I’m sure everyone reading this has, at point or another, received a phone call from a telemarketer. Some, most, of you have at one time hung up on or somehow rudely got rid of this annoying caller. My request is in response to this:
Please, Please, remember that while telemarketers, such as myself, do tend to call at inconvient times, and we may not, at first, sound like we having anything interesting to offer, We ARE still humans.
I have recently entered into the world of sales. Before this I was just like everyone else. “Damn, telemarketer” click But in the past few weeks I have come to realize some things: It is a job, just like any other. We do this because it makes us money. Generally it is a high paying job, which is what many of us need as the costs of living go steadily up.
Today I made a call to a man in Chicago, Illinois. He was interested in what I had to say. However, while I was trying to clarify that he understood all that I had told him, he responded with, “Are you just f*ing stupid? Are you completely unable to comprehend what I’m saying to you? Obviously you don’t know what you’re doing. Don’t ever call me again.”
I’m sure this scenario seems familiar to some. The second this particular man hung up on me, tears rolled down my face because believe it or not, I do also have feelings. I am a human, I am a person. Just because you cannot see us doesn’t mean that what you say won’t affect us. Today I felt a hurt that I haven’t felt in a long time. Given the events of the week, this man further reinstated that despite natural common courtesy and all that we have been taught growing up, people are mean and vicious. We do not like to be interrupted, even for the 30seconds to answer to phone.
Please, on behalf of my coworkers and friends in the industry, think before you speak. Remember that we are also only out to make a living.
I’ve worked phones on the receiving end, so I have only an inkling of what you go through, but I always try to be nice to telemarketers and move them along to the next call as quickly and politely as possible. Sometimes an inkling is all you need.
Folks, cut the telemarketers some slack. They are doing their jobs. They are not Hitler’s spawn. They are people with a nasty and underpaid job. You try doing cold calls sometime and you’ll get your own inkling.
The nature of your job is to initiate an uninvited conversation; an act which, in and of itself, annoys a great many people. That such calls are inevitably timed to arrive right in the middle of one’s evening meal is more annoying still.
And for the love of jah, quit trying to convince me you’re doing me a favor. I understand that marketroids must aim at the heart of the lowest common denominator, but those who recognize insincerity are only insulted.
I’ve done more than my share of shredding on late-afternoon telephonic intruders, but it’s nothing personal. You seem like a nice person; perhaps you should consider a line of work that doesn’t entail pissing people off.
You have got to be kidding. We have been attacked, with 10,000 or more dead. They tried hijacking another plane or two just now. Look, people have friends, coworkers, husbands, wives, and relatives that are missing and God forbid dead. DO NOT CALL ME OR ANYONE ELSE. SHUT UP. Stick your sales quota up your ass until it comes out your nose, ears, and eyes.
That’s correct. Especially this week. Please find another job. This is a big country and there are many career opportunities open to you. Or if you do not wish to find another job, please refrain from bitching and whining about the awful, hideous, slimy job that you have.
That’s not quite true, floha. I don’t mind being interrupted if it is for something important. Quite frankly, I don’t consider the average telemarketer’s sales pitch to be important to me at all. I’ll spell it out for you: My husband calling me Tuesday morning, telling me to turn on the news–important. Some telemarketer trying to sell me useless crap–not important. Some telemarketer’s autodialer that hangs up on me as I pick up the phone–a complete FUCKING waste of my time. :mad:
As for “natural common courtesy”–telemarketers prey upon it. You know that you are much more likely to make a sale to some nice little old lady who will listen to your entire sales pitch out of politeness than to someone who is brazen enough to hang up right away. Those of us who are not interested aren’t generally given much of a polite chance to say so, are we? No, in fact, we are usually forced to interrupt and forced to say “no” THREE TIMES in order to make you go away! Why isn’t once good enough? It’s easier and faster to say “No” and hang up, even if that is “rude”. More “polite” refusals, such as “Not at this time” are given the “reward” of an eventual callback–"‘Not at this time’ or ‘I’m busy now’ doesn’t mean ‘no’"? Yeah, right. I can understand the tendency to swing to the other side instead–at least saying “Fuck you” is more satisfying, even if you do get a callback because “Fuck you” is not technically “no”. :rolleyes:
Yeah, I think the guy went too far in insulting you personally. He’s a jerk. However, IMO, telemarketers are sucking the politeness out of people who would ordinarily be perfectly polite on the phone. People are sick of being interrupted for no good reason, and they are sick of their politeness being preyed upon. It brings out the “mean and vicious” side sometimes, especially when under the stress we’ve all been under lately.
Telemarketing pays so much because there are few people who can handle the rejection and rudeness for very long. I do not mean this as an insult to you–I doubt I could handle it either. Please consider looking for a different job–you will be happier, and we will be happier.
Well, no offense to those in the telemarketing industry but be aware that even in happy times your voice on the other end is not always wanted by all people.
I find telemarketing to be a rude and intrusive industry. I have better things to do with my time and my money, yes, it’s my freakin phone. I pay every month to have those I DESIRE to call to call me. I don’t pay my phone bill so you can call with some lame ass excuse to interupt my life. I have a NO SOLICITING sign on my front door for the same reason. I don’t want contact with you.
I think it was Jerry Seinfeld that said something to this degree when a telemarketer called him (paraphrasing):
“Can I have your home phone number so I can call you back?”
telemarketer says “Ummm no I don’t want you calling me at my home”
Seinfeld says “Then what gives you the right to call my home if I can’t call you at your home?”
I honestly am not sure if that was Seinfeld but I remember it and it makes me laugh.
Look, understand that not everyone is willing to have you call their home and interuppting their lives. You aren’t an invited guest. You are pushing yourself and your sales pitch among a person that has bigger issues to deal with than your pitiful little sales pitch.
I hate unsolicited sales calls. It has to be one of the worst industries in our nation.
Get over it and know that if you call my house you will be rudely interuppted with the telecomm rules that you can never call me again. I don’t like it, my family doesn’t like it. If I wanted to buy your product or service I would go out and seek it on my own. I have NEVER bought a product or service from an unsolicited phone call. DOn’t like what I have to say? Sorry, never, ever call me because you will not get a favorable response. Deal with it, choose a more forgiving job but quit your whining if you call me up and I give you an earful because I didn’t request for your latest and greatest service or product.
First off, I have trouble actually wrapping my mind around the concept that someone apparently signed up for this board to just start this thread. But, whatever.
“Rudely”? Oh give me a break. If someone intrudes in my life, interrupts my day for nothing important, I think I am being pretty frickin’ polite when I say “NO!” and hang up on them. They deserve no more.
No, I am not horribly hostile or hateful. But I do try to get the telemarketer off of the line as soon as possible. They are an irritant who deserves none of my time.
So? You are irritating, you are selling us something useless, and you are human. So I won’t curse at you, but I won’t listen to your useless tripe, and I sure as hell will not appreciate it.
No sympathy. If your job is considered high-paying, then consider the insults and rudeness “hazard pay”. Just take it. They are paying you for it (up to a point).
Well, he was pretty rude, and that’s a shame.
No, I don’t think you have to like the way the guy treated you. But think about it - is your fat paycheck worth it? Are you willing to put up with the inevitable verbal abuse? If so, take it. Take your fat paycheck, and just deal with it. Or get another job. Considering the general feeling most people have about telemarketers, it appears that you can’t have it both ways.
“Natural common courtesy”? Oh please. Cry me a river. It is not “natural common courtesy” to annoy people in the comfort of their own homes.
Also, did it ever occur to you that this man was unusually testy because of the events of this week? I mean, all you are thinking about is yourself - for all you know, he was on an emotional rollercoaster, and you got the brunt of it. And after all, you called him.
Damned straight. So what’s wrong with that? Why should I have to LIKE being interruped for something useless? Just so someone can pay you a lot of money? What do I owe you, anyway, that I should happily facilitate this?
Who are you to think you are ENTITLED to interrupt me, for no damned good reason other than to sell some useless product?
Please, on behalf of the many millions of “victims” of your profession, THINK of how fricking annoying and intrusive you are being on a daily basis. And consider a change of jobs.
So are the rest of us. The difference is, most of us actually provide a useful service. We were more selective. We chose not to ANNOY PEOPLE FOR A LIVING.
I am SO freakin’ tired of seeing threads like this.
Why do people want to be so freakin’ MEAN?!?!?!?!
Ya want to get rid of telemarketers? Use this handydandy phrase:
“I’m sorry, I’m not interested. Please place me on your Do Not Call List.”
That’s it.
No need to be rude, crude, obnoxious, or downright mean. The sentence takes less than thirty seconds and no feelings are hurt on either end.
Road rage, poor service, planes diving into buildings, random strangers swearing at others…goddammit, when are we going to start being NICE to each other???
Sorry, but we have tried this here with one telemarketing service. They called back EVERY fucking day for a week. We told them EVERY single time ‘We do not do surveys. Take us off your call list.’
???
Perhaps they were all of sub-normal intelligence, but I prefer to think they were just stubborn dickheads*. I have some sympathy for them, though, I worked phone tech support for an ISP for a year, and people can be damn insulting when they have the luxury of a long strip of phone wire between you and them. (I also had spanking offers and was told ‘you should have been a man.’ :rolleyes: )
At the risk of sounding flippant, might I suggest that avoiding “The BBQ Pit” would help alleviate that problem?
A thousand pardons. I was under the impression that the telespammers were guilty of the unwelcome intrusion, not the other way around. I’ll quit hounding them at their workplaces immediately. :rolleyes:
It’s not a matter of “wanting to be mean.” It’s a matter of being sick to death of receiving calls at deliberately inconvenient times, with offers I didn’t request, for products I couldn’t give a capybara’s hairy ass about, from strangers whose only interest in me is making a quick buck.
“Fie, varlot! A leprous pox on thy kinsman’s firstborn, thou vile, pustulent rat’s knackers!”
And it’s almost, though not quite, as effective as pissing down Krakatoa. Mayhap you’re blessed with unusually agreeable marketroids, but rest assured they’re rather more persistent elsewhere.
Look, it’s clear you’re upset. Given current events, this is understandable.
But to equate hanging up on a telespammer with acts of terrorism and mass murder is a bit reactionary, don’t you think? At the very least, you’re trivializing the horror of those acts by comparing them with something so ultimately harmless.
Please, sit down. Have a nice cup of cocoa and a great big bowl of perspective, on me.
Uhhhhh… I have nothing to add. I just thought it’d be cool to have two Beeblebroxes (should it be Beeblebroces, or is that reserved for certain Greek nouns?) post in a row. I hope nobody’s posted recently, or they’ll ruin my little effect.
Oh, and yeah. I hate telemarketers, they’re intrusive and annoying, and blah blah blah. There. Now it’s not a complete hijack.
I’ve been trying this as well, and lately it seems they have found a workaround.
Me: Please remove me from your list. Them: We don’t have a list. This was a randomly generated phone number. Me: Ok. Please mark it next to my number I don’t want to be called again. Them: Oh, our software doesn’t support that. Me: sigh. click
I saw a Seinfeld clip show that had that scene. Jerry said, “Can I have your home number so I can call you back?.. No, you don’t want to be called at home by strangers? Now you know how I feel.” Click. :D:D:D:D
Telemarketer: Hello, my name is so-and-so, and I’m calling on behalf of The Montreal Gazette. We’re having a promotion in your area where you can receive insert stupid thingie here for free when you subsribe to The Montreal Gazette. Do you know about our newspaper?
Me: Yeah, but I’m not interested, thank you.
TM: Why not?
WTF??? I have to fucking JUSTIFY my lack of interest to this goddamned annoying scablicker? Aren’t the words “not interested” supposed to light up a little sign in their pea-sized brains that says “this guy’s not buying your damn shitrag, so move along and call someone else” or some such thing???
“You ARE Zaphod Beeblebrox?”
“Yeah,” said Zaphod, “but don’t shout it out or they’ll all want one.”
“THE Zaphod Beeblebrox?”
“No, just A Zaphod Bebblebrox, didn’t you hear I come in six packs?”
[sub]“I am so amazingly cool you could keep a side of meat in me for a month. I am so hip I have difficulty seeing over my pelvis.”
