The setup
Time frame: 1982 - 1985
Location: Central California
Situation: I worked in a branch office of a commercial parts business with 6 or 8 incoming telephone lines. This was right at the time of the big Telephone Company Divestiture. Up til now the “Phone Company” ruled.
We had local and incoming WATS (Wide Area Telephone Service or 800-xxx-xxxx numbers.) service. When the phone rang, we never knew if the incoming calls were from the local or WATS lines. Quite often I was the only one in the store.
The incoming lines were numbered from our published line (555-555-1001) (LINE 1) then 1002 (LINE 2) then 1003 (LINE 3) and so on to line 6 or 8 or how ever many we had. If it was before or after hours and you wanted to talk to someone in the store you would add 3 to the published number and line 3 would ring without line 1 or 2 being lit. It was our secret code to whoever was in the shop that a fellow employee wanted to talk you you. A very few trusted customers were privy to this secret.
The phone system was state of the art PBX (Public Exchange) equipment. We had a big electro-mechanical box in the rear of the shop and if the phones were on hold you could hear the click, click, click of some kind of rotating switch that kept the lights of the instrument blinking.
So, now the fun part. I worked the store by myself on many occasions, waiting on customers, answering phones and putting out UPS packages all day long. After work I despised talking on the phone. My girlfriend knew that if I was at home and she called, I probably wouldn’t answer. I even bought a phone (a fairly new idea at the time) with a ringer “OFF” switch.
So one day at work I picked up line 1 and heard a prerecorded sales pitch. I was blown away. I’d never heard of something like this before. Phone time cost money. I thought this was interesting but not interesting enough to listen for more than 10 seconds or so. Because now line 2 was ringing so I picked it up and heard the same message begin again. Hung up just in time to pick up a ringing line 3 and heard the same thing. Repeat until all lines have rung in. Hung up and picked up line 1 to call the home office and let them know about this new development. Except---- I couldn’t. Line 1, Line 2… were all tied up by the sales pitch. Turns out the just because I hung up, the line was not disconnected. The message had to play to the end and be disconnected at the caller’s end to clear the line. Turns out to be about a 4 or 5 minute pitch. I couldn’t be bothered to listen to the whole thing and just ignored it.
So I got used to this nonsense and after a while I would pick up Line 1, hear the pitch, put it on hold, wait a few seconds, pick up Line 2 just long enough to make sure it wasn’t a real customer, put it on hold, repeat until all line were full. I knew when the pitch was over because when it was over the Robo-Call machine hung up and the ON HOLD line hung up, the light went out and the line was ready to receive an incoming call again. After a few iterations I got the timing down and I knew how long I had to be free of answering phones. 15 or 20 seconds to put all the lines on hold and then another 4 minutes or so before they started ringing again. If nobody was in the store, I had time to take a leak or wrap a package or pull an order. Once when it was really slow and the call came I decided to listen to the entire pitch and see what they were selling. Insurance. Life, Home, Auto and maybe some other crap. I was really surprised because I’ve got family in the insurance business and bottom line means everything. I found it hard to believe an insurance agent would pony up the dough for this kind of sales pitch. But it must have worked. But I listened and at the very end he gave out his own 800 number to call if you wanted to talk about insurance. I copied down the number and pondered on it.
So;
One day I devised myself a plan that should be the envy of most any man (Thanks Johnny). I started calling that 800 number from every pay phone booth I passed. And left the phone off the hook. It got to where I didn’t need to look at my piece of paper, I had it memorized. Just call and drop the handset to the end of the cord. Let it dangle. In the more populated areas it probably didn’t stay off the hook for very long, so I started to look for pay phones in really remote or obscure places.
I even found a phone booth at a closed down gas station a mile off Cal 49 outside Volcano CA that looked like even The Phone Company forgot about it. I relished finding these. I did this for well over a year until eventually the Robo-Calls stopped coming in. I guess I still called the 800 number for a while after the calls stopped, until I was sure they were done.
So, my question: after all that, did I kill them off with my Ninja phone calls or did they just stop of their own accord? I’d like to think I struck an early blow at Robo-Calls but I’m not sure.