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Tuesday, November 8. 2005

Harassing Telemarketers

Harassing telemarketers is like yelling at an autistic or a McDonalds employee. They're easy targets, but it does effectively nothing. While yelling at someone with autism will rightly get you snubbed in most circles, yelling at or otherwise harassing telemarketers is not considered a bad thing to do in my various circles.

poor bastards.

Part of the argument for yelling at them is "If they don't want to be yelled at, they shouldn't take such an evil job in the first place". Well there are a few problems with that. First off, not everyone has the luxury to choose jobs based on your code of ethics. The second problem is a sense of scale: in the list of jobs that are evil, telemarketer isn't really high up. The marketing droid who figured that telemarketing would be a great way to make money is way higher. Evil Oil Executive Corporate Overlord is even higher still.

When ever a telemarketer calls me, I always put on my "Who the fuck are you and why are you calling me" voice, that automagically gets them on guard, then I politely tell them that I am not interested and hang up. If they really bug you, ask to be put on their do-not-call list. Again, politely. I mean, I know that telemarketers are annoying as fuck. But the individual calling you isn't singling you out. It is the marketing droid who figured you fit their target demographics that has singled you out instead.

Food for thought.
Posted by jonnay in Politics at 15:55 | Comments (4) | Trackbacks (0)
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Most telemarket comapanies use the phone book to get their calling lists. It's cheaper to get a bunch of phone books than to do a controled list of surveyed people. Keep your name out of the white pages and don't sign up for any contests and you will be left alone.
#1 Auspicious Kitty on 2005-11-09 06:53 (Reply)
As a one-time telemarketer, I gotta agree with Jonnay here. As a 17-year-old punk, my employment options were a bit limited, and it was better than flipping burgers.

If you don't feel like being polite, though, (and I understand if you don't, believe me) you're way better off just messing with their heads instead of yelling. Like, if it's a man, say "Sorry, I don't deal with women." If they say they're a man, try "if you were a man, that would be totally different", but don't acknowledge that they are a man. This will mess them right up. Or the carpet cleaning guys who called me yesterday, I told them I don't have carpet. They said, "we do furniture too!" I told them I don't have that either. Just keep being insane. It's fun!
#2 Reverend23 on 2005-11-09 07:16 (Reply)
My favorite thing to do with telemarketers is to let them do their spiel, pause for about two seconds and then say "So, what are you wearing?" They usually get freaked out or hang up right away.
#3 Freak Show on 2005-11-11 10:06 (Reply)
Stumbled across your blog/post very randomly while searching 'harassing telemarketers' at my job (drum roll please...as a telemarketer) ANYWAY, DON'T harass telemarketers. Not because I am one or even because I condone this, BUT, if you catch an irate one on a bad day, god help you. Typically when we call we have every bit of information about you save for your social security number. To sum it up, we know where you live when we call you. Catch one teetering on the edge of sanity and it will only mean bad news for you in the long run.
#4 A telemarketer on 2007-08-15 15:32 (Reply)

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