I am going to take offense because I find your premise completely judgemental and condescending. If someone is torn between losing their home and being forced to take a legitimate but annoying job as telemarketer our of desperation, I would fully expect that they take the job. And they should be able to do so without someone questioning their integrity.
And it’s stupid question anyway. They aren’t asking to do anything that is going to push the boundaries of their morality. It’s just a job that is mildly annoying to most people.
Well, the only thing “wrong” with it is working in fast food sucks. It’s dirty, you have to deal directly with the general public and it’s not intellectually challenging in any way. Working at McDs as a full grown adult is usually viewed as a sign of failure because either you didn’t educate yourself enough to take on anything better or circumstances have left you with a job likely far below your abilities and intellect.
I don’t know. Perhaps someone should E-mail Clarkson and the lads from Top Gear and see if they’re game to try it?
There are plenty of “entry-level” jobs that I’d take before even considering Telemarketing, but that’s just me.
I’m 27, which seems to come as a surprise to some people…
Likewise!
Clearly our experiences differ (different cultures and all that, no doubt).
Every time I’ve been into a fast-food restaurant here I’ve seen people of all sorts of ages working there and no-one really gives a shit why someone in their 40s is working at Maccas. As I said, lots of mature people take second jobs while the kids are at school or whatever to earn some extra cash. When I was working there, the restaurants were always extremely clean and, oddly enough, the public were generally happy as long as you got their McMeal to them.
The worst customers I’ve ever encountered were at the video arcade I used to work at, and in the electronics store. The nicest were in the supermarket. Your results may vary, of course.
When I first started in insurance, I did some telemarketing. Now, I would make more money if I went back and did more of it - but there’s absolutely, positively no way. I’ve considered hiring a telemarketer just to give a job to one of the down-and-outs in the neighborhood, but I just can’t bring that back into the world (and, I’d rather not have my company associated with interruptive marketing).
IIRC (and y’all are going to have to excuse me if you see me use this acronym a lot), I once wrote a thread about door-to- door salespersons.
Hijacking my own thread again, I know, but holy shit!:eek:
That’s really taking “making a living” SERIOUSLY, huh?:eek:
Don’t know (remember) where or when I “encountered” this, but I think I saw it featured on a TV program not long ago.
The salespersons are driven to a neighborhood, and then are expected to literally go door to door, picked up at the end of their “shift” and taken to a paid motel room, and the whole thing starts again the next day. Ring a bell ?
I know, I know. “Quasi, you’re stating the obvious, Dude!”
I know. I have a talent for it!
Just saying that that is “strippin’ it all away” and going with the one thing you have left: Confidence in yourself.
Whew
That took me 18 minutes to write and correct! Hope it made some sense!
Are there legitimate complaints about the telemarketing firm on the net?
Is the product a scam?
Does the script ask you to stretch the truth?
Does the company truly honor the “Do Not Call” list?
Does the company have a “Ignore it when the customer says ‘no!’” policy?
I had more than one stint as a telemarketer in my college days. I would have to be pretty desperate to go back to it. I don’t have that sales mentality. If I try to sell you a product and give you a good shpiel and you say no, well fuck you, you don’t deserve this awesome product anyway.
I have been out of work a month now. Sitting on a very generous severance with two or three opportunities in the works. So the pressure isn’t there. I would like to believe that the work I put into my education and building a career has something to do with the possibility that I might be back in the saddle soon. But I am probably just lucky.
But in a world where the economy was in such a shambles rivaling the Russian collapse in 1991 or the long-term collapse of the Great Depression, I would probably not be so fortunate. In that case, I think I would still have to go through layers of possibilities before I got to telemarketing. Food service, administrative temping, mail room whatever. I have done all of those too and I find them better for me than telemarketing.
But what’s your point? I am gathering that you have had to stoop to this due to a job situation that clearly hasn’t righted itself in a way that would suit you better? Are you looking for validation in taking this job? Well you do what you gotta do. That’s all I have.
A decent business would follow the Do Not Call list even if they aren’t obligated to. Calling people who don’t want to be called because you don’t -have- to respect their preference is sleazy.
Pretty much what yours is, Neptunian Slug. You do what you must do to survive.
Guess I was just digging a little deeper than I should have asking how one would feel taking a job which until now, one would not have touched with the proverbial stick.
Sorry for the “ruffled feathers” y’all, but I was just trying to show things in their proper perspective: A person adapts according to his/her needs, but that doesn’t slam the door on reason, does it?
Amyway, apologies to those of you I have offended here, but thanks for letting me know your feelings.
a) I have not been reduced to this during this season of unemployment, but I once was.
b) I totally felt like a whore. Worse, actually. I felt like a hired thug.
c) I had all kinds of respect for the folks whose reaction was to curse me and slam down the phone. I had no expectation or sense of entitlement to any fragmentary bit of courtesy from those whose homes I was invading with these calls. I don’t even think I was entitled to not get beaten up, were someone to figure out how to trace the calls and ferret out where the hell I worked from or where I lived.
Would I do it if it were the only job I could get and my kids were starving? Yes, I guess I would. But I wouldn’t stop looking for something else that could get me out of there asap. I took a job like that once when my daughters were little and I needed some extra money. The hours worked with my then-husband’s schedule and I figured it would be a fairly easy, non-stressful way to make a few bucks. I think I lasted a week and never went back.
This was for a portrait studio and after hearing from an elderly gentleman who sort of chuckled sadly and said that with his wife having passed away and his kids all grown and gone to different locations, he didn’t guess anyone would want a picture of just him. It broke my heart and I was ready to pay for him to come in and take my picture with him!
After that, I knew I would never last in the telemarketing world.
Most telemarketers are merely text-readers, not con men. They say precisely what they’re paid to say.
I’d do it if I had no other options, but I’d have to be pretty desperate for such a low-paying, menial job to be my last option. But then, I’d rob banks if it were my last option and my kid’s welfare depended on it.
Well, Knorf, it may not even be an issue. “Tele” marketing assumes you have a “tele” to market with, and if things ever get that bad, you may not have to worry about it.
Just as an aside, I am not being the “conscience” of SDMB, but I’ve been around since 2000, and still remember all the “digs” in the Pit and “what to say” to telemarketers to piss them off or make them go away (and yes, I was in there too!).
I just want us all to realize that not one of us needs to think, 'Well, that will NEVER happen to ME!"
I don;t see where that doesn’t make them con-men that specialize in preying on the old and lonely.
No normal, intelligent adult does anything but hang up on telemarketers. It;s the old folks who are lonely and who think it’s rude to hang up on people that they target.
I would agree, but most telemarkering places usually don’t make up the call lists. They are usually made up by the client, and usually have a common demographic (such as: hasn’t donated in 12 to 24 months, past members, regularly contrubute over $5,000 a year, retired people, etc).
So it’s not the telemarketing company that is ignoring the person’s choice to be on the DNC, it’s the client.
