It's a scary world. When I graduated college, I walked off the stage an into a crowd of friends, recent graduates, who were still looking for work. But there have to be jobs somewhere....

And there are, and all you have to do is sell out a little bit. If you're up for something mindless, exhausting and relatively well-paying, I found that the Netflix call center in Hillsboro has an average of 60 open jobs at all times, with no experience required (at least that's what they tell me.)

At Netflix, enthusiastic-sounding people (that could be you!) talk to Netflix customers about their issues. According to a friend of mine who used to work there, “The workers there were essentially in two camps: those who hated the job, and those who worked harder to hide their hatred for their job.”

The fun thing about the Netflix center is that many of the calls have nothing to do with Netflix. There is a certain percentage of callers that want help with their account or the Netflix website, but some call in with tangentially related issues. Perhaps your DVD player is broken. Perhaps your computer isn’t connected to the Internet, or your web connection is ungodly slow. Your problem can be Netflix’s problems thanks to a conveniently published customer service phone number.

A corporate Netflix dude told me that the company selected Portland as a location for its call center because people here are calm, relaxed, and hospitable. If you are... check your local listings!

Netflix Customer Service call center, Hillsboro
Number of open positions: 60
Starting salary: $14/hr plus benefits
Pros: No dress code
Working for a company that’s loved
Cons: Your job is to read your screen to people who don’t know how to use computers
I don’t think they let you read Blogtown at work (closely monitored Internet usage)

The only guy at Netflix who would talk to me: Steve Swazey, Netflix’s VP for communications down at their HQ in Los Gatos, CA.

What do you look for in an employee?
We prefer some skills in customer management, and you need to have some computer skills. If you walk into the center, you’ll see lots of different types of folks: individualists who wouldn’t take a job at another corporate environment.
We don’t have a dress code, or a hair code, or a body-parts-piercing code. As long as you have a good phone demeanor, and if you’re good at giving Netflix customers advice off the computer screen in front of you, it doesn’t matter how you’ve pierced or branded yourself.

What do you offer employees?
It’s a step above an hourly wage position. It’s higher than minimum wage by far. But the biggest draw is that you’re working for a revolutionarily groundbreaking company.
We have changed the way people watch movies since we started in 1999. This is a company that’s changed American behavior, and that mood goes through the company. Customer service reps get the advantage of working for a company that is loved, though they often get the least pleased of the customers.
The pay is competitive, workplace environment is good, there is great light and sound, and the software is homegrown and really innovative. People who have worked in call centers elsewhere tell us, “It’s so easy to serve a customer with this interface.”