Be careful doing that. My sister once just said, “Uh, Si habla no Inglace!” Five minutes later they called back…with a translator.
Agree, and I would speculate that door-to-door salesmen and telemarketers still cause a lot more suffering than they receive.
It’s MY decision how I choose to treat people who are rude to me. I may choose to be nice, or I may choose to be an asshole. It’s up to me, and it’s no one else’s business what I choose.
If you’re a door-to-door salesman, or telemarketer, or whatever, you’re asking people to make a similar choice. Some will choose to be nice, some will choose to be rude. I think the point of this thread is that if you are rude to me first, you don’t have a leg to stand on while complaining that I’m rude to you back. You started it, you deal with the consequences. That’s part of the job, and if you didn’t realize that when you started, you’re an idiot. If I want to be rude, I’m going to be rude, and there’s nothing you can do about it. Complaining about it just makes you sound stupid and whiny.
And I notice the OP hasn’t been around for quite a while to defend his position.
Ah, in ‘other’ threads. I thought you meant the thread we’re actually both posting in. Anyway: I did some telemarketing too (for the same company I did d-2d for, and yes I hated that as well), and I always did hang up as soon as a person said no. True, that wasn’t what I was taught to do, but I found it more time-efficient.
There’s your one telemarketer, then.
Not hypothetical. That was me. I did have rent to pay, and food to buy, like anyone else.
This is the second time I’ve had to point out something you’ve misread. Are you actually reading the thread, or just posting your opinions?
No, just that you get into a routine, walking from door to door, and occasionally miss some of the details, especially in the dark.
IANAL, but I’m pretty sure knocking on someone’s door does not constitute criminal trespass.
Phew.The hatred with which you speak about cold-callers gave the impression that if any of them missed your ‘no soliciting’ sign, you’d shoot on sight! Or is that part of the ‘and so on’?
waits for the inevitable wit to suggest that’s actually a good idea
I know that telemarketers and the like have been famous for their tenacity. There was one who phoned my stepdad on a Sunday morning and phoned back about five times till he was reduced to screaming. That salesperson was an asshole, and did deserve the rudeness.
That doesn’t mean every telemarketer is an asshole and deserves to have their lives made hell, any more than the makers of all TV commercials should be pilloried just because of a couple of annoying ads. Can you not see that’s a little extreme?
That was also back in the eighties; ever since, all those that have called me personally have given as soon as I (politely) said no. The most tenacious marketers have moved onto email spam instead, which probably has about fifty Pit threads of its own.
(Btw, I have to say that the idea of ‘no soliciting’ signs makes me smile - in the UK, a ‘solicitor’ is a lawyer, so it’s asking lawyers to keep away! :D)
waits again for the wit who’ll suggest that’s a good idea too
Gah. Telemarketing is an inherently assholish activity.
IMHO it’s instructive that telemarketers, as a group, are against the national “do not call” list. If they weren’t assholes, they would welcome the opportunity to try to go about their business without disturbing those who have indicated their wish to not be disturbed.
Regarding telemarketers, most I have spoken to have been very nice and simply said thank-you, good-bye when I replied that I’m sorry but I wasn’t interested. Sometimes I even cut in and say “I realize you are doing your job and I don’t want to waste anymore of your time. I’m sorry, we just aren’t interested.” They usually thank me and say goodbye. I know it’s not a fun job.
As for Jehovah’s and Mormons, all I’ve ever had to say was, “We are a Christian household, I’ll pray for you.” and they leave and don’t come back.
Works for me.
DanceswithCats, have you ever considered sending out mailers? It’s much less obnoxious than cold calling people.
Justify it any way you like, cold calling has always been, and will always be, obnoxious, rude, overly aggressive and invasive.
There are more dignified and respectful ways of advertising than calling people in their homes and trying to goad them into buying your product.
Whoops, almost forgot:
Will all of the telemarketers and door to door sales people please stop comparing their horrible jobs or x jobs with tv commericals? It’s not even remotely the same and to make the comparison is ridiculous.
I love the idiots. A fair part of my job involves calling people on the phone. The people I call are people who have requested it, so nobody soar all over me. Generally, my experience is that the vast majority of people are polite on the phove, but the rude ones are so much fun.
"Hi, this is Weirdave with the NASE’
“YOU ASSHOLE TELEMARKETER! LEAVE ME THE FUCK ALONE” ( or words to that effect)
“I am responding to your request that we call you. I’d be happy to never call you again, but I’m not cold calling, you requested it”
“huh?”
“You called us/inquired online/mailed in a direct mail response card requesting more information about XXX. I’m just calling to find out exactly what you were looking for and see how we can help you out”
“Oh”
Mush sheepishness and apologies usualy follows. Some people quietly hang up, and I can sense exactly how much of an asshole they feel like at that moment, the “umms” and “duhs” give it away.
If someone says they are not interested or no longer looking or whatever, I thank them for their time and hang up. They came to me, not vice versa. If they want to be assholes, let them do it at someone else, I haven’t got the time or the inclination to bother with them. It really is their loss, we are the best at what we do for small business owners and the self employeed.
The lesson: Don’t assume everyone who calls is some pushy scam artist. If they are rude or won’t listen to your "no"s, let 'em have it, but you run the risk of looking like a moron if you assume everyone is pushy or rude.
And FTR, I never, ever hide my name and number for caller ID. I am not ashamed of what I do. It’s my home number, too, and in 5 years I’ve never had a problem with it being available for all to see.
I once had a rather interesting experience with a couple of JW; I was at a friend´s house, outside playing basketball when we saw the guys coming, we invited them to play with us; then we invited them to have a cold drink (it was mid-summer) and we chatted for a while, the guys where very nice; both from the USA (I live in Uruguay) They didn´t even mention religion at all which, we just talked about how one was going to enter the US air force, and the other showed me a picture of his girlfriend. All very nice, a good experience indeed.
As for the evil guy who told me that was doing a poll and tried to shove me a couple books after 20 minutes standing at the door shuddering on the winter cold… OK, the insults have already been repeated too much in this thread.
Hey, if they get a French translator, I’d be ecstatic that I was wasting 2 people’s time instead of just 1. I’d try to drag it out some more by switching to Mandarin or even Baby-Talk.
“Hewwo wittle telemarketer. I wanna wook at your wittle weewee! Yes I do! Yes I do! Show me your weewee!”
My goal in these encounters (besides entertainment) is to try to make telemarketing unprofitable as can be, which means wasting as much of their time as possible. Sometimes I’ve even pretended to be interested in buying the product, and then I leave the phone in front of the TV, switching it to one of those scuzzy talkshows.
Yeah, I fully admit this is a Rude and Asshole-ish thing to do, but they won’t stop unless this method of marketing becomes unprofitable. I’m currently trying to get in to the marketing field, and I hate this aspect of it. I want to see it die.
And nothing says death like wasted time. Next time a telemarketer calls you, don’t hang up. Pretend you’re going to buy the product, and then switch languages mid-sentence! Start meowing! Tell them you want to bear their children (if you’re a male). Tell them that you will buy the product if they cluck like a chicken. If they do it, tell them “just kidding!” Of course, if you don’t have time, then just hang up. But this will hurt their lame-ass company more, since they’re paying for the operator’s wage AND the phone call. Sure, you’ll aggravate the employee, but not any more than he aggravated you (if phone call comes at inconvenient time, which they usually do…). You can even tell the operator your plan to waste their time at the end of the call, and say it is not personal, you just hate the practice and the companies that do it.
I think next time I’ll pretend to be Dubya. I really want the new cell phone plan, but I need to know whether or not the reception will waver if I’m on horseback out on my ranch. I need them to test it out.
That’s just inspired. I may put on a bad Bill Clinton voice.
“So you mean I could get in touch with Monica on your phone plan? Oops, don’t tell Hillary!”
Ah, another brain dead telemarketing defender with no reading comprehension ability. If I was only talking about this thread, I would not have said “every single telemarketer that’s posted to this board has admitted that” but would have said something about ‘this thread’. See, ‘this board’ refers to, well, the whole SMDB and not just one thread.
You obviously didn’t hate it enough, since you still did it. As for your declaring yourself the one counterexample, it doesn’t count - your post making that claim did not exist at the time I made my statement.
So, no parents, no charity services, and there were absolutely no jobs open in retail, at a gas station, at a farm, in a warehouse? Or you just preferred to sit in the AC and harass people? This would be a fascinating part of the country, where there’s only telemarketing and no other jobs at all, not just no jobs that you’d prefer telemarketing to.
Where, exactly, did you detail that you were 16, not living with your parents, unable to take advantage of any charity services, and unable to take a job in retail, at a gas station, at a farm, or some other reputable line of work? I know, you’re a telemarketer at heart, so we really can’t expect basic sense from you, but try to think a little bit.
What was my first non-psychic-aware/misreading anyway?
If you could provide an instance where I actually didn’t read something that was posted in this thread instead of instances where I didn’t use amazing mental powers to acquire your life story, that question might make snese.
Thank you for demonstrating just how much of an asshole a typical door to door salesmen is. “Oh gosh, it was just too much trouble for me to look for a clearly posted sign before disturbing someone at home”. Yeah, you’re a really wonderful human being, banging on people’s doors after dark when they’ve already made an effort to tell you you’re not welcome.
Coming onto someone’s private property after being told that you’re not welcome is generally criminal trespass unless you’re serving a warrant or something similar.
You quite simply need to learn to read. I explicitly stated what sorts of things I’d do to assholes who disturb me at home, and didn’t mention shooting, or indeed any sort of assault, at all.
All telemarketers are assholes, and do deserve any and all rudeness that they get. If telemarketers weren’t assholes, they wouldn’t call people who are asleep, sick, waiting to hear about a sick relative, eating dinner, running a business, etc.
Since telemarketers have no problem calling people who are asleep, waiting for emergency calls, eating dinner, trying to operate a business on that phone line, they are, in fact, all assholes who deserve to recieve as much grief as possible. Comparing telemarketing scum to TV comercials is just moronic; TV commercials do not tie up a phone line or wake someone up, since a person only sees TV commercials if they choose to watch TV at that particular moment.
See, since I don’t happen to have a month free to read every single thread a telemarketer has posted in and find out if you’re right or not, I thought you might actually mean this thread, which I can check. Otherwise your ‘every single telemarketer’ is unsubstantiated hyperbole.
When you failed to notice that Ruby is not doing that job any more.
My first post in this thread started ‘When I was 16, with no qualifications and with rent to pay.’ You don’t need to be psychic to read that.
The rest of the details you asked for aren’t really relevent. Here you are anyway:
My parents weren’t around. I’m not sure what charity you’re imagining. The government couldn’t help, as I was too old for child protection, and too young for adult benefits.
Retail - there happened to be nothing going at the time
Gas station - too young (you have to be 18; that went for a lot of other jobs too)
Farm - I have bad asthma
Also quite a few jobs either involved driving, or were in places that could only be reached by car, and I not only could not drive, but was too young to do so.
I worked in Burger King at the same time, but the manager was inept and the hours were always irregular, so I had to do something to supplement it.
So yes, I did have no choice but take that job for the time being. Please don’t bring up the sex-line suggestion again. There’s no way I’d ever want to get involved in the sex trade in any way. God, I can’t believe I actually have to say that!
Not seeing a sign in the dark makes someone an asshole?
What kind of sheltered world do you live in?
Your tone, and the way you compared salespersons to rapists, gave the impression that you might consider extreme measures. Calling the police just because someone knocks on your door is extreme, though, and also a hell of a waste of police time.
Any lawyers around here? I’m pretty sure that’s bullshit.
The comparison to TV commercials isn’t perfect, of course; no analogies ever are. My point was that just because some ads are annoying, doesn’t mean all people who make ads should be pilloried, and just because some salespersons are annoying, doesn’t mean all salespersons should ‘have their lives made hell.’
If you all just keep saying no, and not buying the goods, that’s what will stop the pratice of door-to-door selling and telemarketing. Being rude to the salespeople won’t make any difference whatsoever. It might drive the individual salesperson away, but their boss will just hire some other desparate schmuck. After all, the guy who actually owns the merchandise doesn’t care how shitty you are to his staff. He just wants to make a profit. That’s where you need to hit him - and being rude to the staff doesn’t make any impact.
Windwalker’s techniques are actually pretty funny though (except for making lewd suggestions at the women - that’s creepy). They’re also not nearly as rude as the name-calling and swearing some others indulge in, and more effective, too.
Thank you for demonstrating the choice involved in becoming a telemarketer. I don’t give a rat’s ass whether you’d want to, or whether working on a farm would be uncomfortable for you, or what have you. You’re just
Soliciting at a house with a no soliciting sign makes someone an asshole, especially after dark. The fact that you’re too lazy to look for a sign when you’re running around interrupting people at home just makes that even more clear.
The kind where people who disturb me at home after I’ve asked them not to are assholes.
Only to the kind of dipshit too lazy to read a sign before harassing someone in their home.
Any legitimate door to door salesman would not knock at a house with a no solicitiation sign, since he wouldn’t get a sale, therefore a person knocking at all houses claiming to be a salesman of some sort is very suspicious. You are aware that posing as a salesman to find out who is home, who has dogs, etc. is not unheard of amongst the burglary crowd. It is not a waste of time for the police to investigate highly suspicious behavior, especially asinine higly suspiction behavior.
Truth hurts, doesn’t it?
You telemarketing defenders need to learn to read; no one here is arguing that some salespersons are annoying; we’re arguing that all telemarketers are assholes who deserve to get back the rudeness they inflict.
Thereby driving up his costs and lowering his profits, especially if he has to pay excessive money to make up for the poor working conditions.
That’s not borne out by, for example, your words, where you admitted that the job was disenheartening enough that you eventually quit. Bringing a new person in cuts into his profit, so it does hit him right where it counts.
If you choose to call Windwalker’s phone, you have no right to whine about his choice of conversation. That’s the biggest reason why telemarketers are assholes; they’re unrepentant assholes who want to dictate what you are allowed to do when they choose to call you in your own home.
Just what? Preview is your friend. And you do understand that having asthma would make working on a farm a little more than ‘uncomfortable,’ don’t you?
Just FYI, since I’m not sure what part of the world you’re in: here ‘after dark’ means ‘after 4pm’ in the Winter. So although it is dark, it’s hardly the middle of the night.
Have you never had a boring job that involved rote work and made you switch off a part of your brain? That really makes it hard to see a sign in the dark. But like I did say, it only happened a couple of times, they didn’t answer the door, and I left.
What a bizarre response when someone questions the veracity of your statement. The ‘truth’ can’t hurt unless it is, in fact, the truth.
You have made two large factual errors. I’ve made none. And yet you tell me to learn to read?
Some people here have taken the same position as you. Some have not. You are wrong, again.
Btw, ‘you telemarketing defenders’ is rather a large term. I just don’t think that it’s right to ‘make their lives a living hell.’ I can understand why people don’t want to be bothered by them. Just say no, and shut the door. Don’t get in a self-righteous fury as though they just sodomized your hamster.
If someone knocking on your door is an asshole, then I envy your easy life, because most people have to put up with a lot more than that.
No, I have never said that. I said:
I did not leave because of the rudeness. That just added to my depression while I was there.
Again, are you actually reading the thread?
I’m not sure how you think bringing a new person in cuts the owner’s profit. It takes virtually no training to go cold-calling. The workers are also pretty easy to find - no advertising costs. And if you think the wages are higher to compensate for the shitty conditions, then you haven’t looked at what the wages are.
I repeat: treating cold callers like shit will not stop them coming round. It will just be a different face at the door.
(And if you ever got desparate enough, it could one day be you).
Uh, didn’t Jonmarzie explicitly say that he would not fool around with “No Soliciting” sign folks?
As a lawyer, I would guess that a door-to-door salesman who enters a persons property knowing that there is a “no soliciting” sign would be guilty of some kind of tresspass. (As has been pointed out, however, he is unlikely to be prosecuted.)
In the case where the salesman doesn’t see the “no soliciting” sign, I imagine it would come down to the salesman’s reasonable beliefs. Just speculating of course.
(standard disclaimer about legal advice)
Even if there is no “no soliciting” sign, it’s still jerkish behaviour. For various reasons, the United States allows people to be assholes to other people. But just 'cause it’s legal don’t make it right.
And door-to-door salesmen have no (moral) right to complain about folks who lie to them, slam the door, etc.
Absolutely, but if I decided to make my living by being an asshole, I wouldn’t suggest on a message board that those who respond in kind are in the wrong.
And by the way, to those who argue that people who mistreat door-to-door salesmen are not doing themselves a favor, I would point out that this still doesn’t give door-to-door salesman the (moral) right to complain about the mistreatment they receive.
Let me propose an analogy: A man pinches a girl’s rear end on the subway. If she responds by slapping him in the face, she is quite possibly doing something unwise. She is better off leaving the area as quickly as possible and forgetting about the incident.
BUT, the subway molester has no right to complain about being slapped in the face.
Similarly, the telemarketer or door-to-door salesman has no right to complain about folks who lie to him, slam the door in his face, or refuse to listen to his pitch.
Jonmarzie, you need to realize something: you’re irrelevant.
Door-to-door sales is a completely outmoded method of marketing. This isn’t the 1930s (or even the 60s) anymore. The information age has rendered your form of marketing completely unnecessary.
Back in the day, people were pretty much isolated into small, close-knit communities. Some gap in the road in rural Arkansas probably welcomed an outsider who came into their community to offer the latest and greatest that American business had to offer. Insurance, encyclopedias, vacuum cleaners, whatever. These people might have ventured into the nearest metropolis once a month or so. So, a traveling salesman was probably something of a treat for them back then.
Things are completely different now. Anyone, anywhere in the country can find anything they need (or want) with a computer and an internet connection. This is to say nothing of the proliferation of the megastores like Wal-Mart that seem to sprout up in the tiniest of communities all over the country. Or, the myriad marketing campaigns of literally thousands of businesses that advertise on television, complete with 24-hour toll-free numbers.
People don’t need you to bring “bargains” and “once-in-a-lifetime deals” to their front door anymore.
The fact is, your company is the economic and social equivalent of a buggy whip manufacturer. You bring nothing to the table. No matter what you are selling, it can be found cheaper and with less inconvenience (I can order virtually anything online anytime I care to look for it) than you can ever provide.
Your day is over. You are an anachronism, and telemarketing isn’t far behind you.
Deal with it.