letters
to an unknown audience
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Not Interested/  /August 26, 2003
(with reference to the MCI telemarketing incident) I got that same bul---it the other day! I couldn't believe how subversive their tactics were. It's bad enough that telemarketers call me at all, but this bald-faced mockery of my humanity! My guy said:

GUY: Hi, I'm <guy> from MCI. How are you doing today?
ME : Gooooood.... <--LIE
GUY: Pitch pitch pitch pitch pitch pitch pitch pitch pitch pitch pitch pitch pitch pitch pitch pitch pitch pitch pitch pitch pitch pitch pitch pitch pitch pitch pitch pitch pitch pitch pitch pitch pitch pitch pitch pitch pitch pitch pitch pitch pitch pitch pitch pitch pitch pitch pitch pitch pitch pitch pitch pitch pitch pitch pitch pitch pitch pitch pitch pitch pitch pitch pitch pitch pitch pitch pitch pitch pitch.
ME (having waited patiently: Oh, I'm not interested, thanks. [at this point 95% of these schmucks thank me and hang up.]
GUY: But with MCI you'll be paying less.
ME: Did you understand what I said about not being interested?
GUY (angrily): What about paying less is not interesting to you?
ME (with agile use of telephonic receiver cradle): click!

In these conversations I always skirt the line between being a abrupt jackass myself and being enragingly sweet, by way of jackass. I have a desire to treat the people at the other end of the phone like human beings, but it's impossible since they don't act like human beings. I can't be reasonable because they're following this script which is engineered to be hard to say no to. I wonder if there are any linguistic papers on "the conversational style of the telemarketing encounter" that treat both sides, and not just the script of the telemarketer?

Each time I get one of these calls I get a little further in exploring the limits of that script (flowchart?) and seeing if I can get the biyatch to act like a human being. Efforts to this point have not been successful.

On the theme of getting this lackey of a faceless corporation to act like the human that he is, let's ponder: which is worse, the "alienated labor" of the factory worker or that of the telemarketer?

P. S. (can I buy a permalink, geegaw?)

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Comments

hey my name is anthony and i work as a telemarketer im sorry most of them dont sound like actual people and actually i know what your talking about. i try to actually get to know the person on the other line before i ever try to "pitch" my plan. so if you ever get a caller name anthony kennedy calling from mci give me a second of your time and i promise we can talk about anything as long as you let me at least try to tell you about our service at least once. and if you dont like it ill tell you well thank you for your time and if you want we can be human together?

—posted by anthony at March 21, 2006 9:44 AM

Thanks, Anthony. I appreciate that you're a person and that it's a job, and that you don't want to take abuse from people on account of your occupation. It must be a hard job!

Still, I don't ever want to get called at home to talk about some product or service. I don't think these companies should be paying you (or anyone) to cold-call people. I think you deserve to make money doing something useful for humanity!

—posted by Ezra at June 1, 2006 2:33 AM

The Astros have been in even worse shape, using three starters with less than two years of major-league experience. Signing Clemens to go with right-hander Roy Oswalt and left-hander Andy Pettitte again gives them a legitimate Big Three once again. If Clemens, after several minor-league tuneups, proves anywhere near as good as he was last season, he will give the team precisely the lift it needs.

—posted by adamadam at June 2, 2006 2:01 AM
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