Dealing with cold-callers

[danohu]

Staying with my mother has reintroduced me to the delights of telephone salesmen. During the week, somebody calls the house trying to sell us stuff perhaps once an hour. A few of them are spectacularly obnoxious - the one that put me in a hold queue as soon as I picked up the phone was particularly impressive.

My question to you is: what can I do to them? Either to have some fun, or to make their lives unpleasant. Mostly I'm currently telling them that I'm really interested in $useless_product, asking them to wait while I turn down the cooking/call the homeowner/move to a different room, leaving the phone off the hook, and seeing how long they'll wait. But I'm in desperate need of some better ideas.

Edit: OK, OK. I'm impressed how reasonable and sensible you all are, and wondering how I managed to not run into the Telephone Preference Service. I give in: I'll be nice to them, and do the things that are supposed to make them go away. But grr...I'd love it if once things didn't all come down to politics and economics.

Comments

[rachelfmb.livejournal.com]

Quite a few of my friends have done telesales work (cold-calling people). The hours and pay are terrible, there are few opportunities for promotion and you get abuse from people all the time. Also, you get extra money for the number of products you sell, so that is probably why they are so pushy. So yes, do have fun messing with the sales staff. I would guess that leaving the phone off the hook probably does annoy them quite a lot.

[rachelfmb.livejournal.com]

I didn't mean to sound so irritated there! :)

[oedipamaas49.livejournal.com]

See above. Also, I do think that if you spend your working life annoying other people, then you are responsible for that regardless of economic conditions. I'd treat people who join the army, or make useless products, with equal disapproval.

[rachelfmb.livejournal.com]

1) That's ridiculous if it is the only job one can get and pay rent with (it is slightly better paid than catering/bar work). If the choice is either that or homelessenss it is not a real choice.

2)It's not that annoying. You just have to put the phone down.

3)tough there's an economist in my head screaming that the more unpleasant you make telemarketing, the harder it'll be to find people willing to do it. If somebody decides to clean toilets (or burgle houses, for that matter) rather than cold-calling, that's a win for society.

4)leaving telemarketers waiting shouldn't make the job more unpleasant for them, but should make it less profitable for the companies.

It does make the job more unpleasant for them since they will get shouted at if they don't make enough sales. And leaving them waiting will stop them from phoning other people.


4)

Surely it would be better to show some sort of solidarity with people working in miserable jobs instead.

[rachelfmb.livejournal.com]

Gah, that was meant to read.

3) though there's an economist in my head screaming that the more unpleasant you make telemarketing, the harder it'll be to find people willing to do it. If somebody decides to clean toilets (or burgle houses, for that matter) rather than cold-calling, that's a win for society.

Surely it would be better to show some sort of solidarity with people working in miserable jobs instead.

[oedipamaas49.livejournal.com]

"It does make the job more unpleasant for them since they will get shouted at if they don't make enough sales"

Really? Not if it's something that happens to all the telemarketers

"Surely it would be better to show some sort of solidarity"

I'm open to suggestions. 'Solidarity' is a word that drives me up the wall because it seems like way of saying 'do nothing, but feel smug about it'. But if you have practical ideas for how to make their lives better, fire away.

[rachelfmb.livejournal.com]

Reforms to improve working conditions and to restrict corporate power generally...

Also, what amberspyglass said.

[oedipamaas49.livejournal.com]

well obviously. But I can't do that over the phone.

And as above: OK, I'm convinced already. It takes a couple of days to change an opinion though, and half of me wants to keep arguing with you in the meantime.

And I still want somebody to lash out at. Yeah, OK, I shouldn't, but I still want it

[wildeabandon.livejournal.com]

And I still want somebody to lash out at. Yeah, OK, I shouldn't, but I still want it

I could pretend to be a telemarketer. I mean, it might be a slightly odd kink, but... ;>

xx

[oedipamaas49.livejournal.com]

If you offer me double glazing next time I visit, I'll know what to blame. You are a strange, strange woman :)

[rachelfmb.livejournal.com]

No, but it would probably be a better use of time than winding them up on the phone.

Also, you really really need to read some Marxist theory.

LOL, I bet that's made you even more annoyed :P.

[oedipamaas49.livejournal.com]

OK. I'll bite. What Marxist theory is good, and still relevant, and not long-winded or full of needless jargon?

[rachelfmb.livejournal.com]

Mostly I'm interested in the early Hegelian Marx, with the ideas of species-being and human community - I think there is an interesting parallel with perhaps more Christian ideas of co-responisbility (anyway, I've written about this already in my no_ambiguity journal, so won't write it again now).

However, that't not particularly relevant to the subject of your post. I haven't read any of this stuff for years (comment was mainly meant as a joke, in that no Marxist would ever write a post like that). But you might want to look at this and this. Tim sent me these ages ago.

I don't think that theory is generally full of needless jargon. Your argument seems to be. "I can't understand it immediately, therefore it must be wrong." I can't imagine that anyone would make that argument about physics, but it seems to be applied constantly to writings on ethical, political and ontological issues.