Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2020/02/03/telemarketers-tormented.html
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Can you guess which one it is?
Yes.
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The Improv Method. I like it.
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“Tubalcain.”
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How many people become telemarketers because that’s the kind of job they want, and how many take it because it’s the only one they can get and they need to make a living somehow? Tormenting them is more cruel than fun.
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and here i was thinking that the word would be “hello”
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Maybe not such a good idea.
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On the one hand I agree, but on the other hand, one of the most effective ways to put a stop to a shitty business practice like telemarketing is to render it no longer profitable, and wasting the time of the marketers so they can make less calls (and thus less potential profit) is a good thing for that.
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Do they even need that?
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I lost any sympathy when they started calling every phone in my house at least 20 times a day. If I pick up by accident, I just speak gibberish until they hang up. That way, I get a laugh out of it to lower my blood pressure.
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isn’t that, “yes and”?
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■■■■■, of course.
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The thing with that is these are just low paid drones trying to make a living. I understand that they don’t really have any control over who they call or how many times they call your number. Being rude seems to make not a wit of difference as to whether I get called again. Which is not to say you aught to support them, but I don’t see much joy in tormenting them either. In fact, if I was working there and COULD put them on a do-not-call list I would probably not if they were rude. I normally just say something like, “Oh sorry but I don’t accept any phone solicitations at all.” Usually they just say “OK have a good day” and hang up, but sometimes I have to say, " sorry goodby" and hang up. Gets me off the phone pretty quickly.
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Yeah “I was only following orders” is still a moral decision.
Just because you are a powerless cog in a fundamentally cruel and broken machine doesn’t mean you can abdicate responsibility.
If nobody was willing to even consider doing telemarketing phone banking, it’d go away.
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This hardly compares to concentration camp guard. I ask my self if my choice was to be kicked out of even the crap hole apartment that I was living in or become a telemarketer, just till I could find a better job, what would I do? I think I would take the job… how bout you?
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I will never take a telemarketer job. I’d rather live on the street, that’s more mentally healthy.
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To be fair, though, what if that is the best paying job where you live, and you have a family to feed and bills to pay?
People got to eat. It’s all well and good to ask people who real choices to not take those kind of jobs, but not everyone is in that position.
Sometimes it’s about your kids not being on the street, though.
If we want telemarking to change, we’re going to have to do it through legislation.
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I probably would have gone with repeating the word “what?” The last thing I’d want is them recording me saying “yes” during their offer. The more unscrupulous ones would take advantage of that.
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I will never take a telemarketer job. I’d rather live on the street, that’s more mentally healthy.
Add kids (or elderly parents) to the equation and that’s a MUCH harder choice to make. Our social safely net in the US has some gargantuan sized holes in it at the moment. If you have even minor physical disabilities and no educational credentials, telemarketing is about the only entry-level option left. Physiological, Safety, and Social (Family) are all lower down on Maslow’s than Self-esteem. Sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do to keep the heat on.
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