A handy how-to guide of sorts

[go_team]

(summarized in a comment to boojum's journal, expanded here because I'm snarky like that)

Really, phone solicitors start out with a strike against them when they have the misfortune to call a phone I'm answering. But there are a few sure-fire ways to make that bad situation even worse, for instance:

1. Waking me up.
2. Calling me by Peter's last name. Today's second caller went for "Ms." instead of "Mrs.", but that's not much of an improvement. I know his is the only name listed for our number in the phone book, but in these modern times it's really not that unusual to have people with different last names sharing an address, so what the hell? Maybe they were trying for a personalized approach, hoping I'd respond positively if they correctly guessed my name? I wonder what the expected value is on that kind of thing: me, I grew up learning to spot telemarketers and their ilk by their manglings of names, and as mentioned above tend to default-hostile towards telemarketers anyway, with an extra dose of snark if they get my name wrong. Ramble ramble ramble... Any which way, it was 9 AM and I was trying to sleep in for just a little longer, despite the cat's best efforts. Sigh.

I really don't want to be a bitch to phone solicitors, really. I wish I could be just be civil. Rationally, I know they've got a really sucky job, and the sooner I can squeeze "put me on your 'don't call' list" into the conversation, the sooner I can get on with my life and they can stop wasting their time with me. But ugh. Two calls in one day that rubbed me so very the wrong way is a lot.

Comments

[harobed.livejournal.com]

Someone woke me up the other day. I think it was the day I got back from vacation and really just wanted to sleep for 16 hours. I think my reason for not wanting to change my long-distance was that "I am asleep". Your post just made this memory come up in my mind, maybe I'm making it up.

[boojum.livejournal.com]

My father's first name is John. My mother ended up on one mailing list as "Ms. John Lastname". She hasn't ever gone by the Miss Manners-approved, but silly, name of "Mrs. John Lastname" either.

I still haven't figured out why some phonedroids can't pronounce "Arlo". Unfortunately, phonedroids sometimes call with messages we need from banks and such, so I can't just hang up on phonedroids immediately. Unless they're recorded phonedroids, which I thought was illegal but seems to be fairly common.

Several times a week we get calls with nothing there. If the answering machine gets them, they hang up after about three seconds. If I get them, I eventually hang up. I'm not entirely sure what's up with those.

Anybody who doesn't respond to "Hello" with "Hello, I'm xxx and..." or "Hi, is yyy there?" or "Hi, Kim?" (or even "Hi, Bob?"), but instead responds with a several-second pause or an unadorned "Hello" is a malevolent teledroid and can be hung up on immediately.

I try to be civil to phonedroids of all sorts, but I don't regard interrupting with "I'm sorry, we're not interested. Put this number on your do-not-call list. *click*" to be uncivil. I do think interrupting a person face-to-face is uncivil, though, and door-to-door people tend to have long spiels before they pause for breath. *sigh*

[olstad.livejournal.com]

We got a solicitation phone call the other day that said and I quote:
"Thank you for answering our call. Please call ***-**** to hear...."

They wanted US to call THEM so they could sell something to us. Honestly. We said no thank you and hung up.

[springbok1.livejournal.com]

When my sister gets calls for Mrs. or Ms. Herhusband'slastname, she politely informs the telemarketer that they must be mistaken, because Mrs. Herhusband'slastname lives in Massachusetts.