Fair enough. The sad thing is that 99% of the time I’m an incredibly easy-going, nice guy (hard to believe, I’m sure). But get me started on telemarketing and one or two other topics, and I get worked up like this.
Ice Wolf, I understand what you’re saying, but I don’t buy it. As far as I’m concerned, the telemarketer is a representative of whatever organization he/she is working for. Aside from that, see my previous post to see what’s really pissing me off.
Ice Wolf, much as I hate to ‘defend’ him/her, flyboy88 didn’t actually call me a prostitute. He said I was “…one notch up from a hooker…” (my italics). Which must make his opinion of sex-workers REAALLLLY low, considering his/her opinion of ME. 
I can understand your anger, flyboy88 – but I still think it would be more effective aimed at the company who is harebrained enough (and/or don’t care squat about courtesy as averse to profit) to have a policy/procedure that includes calls made at an ungodly hour.
Some of these telemarketers follow directions to keep their jobs. The true “villains”, in any case, are the policy makers.
Charities? Excuse me? The only time any telemarketer has called me concerning a “charity” in any sense of the word was a single call for the local State Troopers benefit.
Every single other call- numbering in the hundreds, thank you very much- has been for anything from cheap lightbulbs to septic tank maintainence or mortage refinancing- both of which strike me as kind of odd considering my apartment’s on city water.
Charity my ass.
Hey Kam, mind if I stand outside your house with a megaphone and say “HEY, THE RED CROSS NEEDS SOME BLOOD DONATIONS, PLEASE! SICK KIDS MIGHT DIE WITHOUT YOUR DONATED BLOOD! YOU CAN HELP SAVE LIVES!”…?
Hey, it’s for a good cause, right?
I reiterate: That is MY telephone. I pay for it, I have it wholly for MY convenience. As soon as you start paying for it, I’ll start accepting your calls.
Heh. 
No, kambuckta, it’s the whole slag-off-the-person thing that gets to me. There are some twits out there, true – but as they are twits, what’s the good of verb-blasting them? Complain to the firm.
<followed by more examples>
Because the Red Cross would shut down if it weren’t for the donations made by cold calling, right?
My wife donates blood to the Red Cross. For medical reasons, I am unable to do so, which makes me feel about an inch tall, especially in the previous 12 months, every time I go with her while she does. Every time they are operating a blood drive in our area, we recieve a small card in the mail with the time/place of said drive, and an invitation to donate. Not one phone call, whether the phone number’s taken from their list of previous donators, or derived by ouija board. And every time we get one of these in the mail, off we go. Very often, they will buy space (or perhaps this is donated, too, I don’t know) on a billboard downtown, also advertising the drive.
Thylacine summed up my own attitude towards charities and cold calling pretty well. So I’ll just say “me too” and “well done.” Especially this last bit, which always feels a shade like emotional extortion, when I hear it:
Sorry, but your first post in this thread does come off (to me, at least) as defending the practice as, if not noble, at least a valued and necessary thing. I don’t see it that way. You mention that there’s no need to be rude to a cold-caller, and yet I state that the act in and of itself is highly rude and intrusive. If I somehow got your home phone number and started calling you 8-10 times a month, offering my services as a computer consultant, gardener, interior decorater, etc. etc. would you consider me rude? After the third or fourth month in a row of this?
(And yeah, you’re in the South Pacific, and I’m in North America, so the odds of either of us doing this to the other are remote in the extreme, but do ya get what I’m saying?)
You said:
And I say, calling someone out of the blue, when they’ve never asked you to do so, for something they neither want nor need, is extremely rude. I just see a double-standard at work here.
Perhaps if you stopped calling people (being rude and invasive) you don’t know, in their own homes, they’d stop being rude back to you?
Ice Wolf, my bile was directed at kambuckta primarily for her attitude in her first post in this thread. But you’re right about what’s more effective when it comes to bitching about telemarketing in general.
kambuckta, I’m sorry for coming off so harshly. I’m sure you’re a nice woman barring this thread, just as I think I’m a nice guy barring this thread.
Doc, I guess our ‘telemarketing’ industry is still in it’s relative infancy compared to yours in the US. I have only ever worked on charity-based campaigning, and commercial marketing is less common here, at this stage anyway. I’m sure it won’t be too far away though.
And Mayflower, while I cannot vouch for every single telemarketer, I personally (and certainly those I work/have worked with) IMMEDIATELY say, “Sorry to bother you then” or “Thanks for your time”, or whatever as soon as the person has indicated they are not interested. I’m not ‘selling’ anything, I am requesting the help of the person I am speaking to, so to try to force the issue is not only going to be a complete waste of time, it reflects badly upon the organisation I happen to be representing.
You guys must have a different system over there. But I still maintain there is no justification for blatant rudeness.
Sadly, this is the way most phone solicitations go. Without trying to compare one evil to another, I always feel compelled to borrow the phrase, “No means no!”
As one o’ the folks who quickly highjacked this thread, let me comment on this, also by Mayflower:
My dear, all I can say is I’m sorry. Deep down, from the bottom of my heart, I apologize on behalf of the human race in its entirety.
No, I’m not a telemarketer, nor have I ever been one. However, you’re never likely gonna get an apology from one. As someone who’s been there (damn, those nights never seem like they’re gonna end, do they?) I feel you are owed an apology by someone, so I’ll do it. Rant, rave, enforce the law of Godwin if you feel the need, just do it with the keyboard, and not your voice. 
As you’ve got older children, I won’t tell you something you already know, ie: that it does get better, and eventually the kid’ll go back to sleep on their own.
But I’ll remind you of it, as it’s easy to forget when you’re sleep deprived, pissed off, and a hormonal/emotional trainwreck in the making. 
OK, I think you may have missed something in my OP, kambuckta. I never even picked up the phone, so how was I rude to the caller? And as I stated in a later post, being rude is difficult for me to do, so I’ve been hung up with telemarketers plenty trying to say a polite NO. Yes, I did say I wish I’d told them to kiss my ass. Truth is, I wish I could do that–but it ain’t likely ever to happen. Doesn’t mean that I didn’t want to do it though, so I vented here, because I couldn’t do so on the phone.
BTW, when I have managed to make someone understand fairly quickly that I am NOT interested, I tend to get this tone from them that says I must be a real fucking idiot if I don’t want to take advantage of their incredible offer. So don’t tell ME about gratuitous rudeness. I’ve seen plenty of it and I was on the receiving end. So be glad that I can get it off my chest here and that you’ll not likely hear it from me personally if you were ever to call my home!
And Skeezix, thanks! Yes, I know it’ll get better with time–just seems like bedtime has been a rodeo lately, and for ONCE it seemed like everything was going smoothly…until the phone rang!
An encouraging word is always appreciated!
And what possible justification can there be to call me up at eight pm and offer to refinance my mortgage or pump my septic tank, when I have neither mortgage nor tank?
Such calls are a complete waste of my time, and being wholly unsolicited, unwanted and unneeded, are extremely rude. Thank you for acknowledging that.
Am I the only one upset by the unfair maligning of prostitutes and others in the sex-for-hire industry? Below telemarketers, indeed!
You know, I’ll never understand the don’t answer the phone/get an unlisted number/get caller ID arguments.
I want to be able to answer my own phone. The vast majority of the time, it is a friend, family member, or someone that I legitimately do business with. If it is late, I want to be available to them because I can assume that if they’re calling me late because the call is urgent.
I want to have a listed number. If someone that I know wants to or needs to get in touch with me but doesn’t have their address book on them, I want them to be able to find me by calling information. I also want to be available to people who know me but don’t have my number if they should have a reason to want to talk to me. I’m not avoiding anyone.
I don’t want caller ID. I don’t have any reason to use it, other than avoiding telemarketers. And I doubt I’d check it before I answer every call anyway. Plus, as in the doctor example above, there are some “anonymous” people that I might want to hear from.
What I do want is no more calls from telemarketers.
Telling each and every one to “put me on your do not call list” seems to have been somewhat effective. We get fewer calls than before.
If it is a charity calling, I tell them that I do not respond to telephone solicitations, to put me on their do-not-call list, and that if they mail me information, I’d be glad to look at it. I’ve never received any mail from any of these charities, so I don’t think that I’m contributing to the junk-mail problem.
I fail to understand how anyone can think that telemarketing is acceptable.
“I fail to understand how anyone can think that telemarketing is acceptable.”
So do I. But, I guess there’ll be people who claim that it works.
Well, does it? I don’t think so.
You’re not alone, Sublight. At least hookers provide a useful service.
I’m also surprised at how often telemarketers provide these two arguements side by side: Hey, I’m really poor and I need the job, and besides, if it bothers you so much, why don’t you just spend the extra money to get Called ID and/or an unlisted phone number?
Gee, maybe because I’m poor too? Kambuckta, please: go on the dole. Welfare is infinitely more respectable than telemarketing.
A wise man once told me to hate the sin, not the sinner.
This applies to all evil acts, including telemarketing.
Telemarketing requires no qualifications or skill. It has no career path. It invariably irritates decent people, since it is a major intrusion.
Of course it is far worse than prostitution (which at least gives pleasure to the customer).
No, but your profession stinks.
You’re not like me. My job is of benefit to society.
All these arguments for telemarketing can also be applied to e.g. drug dealing to school kids.
No, you are foolish or desperate because you took this appalling job.
I’m sorry to be rude to you, but how else can I get you to give up this madness?
We need Telemarketers Anonymous…
It’s hard to tell that when they disturb your privacy again and again…
Well that would go some way to making it up to all the innocent people your profession has harrassed.
But surely you feel ashamed to have sunk so low. Do your parents know what you do?
Then why are you a telemarketer? 
Then why are you a telemarketer?
I’m sorry if you feel I’m being too harsh. but you do have the consolation that at least I haven’t rung you at home many times to tell you this…
Kambuckta, give me your phone number, and i will call you 500 times a day asking you to apply for a credit card. Then after one year, if you don’t get rude once, you have the right to be a telemarketer!
Telemarketing is a vile profession. It’s annoying and it’s intrusive. Thanks to Caller ID, I rarely have to deal with them anymore, but I wish I didn’t have to take such measures.
Recently, an automated telemarketer left a message on my voicemail. I didn’t bother to listen to the whole thing, since I hit delete fairly quickly. May the Boiling Hot Shit of the Damned drown the animals that invented and perfected this kind of automated telephone spam.
And kambuckta…if you’re really incapable of understanding why people find telemarketers so bloody fucking annoying, then there really is no hope for you.
I’m amazed that no one has pointed kambuckta in the direction of one of the all-time greatest rants to ever appear in the Pit…Cervaise’s classic response to a telemarketer that tried to justify her job and dismiss the contempt that her profession generates.
You gotta be kidding.
Now let’s see kambuckta, you don’t want to live in the United States, and you choose to earn a living in an unpopular profession, rather than have other taxpayers support you on welfare. Yeah, you deserve to get piled on.
Count me out of the SDMB lynch mob though. I still entertain this strange notion that it’s a good thing for the board to have differences of opinon, and frank exchanges without resorting to stuff like the shit I’ve seen in the two threads in which kambuckta has been labelled “fair game”, Scientologist style.