Telesales operative required. Previous experience or intelligence optional
Telesales guy: "Is that Mister Smallman?"
Before I answer any call, if the caller has not first announced to me who they are, where they're from and what they want, I answer a question with a question.
Me: "Who is it please?"
His answer is all too common.
He is yet another sales person calling from yet another telecoms outfit trying to get me to switch providers.
I'm pretty sure replying with the words: "Fuck off!" isn't the done thing in polite conversation, but his next question really did warrant such a response.
Telesales guy: "I was just wondering, do you currently have a telephone?"
I kept my cool for one reason and one reason only; he was offering me the wonderful opportunity to hit him with some withering sarcasm.
Me: "Well, it's funny you should ask that because .. that's what I'm talking to you on right now."
Unfortunately, he had in place the perfect defense to my withering sarcasm; he was brain damaged phone fodder reading from a script.
Telesales guy: "So you do currently have a telephone, then?"
No. Right now, we're communicating by means of the ancient and ephemeral, channeled mind energies of telepathy, as taught to me by an Indian Fakir in a previous life.
Of course I have a fuckin' phone, you cretin!
I say 'no' several times in an insistent but essentially polite way and then hang up.
For a moment or two I just sit and ponder that question. Then I'm reminded of why I feel like an alien on my home world.
I look at everyone and measure them by my own yard stick.
Some people really do come up short...
posted by Wayne Smallman at Sunday, July 31, 2005
6 Comments:
Perhaps he was wondering if you were on a cellphone, and not a landline?
All telephone numbers in Britain have distinctive area or provider codes.
So nearly all mobile phone numbers begin with 07
You can tell the difference between a landline and a mobile at a glance.
I think the guy was just a bit thick / dumb...
He was a bright one, yes indeed. I would have most likely gone directly for the 'swear at the fool' scenario. Although it begs to be asked... was this really scripted? If so (I'm not sure which is worse), then that means that some halfwit lacking a vast array of brain cells is actually in charge of things. Come to think of it, politicians fit that bill rather nicely. Hmm. Carry on. But while you're here... do you have a computer.... =)
I really do dwell on these things.
To be fair to the guy, it was in the afternoon and there was a chance that he'd become phone-deaf after listening to so many people all day.
You can tell when someone is reading from a pre-prepared script. Usually, their voice comes over all monotone and if you throw in an answer that doesn't fit the script, they'll go silent while they talk to their line manager.
Oh, the inhumanity of it all...
I wasted several years as a telemarketer. I was pretty good at it. Then I started working at a place where the script called for me to claim to be handicapped. The boss asked me to sound as pitiful as I could on the phone. I was really successful - for about 4 hours, then my conscience kicked into high gear and I had to quit. Even 20 years later, I'm not making as much per hour as I did in 1983, pretending to be handicapped. I had to quit, it really seemed like a bad-karma investment. I still haven't gone back to telemarketing, but things improved and I didn't have to do that.
Hi Chicken Little and thanks for posting!
Sounds like you did the same thing I'd have done, that being the right thing.
I mean, when you're asked to lie to win customers over and close sales, things are getting a little bad, aren't they?
Apart from the small matter of breaking all kinds of laws, as you say, it's just bad karma...
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