One of my favorite radio programs is This American Life. Each week, it collects a few stories on a theme, looking from a few, often offbeat, perspectives. These are examples of fantastic storytelling, masterminded by Ira Glass. You can hear him talk about how he approaches his work in a video from GEL 2007.

As much as I love them, I simply don't know how to describe these stories.

They are not "news stories." There may be resonance to current events, but they are rarely the timely recounting of a significant event we think of as "the news". But, they are about real people and usually about things that really happened.

It's not representative. There is no pretense that these stories are more than a glimpse into one life, one view, one story. The stories are more about the texture of an experience than a carefully structured look at a task or goal.

But. If I was designing an application for telemarketers, I can't imagine a better way to understand what that work is like than the story "The Fate Most of Us Fear". Having heard that story, I can't ignore it. I want to know more. Is it really true that the short pause on your answering machine is a weary sales associate grabbing a few seconds before the system pushes them on to the next call? What makes some people talk to that telemarketer like they are another human being? The story conjures up a whole world in 10 minutes.