Somebody's paying me to check references for them so I'm sitting in a cubicle two days a week telephoning strangers and talking about other strangers but I'm not saying I don't like it. I like the top down snapshots I'm getting of these people. I like a life rated out of ten for punctuality, reliability, overall performance and their ability to meet sales targets augmented with strange and rambling personal anecdotes. Most of the applicants are young so I end up talking to the owner of the petrol station where they worked in uni holidays, or the president of the sports association where they volunteer as a junior coach. The people I'm telephoning can't wait to have their say, can't wait to rattle off the ten versions of how they're holding hope cupped in their hands for the smart young person they paid to wash cars or set up a straight line of orange cones. I feel like I'm getting a bird's eye view of something here, something I haven't seen before.
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