A telemarketer replies

The BBQ Pit
1

This rant is dedicated to all those who have ever been rude to a telemarketer purely for the reason that you don’t like our job. It applies to no-one else.

I’m a telemarketer. As such I feel that I should interject on behalf of telemarketers everywhere, against the torrent of insufferable abuse that they tend to get.

First of all, I just want to say three simple words, straight out.

WE DON’T CARE.

We don’t care that you’re inconvenienced. I’m inconvenienced by having to call you miserable ungracious bastards to pay my way in this world. The task of spending my day phoning dozens and dozens of numbers all day to persuade a bunch of people, 99% of whom regard you with a mix of distrust and suspicion unseen since the day OJ walked free, to buy shit they neither want nor care about inconveniences ME!! For this reason the fact that you have to waste a few precious seconds of your day telling me you’re not interested and the fact that this ticks you off a little, matters not one whit to me. WHY THE FUCKING HELL SHOULD I CARE??? I have to do this shit all the fucking time. Don’t pretend you’re doing anything other than jacking off over Jenny Jones anyway, just answer the goddam FUCKING phone, decline (or accept) politely and then forget about it.

A few days ago, I phoned up a customer to inquire as to whether the services we were already providing were satisfactory. I was then treated to a lecture by this miserable little ice bitch whore as to how I shouldn’t be wasting other peoples time. Well BOO FUCKING HOO!!! Did you have some urgent luncheon appointment you have to rush off to? Were you just getting ready to jet set off to the Champs Elisee to have a candlelit dinner with Richard Fucking Branson? Or perhaps you’re a bomb disposal expert who’s just been called out to save the city and every second counts? HELLO!! Earth to planet cunt!!! It may surprise you to learn that, in fact, you were doing none of these things. You were, judging by the length of the lecture, bored shitless in front of the TV pissing your twilight years down the drain, slowly storing up vitriol in your bitter, twisted soul until you could unleash it on the first innocent Joe to intrude upon your mindless, drug addled reverie. Am I insensitive? No. I am, on the whole, a nice guy. Am I insensitive to your needs? Yes. Do I honestly, in my heart of hearts, give a flying fuck in a thunderstorm about your needs? No. Again, I reiterate:

WE DON’T CARE

You stupid, snide, sneering, worthless, wretched, pucillanimous, pecker-headed sons of syphilitic Bangkok hookers, spare me your incessant, pathetic, childish whining, your worthless torrents of petty, pointless, verbiage, your sickeningly immature and inept diatribes, your perpetual protests of how we’re WASTING YOUR TIME. One more time, c’mon people you know the words

WE DON’T CARE

We, telemarketers everywhere, will continue to phone you up as long as we’re paid to do it. It is a fact of life. Accept it. Accept it like the changing of the tides and the rising of the sun. When I move on from telemarketing to greener pastures there will be ten more applicants ready and waiting to follow after me. There is nothing you can do. Lectures on how we ‘waste your time’ or verbal vituperations as to the parasitic attributes of telemarketers will do nothing more than mark you down for the selfish, arrogant cunts you are and ensure that we phone you twice tomorrow. In life there are few constants. Telemarketing, however, is one of them. Learn to live with it and for crying out loud just be polite. That’s all we ask. You think we’re “rude” to you? Well at least we’re only “rude” to you once a day. You and your ilk are far, far more rude, disagreeable, derogatory and disparaging to us, 10, 15, 20 times a day. WE have the shit end of the stick. For the love of all that is holy, grow the fuck up!

2

God damn.

3

No, you liar. My phone receives at least 25 unsolicited calls each day, eight to twelve of them during supper. One worthless cretin may only harass me once each day, but with thousands of you out there, you (collectively) are rude far more than once a day.

As to it being your (snort) “job,”

WE DON’T CARE

Go get an honest job selling cars or running for political office, don’t whine that I’m rude.

4

Harris:
I think I like you.
Merry Fuckin Christmas!

5

I lasted three months. I was sworn at, bitched out, and made to feel like a piece of crap. So amen, brother.

On the other hand, it annoys the hell out of me when I get a call. Mostly because I get excited when the phone rings, and when it’s not someone who loves me, BAH. But I’m always polite. And I always end the conversation with “And could you please remove me from your calling list?” Because I’ve been polite and courteous, the number of calls I’ve gotten since the phone has been in my name has dropped to one or two a month.

6

Ever notice signs posted, “No Soliciting”? They’re to keep hucksters from button-holing people and being a pain in the ass.

Got news: you’re doing the same thing to people, in their own homes. Why should they avoid answering their own phones because you choose to intrude on them? And what gives you the slightest right to even question what they’re doing when you intrude? At least they’re not bothering total strangers, which is more than you can claim.

You’re an intruder, get it? You’re invading the privacy of their homes to pitch your commercial spiel. The intrusion makes you some bucks but WE DON’T CARE; that is literally your business but you’re forcing it onto others.

I’m not defending rudeness to anyone, but your attitude stinks. Better face the realities of the job you’ve taken. What you do for a living is rude and obnoxious toward others.

Where, o where is Cervaise??
Veb

7

Excuse me you poor feeble brained miscreant slacker As TVeblen so aptly pointed out to you, I didn’t call you and start bitching you out. You called me. You thrust your incomprehensively thick headed presence into my space without my permission or request

The inconvenience which you complain so loudly about is your choice. Did someone put a gun to your head and force you to chose an occupation which most of the telephone owning public considers to be populated by knuckle dragging trolls who obviously must have failed “Basic Human Courtesy 101” or they would have found a more honorable profession like flipping burgers or pumping gas? You obviously must be so totally lacking in basic customer relation skills that no other occupation would have you, else why would you lower yourself to such an abysmal profession? I most certainly will tell you to take me off your call list. That is if I can get an word in edge wise as your boring monotone spews the script in front of you into my ear. You know if I interrupt you, perhaps you should pause long enough to hear me speak since you seem to be incapable of both reading your script and hearing me speak at the same time.

I will credit you this. Your rant included one point I actually agreed with you on. When you called the customer to perform a quality assurance check on services already provided I believe you have a legitimate gripe if someone complains at you for calling them. You see, they chose to purchase those services, they invited you into their home. I didn’t. I don’t ever plan to.

Get a real job, one you actually can stomach performing, or feel free to vent here about the absolutely shitty circumstances of your life that prevent you from doing so, but don’t think for a minute that you’ll get any sympathy from folks here because your precious time is wasted when we curse you out for invading our homes.

-Doug

8

To quote a character from Daria, “The repition…mesmerizing.”

~Anthony, Just a Random Scrub.

9

Harris, you’re absolutely right. I agree with everything you wrote.

But you know what? I’m still going to treat you like shit. Because I can.

Go ahead and try to stop me, fuckface.

10

Harris:

Top-notch. But that doesn’t mean I agree. :wink:

I dunno what you sell, but in the benefit-show business, I rarely get yelled at… and when I do, it’s the highlight of my day. Sure, people hang up, but that’s part of the job. Hell, even lying customers are such a part of the job that they don’t bother me anymore.

What gets me these days are rude spouses - “Hi, is Steve there?” “Who’s calling?” “My name with company, giving him a thank you call… could I speak to him, please?” “I’ll thank him. click” What, you can’t trust your husband to talk to me? Occasionally it’ll be rude parents, even when they’re just visiting!

And, like the OP mentioned, rude previous customers. Hello, I’m calling because we have an established business relationship. You’ve contributed for the past 5 years. Maybe you don’t want to contribute this time; in that case, “sorry, I won’t be doing it this year” will suffice. Being a dick isn’t necessary.

tomndebb:

Sounds like someone doesn’t know the magic words.

I can only assume that the reason you think telemarketers are dishonest is that you’ve never listened to any of the nearly 10,000 calls you get per year.

11

Yo, telemarketer fuck,
Gee, how convenient of you to carry your ‘I don’t care’ attitude about your (choke) job. I’m sure that helps to mask what an asshole position you have. I have telephone service, and I am damn rude to you people, and here’s why…
I pay for telephone service for specific reasons, and until my cost for services are offset by asshole organizations such as yours, I don’t want to hear from you, ever. You bastards are using a private service for your own personal gain, and I’m sure you think you’re cool by doing this as you don’t have the expense of legitimate advertisers. As TVeblen explained it, you’re the modern day equivalent of the door to door sales slug who tries hard to slide a foot in the doorway, and you don’t have to face the possibility of having that foot blow off by a 12 gauge. Gee, how proud you must be.
I know you justify your shit by ‘Hey, they pay me for this!’, but how bad are you really willing to prostitute yourself.
Fortunatly, phone technoligy is available to shut you up, but it is a pain it cost a little extra. If you’re so proud of what you’re doing, why do you always show up as an unidentified number when you call ?
Have a very Merry Christmas.
Fucking asshole.

12

Are we getting an invasion from some kind of “Left Behind” for telemarketers?

13

No, asshole. Someone DOES know the magic words. Someone also lives in a large city. While I can’t speak for Tom, in my city the BUSINESS ONLY white pages directory is a couple of inches thick. That means there’s quite a few businesses out there that will call me up individually, and pitch to me, and I need to (under current law) say those “magic words” to each telemarketer. This has been pointed out to you repeatedly.

As for the dishonesty of telemarketers, I get my impression from experience (I used to actually try to take them up on their offers)(and I did my own figuring on the cost of magazines, etc.) and from reports. Here in Dallas/Fort Worth, there are regular features on the latest telemarketing scam…for instance, there are sound alike charities. The police and firefighters have a LOT of sound alike charities…and the actual firefighters and cops never see a dime of the money.

Basically, telemarketers annoy and harass most people. YOU like it because it makes you money, and it seems that you don’t need to sleep when telemarketers call. Telemarketers take a service that I have paid for, and put it to their own use. Tell me, just WHY should I and a gazillion other people subsidize telemarketers? Don’t drivel on about TV and magazine ads, you’ve already been shown that these ads pay for the material that people watching TV or reading the magazines are consuming. Seems that you never have an answer to that one.

Again I’ll say it, why should people with telephones subsidize YOUR industry? For the most part, we don’t like it!

14

You don’t care? That’s GREAT! You see, I had been doing my best to simply decline telemarketers without being terribly mean because they really hadn’t been very much of an intrusion and I realized it wasn’t that much fun of a job to do anyway. But, since you (and, I assume, all telemarketers by extension) don’t care, I will feel free to treat the next one who calls me like absolute garbage. Maybe I’ll call that telemarketer a bitch, or maybe a whore, or a subhuman pedophile. God, there are SO many derogatory words I had been holding back, but since you just told me that you don’t care, I will let them fly.

Yippee!

15

Mojo Jojo:

Ever heard of phone bills? Imagine paying for 200 lines at twice the price-per-line you’re paying right now.

Feel free to invent a technology to transmit caller ID information over digital leased lines. I’m sure you’d make a fortune.

If a telemarketer calls with no caller ID, do you really think it’s because they decided to block caller ID information? They have to pay for the service. They lose sales because some people block calls without caller ID.

In order for it to be a good decision to block caller ID, we must assume that there are a lot of people who say “hey, I have a call, but I won’t answer it because I don’t recognize 536-0123 or the name CCI.” Then we must assume that if the company blocks caller ID, those people will take the call, listen to the pitch, and buy the product in sufficient numbers to offset the costs. The kind of person who decides not to answer based on the caller ID is not the kind of person who will buy from a telemarketer.

Lynn Bodoni:

I contend that the number of calls would dry up damn fast if he actually took the time to get removed from each caller’s list. Every time you say “take me off your list”, that’s one more company that won’t call you for ten years.

And I suppose you believe that school shootings are an epidemic, and the only newsworthy thing that’s happened in the past month is vote recounts. Sensational things get reported, others don’t.

I suspect that most of the “sound alike charities” will happily tell you that the police and fire departments don’t get a dime of the money - because that’s not what they claim to do or the image they try to present.

For every scam that shows up on the news, there are many more legitimate organizations that you might never hear about until they call… and then you’ll think they’re scammers, because all you’ll remember is the news segment.

You pay to be connected to the phone network; so do telemarketers. They aren’t billing you for the call.

Hint: You aren’t.

Hint: You aren’t.

16

And I contend that that is a ridiculous lie, and shouldn’t be the responsiblity of the resident anyway.

You know, I’ll screw over podunk charitiy No 5 fifteen times if it means I don’t lose my money to scam No 37.

17

So my paying $45 per month for a Kansas City calling line is NOT, in any way, helping you to run your telephone business? You’re saying that if NO ONE had phones, your business would work just as well? If that’s not what you’re saying, then we, phone subscribers, are subsidizing you, the undigested seeds in civilizations’ feces.

18

I’m sorry, but the subsidy exists. Sure telemarketers pay for their own phone usage. Big whoop; so does every business.

But telemarketers use their phone connections to exploit the private phone service individuals pay for. Simple fact: their business would dry up in a skinny minute if they didn’t systematically invade the privacy of individuals. Their connections rely on the phones other people pay for. Those people do not pay to be harassed and bothered by people hawking their wares.

Furthermore, I’m honestly offended by the “magic words” nonsense because it shifts responsibility away from the offenders and onto those imposed upon. It’s ludicrous and just damned wrong to assume it’s my responsibility to pare down the pest population one by one. So there’s a no-call grace period. New telemarketers crop up like hellspawn–and having to be inconvienced before I can tell them to knock it the hell off is supposed to be a solution?! As Myrr21 noted, this is not the responsiblity of the resident!

And why should private citizens have to shell out money and hassle with systems to weed out nuisance sales calls that are an intrusion to begin with?

Telemarketing calls are an imposition and an annoyance. There you have it.

Veb

19

Obviously. If you CARED, you’d get a REAL job.

Then I certainly won’t care if I’m rude to you in return.

And this is my problem - how? I didn’t choose your shit job. You did. Your problems with it are yours alone. In a nutshell, I DON’T CARE.

I am usually polite, because that’s the way I am. (Though your rant is making me re-think that.) But let me tell you. if I were to “jack off to Jenny Jones” (which I cannot say I ever have) it would be a more worthy use of my time than answering the phone for the likes of you.

Whatever she was doing, whatever any of us were doing, it is still a more worthwhile use of our time than listening to you. Get a real job.

Get a real job.

Like I said, I am usually polite. But I don’t owe you a thing. You invade my home, bother me when I am finding the cure for cancer, or picking my toenails, or whatever it is that is far more worthwhile than answering the phone for you. I owe you zippo. Get a real job.

Get a real job. When you interrupt me in my own home, you are being “rude”. Get a real job.

GET A REAL JOB.

20

re: Just say the magic words:

Mr2001, you seem to be a more “reputable” telemarketer than most. Ok, I will give you that. However, you seem to be under the mistaken impression that saying “Please put me on your do not call list” is a magical cure for these calls.

That is Bullshit!

Sure, some companies will take you “off the list”. It is my experience (and I gather the same for quite a bit of posters also) that THAT DOES NOT STOP THE CALLS. Some of these fly by night boiler room operations don’t give a flying fuck about the “magic words”. They will be moving to a new city in a few weeks anyway, they don’t care.

So while your company may honor the law, bear in mind a lot of operations simply don’t care about regulations.

And you might respond: “Well, no reputable company will engage in that sort of fraud, report them to the state AG”.
That’s all fine and good, but it doesn’t decrease the amount of bullshit calls I get.