I'm watching Telemarketers and it's reminding me of shady jobs I've had in the past.
I worked for Rent-a-Center doing collections. It's a place that preys on the poorest people in America, getting them to pay extortionate interest on rent to own furniture, appliances and electronics. We had customers who would end up paying thousands of dollars on a couch that wasn't even new when they got it. Even worse was people who would hit hard times and get their stuff repoed and end up with nothing to show for thousands of dollars in payments.
My job was to learn when these customers got paid, or when they got their disability or welfare check and hound them over the phone or in person. If they didn't pay, I'd be sent out to knock on their doors. If that failed I'd be sent to repo it.
It was a soul crushing job. I've had shit jobs, but I'd never had a job that made me feel like I was doing harm to people before. Some of my coworkers would deal with this by demonizing the customers, acting like they were all deadbeats who deserved to get fleeced. Others would blame the customers, saying shit like, 'Anyone stupid enough to buy here was going to get ripped off by someone, and it might as well be us'.
I couldn't do that, so I started getting fucked up at work like Pat Pespis. I started pretending to do my job, dialing the number and then hitting the flash button and faking the calls. I'd get sent on a repo and my coworker and I would go out to eat or to the mall and pretend they wouldn't answer the door. I expected my collection stats would fall low enough that I'd eventually be fired, but they barely moved at all. It turned out that hounding people to pay a bill wasn't actually doing much.
The worst I've done is maybe working at a bakery/factory and thinking I was contributing to the malnourishment and diabetes of America. I've mostly just worked fast food and retail so you tend to hate and resent every customer and don't really care if you're feeding them slop or ripping them off. I'm actually working at the most morally good place I ever have now. That's not saying too much but it's a second hand store where a lot of our money goes to housing and getting social workers and at home nurses for people with disabilities. And while we employ some people with disabilities like Goodwill we actually pay them like anyone else. I mean, no one is paid what they're worth anywhere but some of the people with disabilities here are getting paid more than me because they've been here longer. Could definitely be worse, so I'm happy to have this job.