Memories of office life: at the call centre, every customer interaction became a prank

Switching accents and deliberately mispronouncing words was silly, but it helped keep up our spirits when managers were tracking our toilet breaks and listening to our calls

The part of communal work-life I miss most is gallows humour. This can only be forged in really crap jobs, and they don't come much worse than call-centre work. I've done a fair bit, cold-calling for rubbish products, financial services and charities. Call centres are offices, but also open prisons. Managers keep track of the number and length of your toilet breaks. They count how many calls you attempt each minute, so you can't slack off. When some poor sap does pick up, they sometimes listen in. You would only know this after you got taken to one side and asked why you hadn't attempted to flog the cash-strapped pensioner some side plates. Your continued employment was always at stake. We all suffered the same dilemma. On the one hand, crippling financial need; on the other, our souls.

Yet an atmosphere of Stasi-like distrust can really juice one's rebellious instincts. These call centres were frequently staffed by actors (one of whom is now Hollywood royalty, starring in Marvel films for presumably more than 10 an hour). We were young, had the gift of the gab and could work off-script, which made sales conversations less robotic, and often more lucrative. If skiving was off the table, there were other plays.