MOST of my students work as call center agents. I've even had groups where all the students were call agents. With very few exceptions, they work the whole night and when they join my Spanish classes, have just finished their nightly shift. After the class, they go to sleep. They barely have free time to spend with their families and friends. During the weekends, some of them just tell me they want to sleep 14 hours and watch Netflix series because they are too tired to engage in any other activity. I see them as the humble, silent heroes of the country.

Despite their hardships and their routinary — boring, as they confess — days, they seem to be content with their lives. Most of them did not belong to the middle class before. Their expectations in life were, therefore, somehow low, and this job allows them to have a financially stable life they would not have had if they followed the path of what they studied at university. Many of them even send money to the provinces in order that their parents and siblings could have a better life. Given their lack of free time, they often end up marrying people they work with: the office cantina is the shortcut to love.

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