Actually I did a quick scan of her recent posts and most of them are as reactionary and over-the-top ridiculous as the ones in this thread so it wasn’t conclusion jumping but an honest WTH reaction.
[sexist swine] Well, I hope she’s hot to make up for the crazy. [/sexist swine]
The motto of some in this thread; 'tis better to be poor and homeless and/or on welfare than it is to be a telemarketer.
All I can say is that I really do pray some of the more arrogant persons here never have to be in a position where a telemarketing job is all they can get. I’d feel bad for them, but I can’t say it wouldn’t be a bit of divine justice.
It’s reactionary to get annoyed when people call my house after I told them to stop?
:dubious:
I have a real work at home job that pays well. I also have a rotating list of supervisors who often show up as private caller so I have no way of identifying their names. By the rules of my company I have to either answer the phone or provide a good explanation of why I did not.
I would indeed rather pay a little more in taxes than have my thoughts distracted by smug assholes who don’t listen to me as they intrude themselves into my house, interrupt my concentration and ignore my efforts to get them to stop.
Telemarketing is not a job. It is legalized harrassment. I have told Citibank to stop calling me three times in three months. I still get cold calls from them. Last Thursday it was some asshole employee who was trying to tell me that he knew more about my finances than I did.
Stuff my mail box. Chase after my email. But leave my fucking phone alone. It is intrusive, irritating and inappropriate behavior. It ought to be illegal.
Woah, be careful there. Keep that attitude up, and dropzone is totally taking you off his Christmas card list.
He already is, but don’t tell him. I want him waiting by the mailbox until Epiphany hoping and praying that my card will come. But if you do speak with him tell him I will be sending money.
You seem to be reactionary about a lot of things from the brief peek at your posts (brief, please don’t think I’m stalking you or wonder if I should die for doing so). It seems things that most people shrug about send you into OMG ZONE. Perhaps you’re just a big ball of hyperbole and you use it to be “clever” but it reads as crazy. Just my opinion, not worth the time you took to read it.
I realize this is the pit and angry/crazy/rage is encouraged but reread your multiple responses to this thread and pretend you’re a rational person. Pretty wacky, huh? I agree that the OP was pretty eyerolling and silly in spots but damn.
Yes, yes you have a REAL JOB and you are busy. Most people do and most people are. If you really get that many calls from telemarketers after you have told them to stop then you need to do so in writing and then start documenting their return calls so you can report them to the FTC as outlined on their website. I mean, I realize that’s not as fun as frothing here online and pretending you have no recourse but it might just get the job done. I have a sneaking suspicion that you enjoy arguing with them by your “Last Thursday it was some asshole employee who was trying to tell me that he knew more about my finances than I did.” quote. Why did you even talk to him?
Doesnt work all that well when they are calling from another country or a hidden number.
You do realize that I have built my career at the SDMB on eyerolling and silliness, right? I can only be so serious for so long and have forgotten most of the things I vented about, but I had some points to make and, because some people are just mean and stupid and don’t hear things the first or second time they are told them, I had to repeat myself. However, I have had it with the scurrilous accusations some mean-spirited and clueless dolts felt a need to throw around.
I created a couple other threads for both sides of the phone worker question but I won’t be back to this thread to defend my honor until tomorrow night because I am now working for a living. To add to your Monday misery I will try to call each and every person who was mean to me in this thread. Two or three times. 
You seem to be just as nutty as the OP. Venting about really annoying behavior in the pit does not make one crazy.
I was talking to the fucking Citibank guy after they not only called my house three times in three days after I asked them to stop six times in six months, but they actually resorted to Fed-Exing me junk mail offers that initially looked like scary implications that we were not paying our mortgage and in danger of actual eviction. I called him after this shit happened. Perhaps you live in a world where expecting your mortgage company to be grateful that you pay your mortgage on time and not use that as an excuse to send you deceptive mail and obnoxious phone calls but I would rather not.
He was not only unapologetic, he told me I really needed to refinance our mortgage and I didn’t understand finance if I didn’t understand that. I plan to call the company on Tuesday and see if I can get someone who will finally get this bullshit to end.
I’ve had similar encounters with Capital One and Verizon. A prior or existing relationship should not be an excuse to annoy your former, current or potential future customers.
As I wrote, fill my inbox, send me junk mail, put commercials on television. But I don’t think it’s crazy to demand that my phone line be off limits to sales pitches.
Yes, yes. I’m the nutty one telling people to go on welfare and asking how they don’t kill themselves. Of course you are right. You take care now.
The scammer who calls has no contract whatsoever with me. Their aim is to get my credit card number and abuse my credit. In some of these cases, it has been shown that the scammers are stealing the phone service.
They shouldn’t be calling me in the first place.
The real pitting, I suppose, should be for the lack of federal prosecution against the scammers who ignore the do not call list.
Edit: For disabled vets, legit businesses, etc., I would not do anything but politely refuse.
Pray that “Rachael” doesn’t get your number!
The truth behind Rachael of Card Member Services
I say we all find out this jackass’ phone number and start calling him.
ETA: I haven’t had a credit card in nearly a decade… so, I’m double pissed when I hear “Hello this is Rachael from Card Member Services” (May she rot in hell!)
Fair disclosure: my husband is a self employed contractor who does do ad sales /telemarketing /fundraising (all using lead lists of previous donors/purchasers) /market research. Occaisionally I help him on the phone, but only for the focus group/market research ones. (I couldn’t sell chocolate to a pmsing woman let alone anything over the telephone.) So, while I, like every modern person with a telephone have recieved my share of telemarketing calls, I know they are not all created equally, and I know there is a real live person behind most of the calls. I save my anger for the company rather than the agents.
Seriously people should cut dropzone some slack. Taking a call centre “job” for people who have previously had a “career” is a bring down in the world. But it beats social assistance. I think dropzone is doing the right thing and the vitriol here is disgusting.
Before I met my husband I was a separated woman who’s maternity benefits had run out, and despite having many qualifications I was in the nadir of hiring for nurses. I had no savings, a 14 month old son to support and my rent was more than my social assistance. (of which they clawed back even more, because I was honest enough to report I had a tenant) After exhausting every job lead in my smallish city I chose to get a job at a call centre because I could start right away and not burn my professional chances by quitting when something better came along. You can bet that the second I got a nursing job I dropped the call centre work like a hot potato. I lasted about 6 weeks, but it was six weeks I didn’t have to borrow money for diapers from my parents, didn’t have to chose between paying the hydro or buying groceries. I even tried to give the company notice, but I was told they wouldn’t train me for any further campaigns since I was moving on.
Maybe some of you think it is funny to make comments about how nasty telemarketers are, and they have no soul. Honestly save your anger for the companies. Do you yell at cashiers at McDonalds about selling non nutritional unhealthy food marketed in shiny lies?
If I go to McDonald’s, that’s my choice. If someone calls me up to try to sell me something, that’s not my choice.
THAT’S where the anger is coming from. Sure, there might be responsible law abiding telemarketing companies…but most of the ones that we get calls from are NOT law abiding. Nor did we actually sign up to be called.
And, for the record, yes, I’ve been a telemarketer, back in the 70s. I worked in three different companies, because they were always hiring and I had no experience at any job other than babysitting. And each of the three companies had impossible sales quotas and would find every way to cheat their employees out of their rightful wages. I’d rather work bussing tables. At least when I bus tables, I’m not annoying people.
No, but they haven’t yet started knocking on my door every dinnertime shouting DO YOU WANT FRIES WITH THAT? yet.
Ok, Mcdonalds is an unfair analogy, I guess since they don’t telemarket. But again most people (here at least) know the difference between the waitress and the chef, and wouldn’t yell at the waitress for food the chef burned, so why yell at the person who calls you when it is the company that is bothering you.
Anyway, I’m not a big fan either, but I don’t think there is a need to be rude, most of the time. Even with an obvious scam, just click and hang up.
Of course that stupid cruise line thing from last year that called every phone in the building I worked in, was terrible. But that was a dialer and recorded messages, which is completely different than dropzone or a 21 year old student calling their customer base.
You know, if you’re in such a hard luck position in your life that you have to take a job as a professional asshole (and that’s what telemarketers are), just go ahead and do it an keep quiet about yourself. Congratulations. You found a desperate way to pay your bills.
But when you get on a message board and complain about how you are treated, how you wish that the rest of the world would make your work a little less painful, make your annoyance on them a little less reciprocated, well that just takes your asshole rating to a new level.
So this thread turns out exactly like the other telemarketer threads. You’ve managed to gain no sympathy except from other assholes and people who like to think of themselves as “above it all”. Meanwhile the rest of the posters point out the obvious. You are an asshole.
Before you were an asshole by necessity.
Now you are an asshole by choice.
It’s the company that’s bothering me, yes…but the person who is calling me is directly involved in bothering me. The waitress didn’t burn the food, the chef did. The company employs the telemarketer to call up people who, for the most part, don’t want to be called. The waitress and chef are completely dependent upon people coming into the restaurant, they don’t go around to people’s houses and burn their dinners unsolicited.
See, I would have written it thusly:
“I know that the well has been poisoned by telemarketers,”