Confessions of a Former Teen Debt Collector
With payday lending becoming a desperate lifeline of the pandemic, I’m forced to reckon with my past life working in a predatory system
It was an accident, becoming a teenage debt collector. “Listen,” a friend told me. “There’s this job I heard about — it’s at a law firm, you’ll make bank.” It was the summer of 2015, and I was a college student living in downtown St. Louis, away from my childhood home in the Missouri suburbs. The promise of a $10 hourly rate for office work was a serious upgrade from my earnings as a lifeguard. So I met with the partners at their exposed-brick office, burrowed in a city alley.
The firm defied every stereotype of the typical tax attorney. In the lobby, an incense machine whirled in front of colorful tapestries. The two men who ran the joint, both white, bald, and middle-aged, wore Hawaiian shirts and flip-flops. The secretaries sat cross-legged and barefoot in sweats, eating Lean Cuisines. “We like to keep it fun and casual here,” one of the partners told me. He had a side practice teaching yoga at a neighboring studio. They ordered bougie salads to the office on Fridays.
The interview was simple. They asked if I was organized; I fervently nodded yes. I started work the next week, paid in cash.
