In 2008 I was still working for a call centre where I answered phones for a New York Cable Company. The experience was soul crushing, and it was a job I was happy to leave when I started making just enough from publishing to do it full time. I owe my room mate at the time thanks for that, since splitting the bills was key to leaving that job.
As a coping mechanism, I wrote a partially satirical book (AMAZON LINK) that contained actual advice for anyone looking to work in a call centre. The book wasn't useless, but it wasn't entirely serious either. in 2009 I finished writing the 140 page large print book in about a week, laughing all the way. For further laughs I included some fake quotes and slapped it up on Amazon for anyone to pick up. I was sure that no one would take it seriously, but one trainer in the US did, and ended up passing twenty copies out to new hires.
The email I received from him was scathing, and, yes, he threatened legal action. I agreed to pull the book from sale, but not to reimburse him for his gullibility. Besides, there was actual advice in there, and he was more at fault for not reading it himself first.
The funny thing was, I got several other emails from people who used the book and loved it because much of the advice was very obvious, but they found tidbits of actual advice in there that was helpful.
Fast forward to 2012, when I'm talking to a comedian friend of mine about using the book as a blueprint for writing a comedic novel or screenplay about one person's journey through a short-lived call centre career. We laughed about it a few times, tossed around a few ideas, and that was the end of it. Or so I thought!
Fast forward to August, 2015. I get what sounds like a serious call from a production studio (can't name them yet, sorry!), and a week later I'm conference calling with three heads who have gotten their hands on copies of the book - they admit that two of them had to read from photocopied versions, they one have one original - and they love the idea of framing a comedy around it. They also want me to work with aforementioned comedian on the screenplay.
I'm happy to announce that the movie was just green lit, and it will be filmed this summer in Toronto. The writing partnership was fantastic, sometimes tense, but very productive, and after much laughter we completed our job. You'll be seeing official announcements soon, but I'm happy I got the go ahead to announce first, which is rare. I can't go into who will be starring, but you've seen at least one of them in television and film quite a bit.
It just goes to show, you never know where some things will lead!
RL
1 comment:
Good one! :)
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