AprilWould
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Four Years in Phone Sex
🕑 Added 2021-03-13 04:52:31 +0000 UTCToday marks four years since I took my first professional phone sex call. I’ve officially been a phone sex operator for as long as I was in college. I frequently joke that being a phone sex operator has been my grad school. I’ve learned more about people, relationships, and sexuality than I could have possibly dreamed back before I did this. I would like to write something about how much I’ve learned on the job, especially compared to college and work and personal relationships, but this isn’t that piece. This is just because I had to mark the day somehow.
When I started working in phone sex, I was a struggling writer, enduring the latest in a series of disappointing office jobs that, to say the least, did not utilize my strengths. Though this last office job was undeniably the best of the lot in terms of co-workers and general atmosphere, it was still demoralizing to spend day after day basically failing. I was dealing with then undiagnosed ADHD, “severely exacerbated by an anxiety disorder,” and I knew I was as bad for the job as it was for me.
But every office job I’ve had has always led to two conclusions, despite extensive flaws in other areas: I’m a good writer, and I’m good on the phones. Indeed, I was very nearly promoted to a sales position, even though I’d been hired as an office assistant, because the head salesman thought I was “effective” on the phones. But that wasn’t what I’d been hired for, so it didn’t happen. Same with copywriting. I did a fair bit of copywriting as an office assistant. I kept waiting and trying for my “Miss Olson, you are now a junior copywriter” moment, but again. That wasn’t what I was hired for.
I picked phone sex because I’d been a telemarketer, I had improv training, and I was curious about sex, and it seems to be working out, so far.
I posted my first audio to GWA on February 22,, 2017. Phone sex followed shortly after on March 12th. Even before I knew the two worlds would ever collide, I knew April would straddle them both (she straddles so well).
Because I had no idea my Reddit username would be a long-term professional name, I spent exactly five minutes thinking about it. I’ve always liked the name April. I thought it was pretty. I was a secretary, and there were tax forms on my desk, including W9s, so I named myself like Jan Brady named her imaginary boyfriend: after whatever happened to be in eyesight. So, I became AprilW9.
Less than a year after March 12, 2017, I left the first phone sex line I worked for, and moved to Niteflirt, I decided April needed a last name, and it should probably begin with a W, for consistency. My first thought was Wood (because, you know, boners), but that felt too cheesy. Then my best friend (and now roommate) suggested, “What if you spelled it, ‘Would’? Like ‘your girlfriend won’t do it, but April would.’”
It made me laugh, so that became my name.
In my first job out of college as a telemarketer, I remember seeing other employees at the company receive gifts to commemorate five, seven, ten, fifteen years. Child that I was, it was impossible to imagine that I could ever be at one job long enough to win that watch or paperweight. Today, especially after so much professional strife, four years in phone sex feels momentous. It feels like a career. I want it to be a career. Because I love this job. Loving your job is a gift I thought I would never get, and to add that gift, I feel good at it, and the work feels valuable.
If you’re reading this, I hope you agree. Thanks for sticking with me.
Comments
Lily S
Here's your four year commemorative star, April⭐ You deserve everything you want :)
Alamo Preacher
You are the best audio performer I know of. I've never rung, but I know it would be great. I re-listen to some of your audios pretty regularly. You're leaving a body of work as a writer and a performer that will be more valuable and important than a gold watch would ever be, As an aside, in the nineties, I'd written my first (porn) story. I wanted to post it on the internet and I needed a name. The comic 'Preacher' was on the table beside me and the particular issue was called 'Alamo'. Nearly 25 years later, I've just received a royalty payment from Kindle publishing for nearly two dollars! Keep on the phone.
