Double Take -- by Mark Sproxton

"[A]n ordinary person spends his life avoiding tense situations. A repoman spends his life getting into tense situations." While this line from the movie Repo Man doesn't truly reflect the average day of a bill collector, some reality shines through.

"Our sole function is to collect bad debts," said Glen Hutchinson, Calgary branch manager for Vanguard Collection Agencies Ltd. And when you're asking people for money, there's always a potential for confrontation.

"I don't go in to start a fight," he said. "That doesn't gain anything. We collect as a mirror image of the person. We're very low-key, but we're persistent. When I first started (with another company) I was given a blast sheet where you basically shout at the debtor. I threw that in the garbage."

Much of Hutchinson's work takes place over the phone, or via Canada Post. When a customer calls to have a bill collected, the 20-year veteran of collection begins by writing a letter to the person or agency owing the money, and then tries to make contact via phone. Sometimes the calls return a cheque in the office within a few days. Other times they lead to more phone calls to garnishee someone's earnings, a trip to small claims court, or they return some nasty behavior.

"We take what we do seriously, but if (someone) swears at us, we don't take it personally," Hutchinson said. Annual licensing through the provincial consumer affairs division means collectors are regularly reminded of their limitations to collect a debt.

Debtors, however, don't have the same rules of conduct when they're trying to avoid paying bills. Sometimes that takes potentially tense situations to the ridiculous. "One fellow told me he couldn't hear me because he didn't have his glasses on," Hutchinson laughed. "And then he hung up."