Confessions of former debt collectors

When you're collecting debt, it's dark. It's not a happy place. The main thing I learned from collecting was that I didn't want to do it forever.

Collectors have the luxury of having blinders on. They think, if I'm collecting this one debt from you, I don't have to worry about whether you can put food on the table or pay your electricity or car payments. I have goals internally, and meeting those goals is a big part of my future.

There was a lot of pressure on you, and if you didn't do well you could lose your job. I felt that I had to say whatever I needed to in order to collect the money, and there were times when I was more aggressive and more assertive than I would have chosen to be. I told people sternly that if a payment was not received, we would have to take away their car, TV or anything else someone wouldn't want taken out of their house.

I learned that you can have a certain inflection in your voice or use certain words to belittle or demean people, and this is encouraged. We would call family members and neighbors a lot because that's the best way to intimidate debtors into calling you back.

Needless to say, the self satisfaction from doing this job was minimal, so after a while, the pressure and long hours got to me and I left to do something more than tell people without money to pay this bill "now!"

NEXT: Bruce McClary