve reached my credit limit but that if I call now they can extend it for me, or sometimes the automated message tells me it’s imperative that I call an 888 number immediately. I don’t have any credit cards (if I don’t have the money for it I don’t buy it, which as an American is counterintuitive of me). I’m not sure what’s different this time, but I take the call.
A woman wants to know if I’m still interested in the TV-watching position I applied for. I’m not sure why we don’t conduct the phone interview right then, but we prearrange a time and date. A recruiter calls me at the scheduled time and gets my basics, then questions me extensively about what I watch on TV. I watch a lot of TV. Even if I’m doing something else I leave the TV on. I go to sleep with the TV on, my remote has a timer and the TV shuts off while I’m asleep. She’s careful not to react to my answers, but I sense she likes the smell of what I’m cooking. Sometimes she interrupts my answers with the next question when my answers are long-winded. I’m told my responses will be carefully considered and if they’re interested in moving forward they’ll contact me. On my drive home, I wonder if they have road construction in the UK or Ireland. I’d be willing to trade our road construction for their dentists, but not if I’m moving there.
A few weeks later and I recognize the same area code when the next call comes. The caller introduces himself as Jim Goodlatte. I ask if an affinity for lattes is genetic predisposition, and he chuckles as if he’s heard this a thousand times. Only good ones, he says, his stock rejoinder. He has only one question, why I want to be a Tagger, which is what a professional TV watcher is called. Who wouldn’t? I ask. He’s coming to town, and wants to meet face to face. He schedules me for an interview at a local hotel. He’ll be interviewing people for two days, interviews on the hour. He instructs me to go online and take a personality test in the interim.
The personality test consists of side-by-side responses to a single question, in rectangular boxes, with rounded corners, in big font and simple sentences, nothing so mind-bending as a double negative. At the outset I’m warned that it takes approximately forty-five minutes to complete the test and that I should set this time aside. I’m to go with the response that most closely matches how I am, or how I self-actualize. I’m encouraged to answer instinctively and not overthink my responses. The questions have nothing to do with watching TV. An example: When confronted with a difficult situation do I 1) trust myself to come up with the appropriate solution or 2) do I prefer to first gather input from others? Offended by these inane questions, I decide to be contradictory. I choose the same or similar response to sets of oppositely intended questions. I tear through the test in little more than ten minutes.
And then I’m back at work, trying not to think about this opportunity, but that I might get out has me in a good mood. Watching TV in the UK or Ireland is an exciting proposition that I’m totally up for, I decide. A customer is telling me about the vehicles he’s modified. He’s a parts manager at an Audi dealership. He’s a nice guy, but he’s the tenth or eleventh customer of the day. I’m thinking about how I can get him to sign two more forms and break out my disinfectant wipes while he’s telling me about how he tripled the torque output of his Ram truck. I smile suddenly and he smiles back like I’m smiling at something he said, like discussing torque ratios really tickles my balls.
