OK, then, start paying the same amount for phone service that you pay for having a mailbox (i.e. zero) and explain this to the phone company when they disconnect you.
Sorry. That was my bad. I think that I was just getting pissed off at you because you were contributing to this thread rather than the more worthy threads that are around. Anyway, I hope that you can come to see me calling you a shitstain on the Fruit of the Looms™ of life as just a minor inconvenience.
Actually, don’t your parents pay for it? But whatever. Yeah, you pay for the connection, but phone connections are open. Anyone can call you; that means that if you want to take calls from people you know, you also have to open it to telemarketers, just like your front door is open to anyone, even though you certainly own that. It’s the hazard of having a phone line, or having a house. When the technology comes, you can rig your phone so it only takes calls from pre-approved callers. Maybe we have that capability now, I don’t know. But until then, the phone lines are open. Deal with it. It’s one of the weaknesses of the phone system just like the fact that anyone can drop by your house is one of the weaknesses of owning or renting a house.
Thanks anti-telemarketers! Before, I thought we just had a difference of opinion, but now I know you’re really all ranting psychopaths just this side of a coronary who like to get their rocks off by terrorizing defenseless minimum-wage workers!
Um, okay.
Yeah, and I would stop driving drunk if those MADD bitches weren’t so fucking strident. :rolleyes:
One of the real problems is that there are people out there - I know for a fact because I have met them - who simply cannot let a ringing phone go unanswered. I had a friend over who I thought was about to go into shcok beause I was letting my phone ring so the answering machine could get it. I screen my calls, my friends and family know this, they know to leave a message or call my cell.
Telemarketers aren’t scum. They aren’t great, what they do is annoying yes, hardly life altering or anything. The world could do without them, sure. But in the end, I could not care less about them.
So is there anybody here advocating a defense of telemarketing that is willing to put their money where there mouth is, or are we just in the company of a number of extremely atramentous pots?
Stranger
This was a learning experience for me, too. I thought that there were some behaviors that were so blatantly unethical and impolite that not even you could defend them. Good to know that you don’t have any standards after all!
Being rude to the telemarketer does serve a valuable purpose–it keeps the cost of telemarking higher. By being rude, employee turnover is higher and the telemarketing company has to pay more and provide more benefits to attract and retain employees. If everyone was nice and polite, the job would not be as difficult and the pay would go down.
So for everyone saying that it’s a good job, think about why it’s a good job. Those high wages are there because it’s hard to deal with rude people. If you really want everyone to be polite, then be prepared for wages and benefits to go down since it will be so much easier to attract employees.
One benefit of keeping the telemarketing costs high is that fewer companies will use telemarketing. The higher costs will mean that it’s not cost effective for more situations.
So being rude to the telemarketers does accomplish the goal of reducing the effectivenes of telemarketing. However, it’s not the most effective way. What you want to do is use up as much time as possible.
The telemarketing companies want you to hang up quickly if you’re not interested. They need lots of calls to find that one person who wants to buy. By eating up the time, you can bring the industry to its knees.
If everyone hangs up after 30 seconds, they can make 120 calls per hour. But if everyone kept them on the line for 5 minutes, they could only make 12 calls per hour. They would be reduced to being 10% as effective. It would take them 10 times as long to reach the same number of customers. Or they’d have to hire 10 times as many people. Either way, telemarketing would not be a cost effective way to do business.
So let them go through their spiel. Ask lots of relevant questions. Make the call go on as long as possible, but don’t mess around with them. Don’t ask silly questions. If you start messing around with them, they’ll hang up and make more calls. When you can’t keep them on the line any longer, politely say you’re not interested and ask to be put on their no-call-list.
Being rude will slightly reduce telemarketing by increasing the personnel costs. Using up their time will end telemarketing as a viable business.
That would be an interesting complaint.
“Did he call you and make this threat?”
“Ummm…no, I called him.”
“Click.”
“Did he actually threaten to kill you in front of your children on Christmas morning?”
“Uh, no. He just wished I would die.”
“Ah…I see…”
If you call our corporate number, we’d be happy to take your thread off our list.
Miller, you are my HERO! You RULE!
We did that. It was called the TeleZapper[tm].
Telemarketers then phreaked their phone systems to bypass it.
At that point, they unambiguously crossed the line to deliberate and willful home invasion. They thus forfeited whatever claim they had to be considered anything other than the enemies general of all men, to be dealt with as wolves are.
I tend to pity telemarketers, because they’ve got a shitty job that I can’t imagine a person staying at if they can possibly find something better. Some folks have a damned hard time finding a way to make a living, and if they need to get hired by a scumbag in order to put food on the table, that sucks for them.
The two parties in the equation who piss me off are:
- The assholes who run telemarketing companies: yell at them, and I’m right there with you; and
- The assholes who are rude to the telemarketers. They’re cogs, not the cause of your problem; and your yelling at them is totally out of proportion to their responsibility for your problem.
I’ve never been a telemarketer, and it’s extremely unlikley I ever will be; but that doesn’t mean I lack basic civility.
Daniel
Dude. You have a front door that opens, that obviously means that you want random beggars to barge in and panhandle you (we are still doing bad analogies, right?).
I have a suggestion for those who claim not to be able to find better work than telemarketing-- delivery of free-circulation publications.
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If Omaha is typical, telemarketing boiler rooms are typically located in older low-rent strip malls that are nowhere near bus lines. Thus, you already need a reasonably reliable car for work for telemarketing. Why not fill that car with stuff that the merchants and their customers have clearly told your employer they actually want?
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My little 90-100lb. when-not-pregnant stepdaughter did weekly pubs well into the awkwardly-huge stage. Pregnancy simply means the route takes a bit longer.
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The money is better–not only in raw terms but in / hour. Also, you're an independent contractor who can keep a simple mileage log and deduct .48/mile off your taxable income on Schedule C-EZ.
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Unlike the usual paper route, delivery deadlines are liberal. I get my pubs on Thursday morning and have a general deadline of 5pm Friday, but I’m allowed to “use my own judgement” on snowy, icy days so long as the books get there sometime that weekend.
For reasons I don’t fathom, most free pubs are chronically short of deliverers. Maybe people who feel they MUST take jobs where the bosses and customers alike abuse them don’t know of this alternative.
If the US had National Health, I’d consider taking a half-dozen more routes and quitting my “real” job ,which I tolerate because I need the insurance.
I am occasionally plagued by telemarketers and “poll/survey takers”. There is a definite pattern. They always called right after I got in from work, at dinner time. Without fail. I think your companies DO know what you’re interrupting. Dinner. I bet it’s on purpose. They never call at any other time. Even worse, most telemarketers don’t understand the phrase “no thank you”.
I am just answering the OP:
I am on the Do Not Call list and I get about 1 Telemarketer call this year.
I use to get 3-5 per night, every night. I was called during the SuperBowl.
If I was home sick I would get a dozen calls, keeping me from sleeping.
Yes, I use to hate these parasites. I would try and be polite.
“I am not interested and please remove me from your call list”
3 out of 4 would apologize and that was it. The 4th one would just try and keep pitching their pitch. Then I would explode and be insulting or curse them.
Every once in a while I get a call from a polling place.
Me, “Please don’t call us, we are on the Do Not Call list”
At least 3 of Them, “Oh but we are not telemarkers, that doesn’t aplly to us”
Me, “The Do Not Call list should be a good hint I’m a grouchy SOB that doesn’t like to be disturbed by idiots that can’t get a real job”
Them, “CLICK”
Yep, I’m an SOB.
Jim