It's not just me. It's you, me, William Ernest Henley (from whose "Invictus" I stole the first 15 words of this column) ... everybody.

Maybe you took money from a collection plate, or perhaps there was a sexual indiscretion or two ... or three.

Hoping against hope your shame won't be discovered until you are "beyond this place of wrath and tears" (more Henley), your tortured mind cries out for the release of confession.

No?

It doesn't?

Oh, well never mind then.

But, just in case you're curious, buried deep in the recesses of my past is a dark episode I had hoped would never be revealed. I've chosen to finally come clean to lift the anchor off my soul and in the comforting knowledge that none of you will ever reveal it to anyone.

For several unsavory months a long time ago, I was ...

I was ...

A telemarketer!

Whew! There, it's out. Finally. What a relief.

Yes, folks, a telemarketer, the guy who calls you and wants you to buy something you don't want just as you're sitting down to dinner or watching your favorite TV program.

A wretch deserving only to be shunned by decent society, that was me in 1975.

Like most tales of dishonor, mine began innocently enough. I was young, ambitious and innocent. Well ... young and ambitious, anyway.

I had been promised a sports writing job with a newspaper in Hollywood, Fla., but when I arrived there from New Jersey, the sports editor told me there had been a change in plans. The position wouldn't be open for several months.

Well, there I was, without a job and with a newspaper background that precluded any predilection toward honest labor. I answered a newspaper ad seeking people to sell things by telephone. In my defense, it was a time before "no-call lists" and a public totally fed up with telemarketers.

After a short interview, I was a brand new employee of the Red Rose Chemical Company.

Along with eight other applicants, I was told to report to work the next day. When I arrived at the office, there was a horseshoe-shaped table alignment with 12 phones spread around.

We were told we would be selling "heavy-duty degreaser, rust-remover and preventative and polyurethane concrete sealer" over the telephone to construction people, swimming pool companies, farmers and mechanics in 47 of the contiguous states.

I found out later that we didn't try to sell things in Florida. When I asked the manager why, he sagely said: "You don't spit in your own back yard."

Only he didn't say "spit." Right then, I kind of lost faith that our products would do everything I was told to say they would do.

I was given a script to read to customers over the phone. I was also given a new name.

The manager said Sam Pollak sounded "too Jewish." From that moment on, while working for the Red Rose Chemical Company, my name was Steve Palmer. Even when the managers talked to me when I wasn't on the phone with a customer, I was still called "Steve."

They got my name right on the paychecks, however, and that's really all I cared about at the time.

There was a black guy hired at the same time I was, and they changed his name, too. I don't know why they did that. I didn't think his name sounded too Jewish at all.

After the first two days, five of the new recruits, including the renamed black guy, had been fired. Two more were let go a couple of days later. By the end of the week, I was the only one left from my group. The next Monday, the room was filled with veteran sellers, all vying for an outside line.

The managers planned it that way. There were 12 of us, but only nine telephone lines. That way, you had to really hustle to try to make a sale.

I wish I had room here to give you the whole sales pitch, which was filled with free gifts that were never delivered and authoritative promises about the products that I wanted very much to believe.

I found to my great surprise that I was very good at selling polyurethane concrete sealer. I was even "salesman of the week" a couple of times. Yet, every day after work, I felt I needed a shower.

I pitched a lot of honest, decent folks with small businesses who couldn't really afford to buy concrete sealer that didn't work.

Still, "Steve Palmer" sold them polyurethane concrete sealer.

After several months, the newspaper finally offered me that job. I was doing so well at Red Rose that I had to take a pay cut to join the newspaper, but I was once more (as Henley might say)"the master of my fate ... the captain of my soul."

I didn't miss the money ... and I don't miss "Steve Palmer" at all.

Sam Pollak is editor of The Daily Star. He can be reached at spollak@thedailystar.com or at (607) 432-1000, ext. 208.