Roger Swardson--a St. Paul writer, editor, businessman, and raconteur--found himself on the wrong end of a real estate bust in the late 1980s. Thereafter he spent his golden years working day labor jobs and living in boarding houses. He contributed a series of groundbreaking stories on the real "New Economy" to City Pages. This piece, about working in a telemarketing shop, became the first of many Swardson features to be reprinted in the Washington Post's Outlook section to wide acclaim.