"Call me now!" Miss Cleo said in her fake Jamaican accent. The commercials for the Psychic Readers Network were ubiquitous and Miss Cleo was practically a household name. It was one of the few jobs that seemed legitimate (I use that word loosely). It didn’t require me to pay for my own training, like the “medical transcription” gigs I read about. And with Miss Cleo, I’d make my state’s minimum wage of $7.25 an hour. Considering that I did not have to get dressed or leave my apartment, it seemed like the perfect opportunity.

I cannot recall exactly how I applied, but I believe it was by email. Communications with my manager took place over AOL chat. I had one phone interview prior to being hired. The manager asked me if I had psychic abilities. I said something like, “Well, as a woman, I believe I have great intuition. Men don’t really have intuition, in my experience, so I’m more gifted than half the population.” She laughed and said, “Good enough.” That was that.

Training consisted of learning about Tarot cards and how to weave the meanings of the cards into stories. I bought two Tarot decks: the classic Rider-Waite deck and another which had the meanings and interpretations printed right on the cards (which turned out to be extremely helpful while on the phone). I learned the five-card spread, the Celtic cross, and the ellipse. I found templates online for various financial and relationship spreads. I learned about the Major and Minor Arcana. I memorized things to say about the Fool, the King of Cups, the Magician, the Tower, and so on. With the cards, and a manual of Tarot spreads, I trained myself for about two weeks before I took my first call. I did not have any one-on-one training or any practice calls, but I was warned that any caller could be a quality-control test — a fake caller from within the company could evaluate my performance at any time.

Before actually becoming a phone psychic, I imagined I would need to talk a lot during these calls. However, it turned out that most people who called were lonely and wanted someone to talk to. They had the stories to tell.

My hours were up to me. I could work at any time, however, there was more traffic on the lines in the evening and late at night. Each day started the same way: I would call a number from my home phone, listen to a recording of Miss Cleo asking if I would like to send in a video tape of myself doing a reading (they were looking for new faces for the television commercials), and enter my code. Once I had joined the network, I would hang up the phone and wait for it to ring. Most nights, it was only a few minutes until I got my first call and I would be busy answering the phone for a few hours until I got tired. I tried working during the day once — and my phone simply did not ring. I stuck with working evenings.