Wanted: Txtfriend - Confessions Of A Paid Chatter (Matronix Remix, First Part)

Somewhere across the United States, Mike, a lonely and divorced middle aged man, comes home from a tiring day at work.

He turns on the television and starts to surf the adult cable channels. In-between soft porn movies, advertisements ranging from sex toys to dating services flash on the screen. His eyes fill with excitement as the dating ads tempt him to dial numbers for a hook-up with a “hot date.” Yet, he knows that his daily wages are not enough to get some intimate company, so he restrains himself from calling the numbers.

However, before the channel resumes its regular programming, one last advertisement catches his attention. It’s about some girls looking for ‘textmates.’ They are near his location. Getting his newly bought mobile phone, he enters the SMS keyword that he saw in the advertisement.

“Finally, some local hot girls looking for fun,” he thinks. With one press of the button, he sends the keyword to the chat service provider. After a minute of waiting, a reply arrives on his phone.

“Hi my name is melissa care 4 some fun w/ me sweetie,” the message says, written in the way an ordinary text message is made.

A steamy conversation eventually ensues between Mike and Melissa. So far, so good for the lonely couple, right?

Wrong. Things aren’t what they seem to be, but Mike doesn’t have a clue that Melissa is not a sexy blonde at all.

“Melissa” is actually John, a guy in his mid-twenties busy tapping on a computer keyboard in an office in the third-world city of Manila.

When John received the keyword MELISSA on his computer screen, he immediately became, for all intents and purposes, the dream girl of Mike.

John is a Professional Chat Operator. His job is to reply to SMS sent by lonely foreigners, shifting into various roles with ease, depending on the preferences of Users of the chat-date service, such as Mike.

John is so adept in his work that he can reply to more than a hundred different Users by turns, and adjust his texting style and character to the personalities required by the Users. If the User wants a gay lover, John turns gay, never mind if, in real life, he is fully heterosexual. If he had a female User, John turns on the sexiest male heat he can muster.

I met John several weeks ago on a job hunting expedition in Ortigas. He was looking for a second job then, and while we waited for our turn to get interviewed, he told me about his first job at Chatzone, a local company that handles foreign clients engaged in the “textmate search” business in the United States. He was very friendly and we established a bond immediately.

At 25, he is one of the most seasoned employees of Chatzone, being one of its pioneers. He handles the premium adult account - an account that demands creativity and professionalism from its operators.

Having chatted non-professionally since high school, John clearly had the competitive edge at work. As a frequent user of MIRc and Yahoo Messanger, adjusting to the personalities of different texters had never been that difficult for him. However, one thing that he never expected when he joined the company a year ago, was the necessity to act as different persons to each and every user. “It’s just like having a massive Multiple-Personality Disorder for eight hours, five days a week,” he told me, laughing softly.

Curious about his work, I asked to accompany him back to his office after our interviews. He agreed and soon, I was closely observing how he handled his job.

“A chat operator must always think out of the box,” John said casually, while typing a reply on his computer. “A chatter must always bear in mind that he is texting a lonely and horny guy using the client’s premium service.” Everything is done through texting.

Users think that their textmates are also using mobile phones. In reality, it is a Mobile Phone to PC to Mobile Phone process. Operators such as John use computer software that allows them to receive messages from the User’s cellphone and send replies to the same.

According to John, Chatzone started as a small enterprise that shared a unit with another company providing free e-mail service. The other company folded up, but Chatzone grew tremendously.

“We used to have fifteen chat operators spread across three shifts. The account we handled before came from the United Kingdom, which required us to do hardcore sex chat with their Users.” The account was stolen a year later by some of John’s colleagues who decided to independently run the service themselves.

John further informed me that the outsourcing phenomenon started by the call centers in the country attracted a large chat service provider from the United States. This chat provider sought the service of Chatzone to take over some of their labor-intensive accounts. Since Chatzone had the expertise to provide for the foreign client at a reasonably lower overhead cost, they entered into a partnership with John’s company. Additional manpower hiring came soon after.

A chat operator like John can send as much as 400 text message replies in one shift. “You will be surprised at the volume of text message we receive from the Users,” John explains while highlighting a specific user begging for his girl textmate to call him. “Many Americans live lonely lives, which I find very strange, considering that their economy is more stable and in general, they have access to almost everything.”

Hooking-up is the stated goal in the ads, but of course, this never gets to happen. “They are very insistent in meeting their textmate,” John says. “It can be a real pain sometimes,” he chuckles.

I asked him how he managed to maintain a friendly conversation while dodging a User’s invitation for a sex-eyeball. “We just say that we’re already home and resting,” John answered. “But we never forget to add that we’re in bed and looking forward for some hot chat with someone.”

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-tobecontinued-

Appleseed

The world is full of sadness and many people would take to the extremes just to have someone to talk to, to feel that they are needed and to have someone make them feel a sort of affection even if it comes in the form of a text message from some woman that they won't never hug or kiss or have sex with in their lives.

- lovingly yours, june 11, 2005

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It was around mid-morning. The tricycle which I took from Shaw Boulevard, finally found the posh condominium where the company I was going to apply for work was located. Getting out of the trike, I composed a text message telling the interviewer that I was already heading towards the unit where their office was. Almost immediately, he replied and told me to wait for him. He was just doing something important and he would attend to me shortly after he is done with his errands.

When I reached the unit, I rang the doorbell several times but nobody opened the door for me. When I looked inside, everything was dark and bleak. There was a worn-out and dusty sofa set beside the door, beyond the living room was an empty dining table that separates the sala from the kitchen.

I stood at the front door for several minutes, until another guy showed up. He was sporting a long hair and a rugged get up. He introduced himself as an applicant, who's shift in a call center had just ended. We talked briefly about his work, since I was set to join Convergys after passing their English refresher training a week before.

Suddenly, a short, stout guy with eyeglasses appeared before us. Looking at his face, one can assume that he is still young - maybe in his mid-thirties. He was wearing a Lacoste shirt and a cream-colored pants. He was quite cool to talk with, preferring to enter a conversation without any formalities whatsoever. In fact, he got along easily with the other applicant who appeared very confident with the kind of job he was about to join.

The interviewer lead us to the dining table and introduced himself as Francis. He is the boss of the start-up company that is interested to hire us. As he gave a brief history of the company, he took a bundle of teen and adult magazines scattered in one of the chairs near him. He then pointed the several advertisements in those magazines looking for text mates. We read the advertisements from each of the magazines and when we were already getting an idea about the nature of work we will be doing, Francis told us that our job is to respond to incoming text messages in the computer pretending that we are the text mates of the users.

The job description made me pause for a few seconds, to swallow in one gulp what Francis explained to us.

"You mean we have to think and act like the girls or boys these users were texting? How's that possible?" I asked Francis.

"That's why we needed people who are innate actors and actresses; we need very open minded people here," he answered. "This is an adult-oriented business. Are you cool with it?"

I felt silent after his question. While further explaining what the company is all about, all I could think of is whether I am in the right career path, or whether the company I would be joining is legitimate or not.

At that moment, life presented me with two options: Being hired in Convergys was just days - if not weeks away. I could patiently wait for their call, or grab this opportunity immediately since I badly needed work and earnings during that time.

The other applicant, who felt a little restless during the interview asked things about benefits and all those job security crap. Since I understood that Francis' business was just starting, I expected to get only my basic salary for the meantime. Other benefits aside from that must wait.

Francis asked me to wait downstairs while he introduced the system to the other applicant. While waiting for them to return, I called a friend who might be interested to try my company - even if he takes it as a part-time endeavor. Unfortunately he was already well-entrenched at C-Cube during those days, so he just bid me good luck with my interview. When they returned, the other applicant can't hardly talk anymore. He appeared distant - not only to me but also to the boss as well. Within minutes, he informed us that he needed to leave. Nevertheless, he told Francis that he would seriously think about the offer.

The interviewer then asked me to come with him upstairs so that he could introduce me not only to the team, but also to the account that I will be handling - supposed I take the job.

He lead me into a small room with just five computers. There were three operators busy tapping their keyboard when I entered the floor. One is a girl with big chinita eyes, the other one is a guy and the last one, who was loud and flamboyant, is somewhere in-between. He first introduced me to the guy - who was just hired a week before. We would be working for the same account that's why it's important that we get along pretty well. Unlike the other two, who were more interested in chit-chatting with one another than noticing me, this long-haired guy was extremely quiet. He just nodded when Francis introduced us to one another.

The interviewer asked me to sit in front of the computer. He then opened the link to my account and typed a temporary access code so I could work on the system even if I'm just a trainee.

Within seconds, I was already responding to the incoming text keyword appearing on the computer screen.

"Hi, my name is Karla. Do you like to chat with me? How are you?" I slowly typed in the message box.

"Not bad Joms," Francis commended me. "Do you know that there are some applicants who would take ten minutes to write such simple introduction?"

Feeling satisfied with my answers, he left me to check on the other operators. From time to time, he would take a peek on my screen, read aloud my replies, then move on to return to the other operators - who at that time was having conflicts with their day offs. During those tense moments, I kept my cool. Remembering how good I've always been chatting with folks in MIrC. I told myself that I will get this job, no matter what.

Hours passed and I didn't even noticed that the operator's shift is about to end. Sensing that I have had enough exposure with the account. I told Francis that I have to leave.

On our way down, he gave me some few more briefings about the company, the system that I would be working and the environment that I will be exposed to. The details were all forgotten now.

Two years after it all happened.

Today,

From four operators in the morning shift alone, we now number around fifty. The three accounts, which the operators handled when I was interviewed had already grown to around ten. And the four operators that I have met before? The girl became my team leader, the other guy, still silent all these years remains with the company. The other one resigned, just when things were about to turn better.

I became the fourth longest-serving employee of the company, which has now grown so big, I could not keep count anymore of the new operators being hired almost every other week. Things may have been very different now, but whenever I get the chance to remember how I started with them,

And how I almost resigned too many times during the turbulent months of adjustment to the work environment.

I feel a sense of humility out of all the good and bad experiences I already shared with the company - now that I can proudly say that I have prospered in the kind of work I am doing.

And I'm glad that I stayed long enough to recount how simple things were, when the boss was the interviewer and sometimes the operator (when someone was absent) all at the same time.

Such things... will never happen again.