I used to work for a collection agency in San Francisco, at a place called Imperial Collection System. When I showed up for work the first day, my new manager met me in the lobby.

"What's your name again?" he asked.

"Kilgore Trout."

"Okay. From now on, you are... Brian Spencer*. Come on upstairs and I'll introduce you to everybody." He led me into a cramped room where six people worked the phones at tiny desks. "Everybody," he said, "this is Brian Spencer, our new collector."

Now, it's common for bill collectors to use aliases. When I worked as a collector in Iowa, I used the alias "Carl Black," because I thought it sounded tough. Usually you get to choose your alias, though -- the manager doesn't assign it to you. And you only use your alias when talking with debtors, not in everyday conversation with other collectors. But ICS was different.

The manager introduced me to the other collectors, mostly Filipinos and Chinese tagged with the most white-bread aliases possible, so that Ellison San Miguel and Hieu Ly became George Baxter and Robert Thompson. I never learned most of my coworkers' real names. We all called each other by our aliases. Everyone called me "Spence," of course, which means that I had a nickname for my alias. This was not as exciting as it sounds.

My manager's alias was Rex King. "But doesn't 'Rex' mean 'king'?" I asked.

"Yes!" he said, beaming and delighted. "You're the only one to get that!" This did not surprise me. A welding certificate will suffice to make you the most educated man on most collection floors.

Rex had been through two bitter divorces and hated women. "All women are crazy, Spencer," he used to say, with not a whiff of irony. "Just get what you want and dump them before they ruin your life. Better yet, get a prostitute. They're cheaper."

Sometimes I would go to Jamba Juice for a fruit smoothie. The smoothies always came with a free "Boost," like a Fiber Boost or an Antioxidant Boost or a Femme Boost, which was a bunch of vitamins for women. When I returned to the office, Rex would jeer, "Did you get the Femme Boost? Does it make you cry for no reason and think you're psychic?"

Rex was a master motivator. "Come on, guys!" he would holler when morale flagged. "This is the collections business, not the goddam Girl Scouts!"

Rex amused himself by saying ridiculous things to debtors. "When you call back, ask for me, Rex King," he would say. "I'm in charge of Special Operations." There was, of course, no such thing as Special Operations.

Another time, to an angry debtor: "I wouldn't even know what you're talking about, sir. I'm just a simple working man, making a simple working man's wage."

Once I was talking off a debtor who owed over a thousand dollars for jewelry purchased on credit at 18 percent interest. She never made a single payment. "Quit calling me," she said. "I'm raising three kids and I don't have any money."

"Well, where are you working?" I asked.

"I am on welfare," she said, in the same tone of voice that another might use to say I am the head of neurosurgical research at Johns Hopkins University.

"On welfare? Sounds to me like the government is raising your kids," I said. That's an awful thing to say. But I still take sneaking pride in that wisecrack.

Outraged, the debtor demanded to speak to my manager. So I transferred her to Rex.

"Hello, this is Rex King," said Rex. "Why, yes, I am Mr. Spencer's manager. Uh huh... I see. Well, ma'am... ma'am? Ma'am! Thank you. Now, before we go any further with this, I just want to say that Mr. Spencer is one the finest men I have ever had the privilege of working with. In fact, I served with his father in the war."


*I learned later that Brian Spencer was Rex's favorite hockey player.

+posted by Lawrence @ 6/10/2004 10:52:00 PM