What's Going On!?!?!?!?

[Kayelle]

Addie, I doubt very much that being a telemarketer is on anyone's wish list for a great career. I don't like being bothered either, but these folks are trying to make a living rather than being on the welfare lines. I simply just hang up without a word, since I can find better things to do.

 

[GotGarlic]

I do none of those things. I just don't feel intruders into my home deserve much consideration.

Didn't say you did. I was talking about Addie's behavior.

 

[Steve Kroll]

No land line here, either. We gave it up about three years ago, and had the old number transferred over to an automated voicemail service for those handful of people and businesses who can't be bothered to update our contact information in their address books (we've sent out multiple notices). It doesn't forward. It only takes messages.

If anyone, including telemarketers, wants to call us at that number and leave a message, they are more than welcome to do so. It doesn't mean we'll call them back, however.

Funny thing. My wife's parents still call us at the old number and leave voicemail messages, even though we've repeatedly asked them to call on one of the cell phones. Her dad won't do it, though. Says he would rather call us on our "real phone".

 

[Roll_Bones]

I did not read the complete thread, but wanted to say for once, I got the better of them (telemarketers) and it feels GREAT!

We were getting calls from a source that just would not quit. It got so bad, I bought a whistle to blow out their ear drums. They just laughed at me.
They were well known on Google as they were bothering lots of people.

Not long ago, we decided to go cell phone all the way. We had to keep our land line for the DSL account.
So, I plugged my printer/fax machine into the phone jack and set the fax machine to "auto answer".
I still hear it ring, but its fun to know they get a fax machine now instead of an irate me.

 

[Roll_Bones]

They're just trying to do a job, Addie. No need to abuse them like that.

They took the job knowing how these things work. While i do understand its their job, in my case as I stated above, they went above and beyond doing their job. They took the calls to a level that required action on my part.

Slamming down the phone in someone's ear is not very nice. Nor is wasting someone's time like that, only to accuse them of wasting your minutes.

Slamming down the phone would be polite, had it been me and they had been forewarned.
I would hope foul language made them cringe because I gave them many words that were very foul.

Didn't say you did. I was talking about Addie's behavior.

I found her behavior not only funny, but possibly effective.

 

[GotGarlic]

They took the job knowing how these things work. While i do understand its their job, in my case as I stated above, they went above and beyond doing their job. They took the calls to a level that required action on my part.

Slamming down the phone would be polite, had it been me and they had been forewarned.
I would hope foul language made them cringe because I gave them many words that were very foul.

I found her behavior not only funny, but possibly effective.

We're talking about different things, RB. The way Addie put it, she treats all unwanted callers this way, not just the ones who are rude and persistent.

Besides, we know you don't mind abusing people, too. I'm thinking about your story of a new person trying to make sandwiches in a busy line at the grocery store and how you cursed at him, knowing full well he could not respond. And if I'm not mistaken, you reported him to the manager for being too slow. Nice.

 

[Addie]

They took the job knowing how these things work. While i do understand its their job, in my case as I stated above, they went above and beyond doing their job. They took the calls to a level that required action on my part.



Slamming down the phone would be polite, had it been me and they had been forewarned.
I would hope foul language made them cringe because I gave them many words that were very foul.



I found her behavior not only funny, but possibly effective.

Thank you RB. It all depends on what mood I am in. Some days I am bored and like to have my own brand of fun. And when I hold one of them on the phone I am doing someone else a favor. They are not bothering someone else. And you can't slam a cell phone down in anyone's ear. But you can hang up in the middle of a word. It makes them wonder if they lost the connection.

 

[roadfix]

We all have our ways of handling things and I'm sure they're all effective, one way or another.

 

[GotGarlic]

We all have our ways of handling things and I'm sure they're all effective, one way or another.

Of course. But the way we choose to handle things reveals a bit about one's character, yes?

"Men show their character in nothing more clearly than by what they think laughable."

- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe*

 

[roadfix]

Of course. But the way we choose to handle things reveals a bit about one's character, yes?

Oh absolutely, I totally agree!

 

[Cooking Goddess]

I've been on both sides of that phone line, having worked as a telemarketer once by my own folly, and once by request.

When we were building House Two, there were certain outdoor lighting fixtures I wanted (read: pricey). With the kids in elementary school and activities (I was a Brownie leader), work options were limited. Working for Catherine, I could set my days and hours. I worked there only as long as it took to make the money for those fixtures! During that time I learned a lot about the character of people. I was always polite, so the reaction I got was pure "them". I usually started by asking for the person on my list by name, then identify who I was calling for, and asked graciously for a few minutes of their time. If nothing else, Catherine demanded that we be polite and respectful. And even though we each had an hourly quota, she did understand if we were detained by a lonely person who needed to chat for a couple of minutes.

I appreciated those who would stop me right away and ask to be removed from the list. I would thank them for being brief and tell them it would take up to a month to be sure they were removed (this was back in the late 1980's, so computers were still primitive). I thought they were the kindest of souls, probably treated everyone with respect. Then there were the ones who cussed me out, or slammed the phone so hard it hurt, or walked away with the phone set down on the table. They were the worst to get, partly because you needed to make an hourly quota of calls to keep your job, partly because you KNEW that person did not want to talk to you and you wished they had said that from the start. I always mentally pictured those people kicking puppies or grabbing lollipops from the hands of young children.

If you WANT "polite", BE polite.

Oh, and my stint "by request"? A year or two after I quit, Catherine shut down her own business to take over as manager at a different telemarketer office - in-house for an established service company. She called a few of her best back to help get the staff she inherited up to speed with her way of doing things. I knew it was a limited engagement. Since Catherine was nice to work for in spite of the business she was in, I helped out for a few weeks.

 

[Cooking Goddess]

..I just have a cell phone. Everybody I know who calls me has a name in my system. I don't answer any calls with just a number display, regardless of the area code, and I certainly don't answer any calls that say UNKNOWN or BLOCKED. I let them all go to voicemail...

^This^ I do the same thing. If it turns out to be a real call, the caller will leave a genuine message. No message? No problem. Your number gets added to my "Ignore" list. Most callers who do not leave a message are marketing something. All you need to do is google the number and all kinds of hits pop up to telemarket calling complaint sites.

Then there's the random number you don't recognize, leaves a message...and it's "Code RED", the alert system the town uses to notify us if there is an issue like bear sightings in neighborhoods or water boil orders. Dang number doesn't look like anything out of anywhere in MA!

 

[Addie]

CG, I had my granddaughter she had to be home schooled after her mother died. The school would automatically call me every day to tell me she was absent from school. I called the school several times and asked them to correct their computer. A waste of breath. She graduates and come next September and I was still getting the calls that she was absent. Now I was beginning to get upset with the school. It took a personal trip by me to go to the school and refusal to leave until I was totally satisfied and had to threaten them with a law suit for harassing me. Enough was enough. There was a lot of yelling in that office that day.