It’s true. I once worked for a psychic hotline in the late ’80s. I’m not a psychic (I knew you were wondering), but that didn’t matter. Here’s What Really Happened Behind The Scenes:
It was a paying job that didn’t require me to expend any physical effort. I was tired of kitchen w
ork. On my feet for eight hours, low pay, driving home late smelling like bleach and garlic. It sucked. I was done.
ork. On my feet for eight hours, low pay, driving home late smelling like bleach and garlic. It sucked. I was done. To get the job, I had to pass an audition by demonstrating my ability to talk to people convincingly about their problems. I gave an in-person reading to a Psychics-R-Us employee while the manager, Cassandra, observed.
Psychics-R-Us’s ads portrayed lotto winners getting their winning numbers from psychics like me. The cost of the call was $4 per minute, but the first five minutes were free. Our goal was to convert free lotto calls into full-length readings.
The phone rang. I answered it. “Psychics-R-Us. This is Taliesin,” I said into the receiver. “How can I help you?”
“This is Dwayne,” the man said. “I need to get rid of a curse.”
“A curse?” I said, trying to buy a little time. I had no idea how to respond, but my minutes were down, and I needed to think of something.
“Yeah,” Dwayne said, “this lady, she put a curse on me, and I gotta get rid of it.”
I recalled reading a science magazine article about curses. “Research shows curses only work on people who believe in them,” I told him. “Don’t believe in it, and everything’ll be fine.”
There was a long silence. “Yeah,” Dwayne said, sounding unconvinced, “I just need to know how to get rid of this curse, man.”
I put Dwayne on hold. I turned to Glenda, a more experienced psychic who sat next to me in The Golden Obelisk Room. It was an ordinary room in an office building with acoustic ceiling tile and fluorescent lights. There was a large poster on the door of a golden obelisk, though, covered in hieroglyphics. All the rooms had half-assed themes like this. “Do you know how to get rid of a curse?” I asked.
“No,” she said. “I’d ask Oswyn.”
That made sense. If there was anyone who’d know how to get rid of a curse, it would be our resident druid. I headed to The Sage Garden Room to find him.
Oswyn was finishing a call. I waited. A large man in his late 40s, he had a red beard, a round face and wore his jeans tucked into knee-high moccasins. His desk was decorated with dreamcatchers and wolf drawings. He had encyclopedic occult knowledge. He hung up the phone and turned to me. “What’s up,” he asked.
“I have a caller wanting to get rid of a curse,” I said. “Can you help him?”
“Of course!” he exclaimed, bolting out of his chair. Oswyn was always happy to show off. I filled him in on the few details I had as he followed me back to my phone.
Oswyn picked up the phone. “Hi, Dwayne. This is Oswyn,” he said. “Tell me about this curse.” Oswyn listened solemnly, slowly nodding along. After a few moments, he responded. “Here’s what I want you to do,” he said. “Light a candle, put it in front of a mirror facing your front door ...” Oswyn had it under control. I went outside for a smoke.
Oswyn came outside to let me know he had finished up with Dwayne. “I gave him some stuff to try,” he said. “Curses can be tricky.”
“I tried telling him curses weren’t real,” I said, snuffing out my beedi.
“Unless you believe in them,” he said.
I thanked him for his help as we walked back into the office. On returning to my desk, I saw the call with Dwayne went 25 minutes. Not bad, I thought. It’ll definitely bump up my minutes for the week.
The job became a lot less amusing to me, and I started having trouble keeping my minutes up. Whether it was guilt or boredom, I couldn’t say.
I started volunteering for nightshifts when the call volume was low. I was often by myself in The Golden Obelisk Room, lying on the floor with the lights turned off, zoning out to Music for Airports. I told people I was meditating. More than once I was jolted awake by someone coming in to see why I wasn’t answering my phone.
I was eventually fired. I didn’t even last a year.
J. Sibelman lives in California. He spent his 20s flailing about in search of gainful employment, which led to him holding a number of unusual jobs — none for very long. He’s previously written for Fahrenheit, San Diego City Beat and Ale Street News.