For all my jokingaround in GQ about passover, and even though I’m an atheist, I participate in my parents’ passover seder without protest. Why? Because I respect them and their beliefs, and their dedication to tradition.
During a particularly insightful passage of the hagadah about treating strangers well, the phone rang. My father, without a word, pulled out his chair, strode toward the telephone, and picked it up. What he heard, as I later learned, was a sales pitch.
Without a moment’s pause, my father interrupted the telemarketer: “This is a most grevious interruption. Goodbye.” He then returned to the table, slightly red-faced.
Nicely handled, dad. Phooey on you, telemarketers. The timing of your call was ironically marvelous, and your audacity absolutely stunning. May you be flattened by a gigantic slab of gefilte fish.
Don’t get me wrong here – it was really, really sucky of the telemarketer – but said telemarketer, after all, didn’t know they were calling during your seder. Maybe next year you could turn the ringer off?
I hate telemarketers as much as anybody here, in case anybody thinks I think they should call anytime they want and our only defense is to turn the phone off.
I used to work for my school’s alumni-bothering department, and GOD, I hated working during Jewish holidays. We’d have arguments with each other about whether a certain name was Jewish or not and try to push the suspected Jews off for a few days without our boss noticing.
“No, you fool! That’s a Cohen! Hanguphanguphanguphanguphangup!”
One though: Mom doesn’t have Caller ID, and we frequently get long-distance calls from family during Seder (sually after the service part of it, but with different schedules and time zones, the times don’t always line up). It’s kind of our way of touching base, even if we can’t all be together.
Same thing happened to me. The caller called right before we all sat down so it wasn’t a big interruption but I think my mother was very clear about her feelings to the telemarketer.
Well, it’s impossible for telemarketers to account for all of the various religious holidays out there.
But the solution to that is not that people should “just not answer the phone” or just turn off their ringers. There are any number of reasons that people might want or need to answer the phone, even during seder. The solution is to ban telemarketing.
Some of my coworkers do telemarketing. It’s not exactly cold calling because the customers would have had to fill out a form on the internet in order for my coworkers to get their contact information. Either way, it sucks and I’m glad it’s not my job.
But I was pleasantly surprised that one of my coworkers checked with me about seder times this year. He was very concerned that he might call during an inappropriate time.
Yeah, but Passover’s pretty obvious. So’s Easter. A few years ago, I had someone call me back about a job application on Easter Sunday, at 9 pm. The caller was pretty snippy for any occasion; basically, she’d read my resume, decided I wouldn’t do, and wanted to call and tell me all the reasons I wasn’t what she was looking for. But as I said after I hung up, “How did she know I didn’t have 16 people here for dinner, for cryin’ out loud?” (I didn’t, but still, jeez.)
Rilch: I think Passover is pretty obvious to the people it is obvious to, but to a lot of (most of) America, it’s really not. If you live in Jersey, like me, you can’t miss it. Your co-workers chat about the upcoming seders, the endcaps at the stupidmarket are piled high with matzo, and Gadfly is posting silly but oddly compelling threads in GQ. If you live somewhere in fly-over land (get it–fly-over, passover…ha ha) you may not even notice that Passover is going on.
Anyway, one of my main objections to telemarketing is that they disturb you entirely at THEIR convenience. Never mind that you may be having a seder, sitting shiva, or doing a double-mitzvah.
Yeah, Passover isn’t nearly as heavily marketed (that is, obvious) in a lot of places as Easter is.
In fact, the first mention I heard of it was a seder that the UU church I’ve been hanging around was doing – they did it last night. shudder I didn’t go. I’m all for friendly relationships among different religions, but I didn’t want to go to a seder where half of the people didn’t even know even the very basic rules of what makes for kosher food. I know. People were asking.
[Rilchiam shuffles feet, getting ready to backpedal] Yyyyyeah…but it’s usually marked on calendars: the ones that have holidays marked on them at all, and most of them do. 'Twould be the work of a moment to check one’s calendar and say “Gee, it’s Passover…maybe I better ‘pass over’ Mr. Sheinberg and Ms. Bernstein.”
I’m thinking of a Lawrence Sanders novel I once read in which an undercover cop worked in a boiler room, and, before he brought down the operation, actually increased their revenue! “Hey,” he said. “Why don’t we match up the Spanish-speaking operators with the Latino names? And the Jews with the Cohens and Goldbergs, and the blacks with the LaQuertys, and like that?” And it worked, while it lasted, because the idea was to ingratiate oneself with the people on one’s sucker list, not alienate them from the moment they said hello.
That’s why I can’t understand why telemarketing hasn’t died out already; why there’s even a need for a do-not-call list. How the hell are these people selling anything, when the majority of citizens hate them on introduction?
On a related topic,
Have you noticed since the do-not-call list went into effect that your getting less calls?
I actually can’t remember the last telemarketer call I got. They seemed to have just stopped.
I think it’s great.
First two days and last two days of Passover have Shabbat-like work restrictions.
At the seder I went to, we had guy selling something come to the door just as we were all sitting down to start. And no, there was no one at the door when we cast it open for Elijah, though my mom said once that had happened to her when she was younger.
A rabbi I know has a great story about that, but I can’t tell it as well as he can. Nonetheless, it involves a pizza guy who was at the wrong door at just the right time.
Gadfly, you and your parents have every right to be pissed off about this. However, I was wondering if your parents ever considered putting themselves on the do-not-call list. It would certainly cut down on the incidence of untimely and irritating interruptions.
I wish the SNL website had a transcript of the sketch where Jerry Seinfeld was a totally irreverent and pushy Elijah. Heck, maybe I’ll transcribe it and post it there myself. For now, though, I’ll just say that Kevin Nealon’s reaction to him at the door is priceless.
