Do You Have a Minute or Two?

I had one of those phone calls yesterday where you pick up the receiver and say “hello…hello…he” and after the second ring you can hear that there is now someone on the line. That someone is in a large room that has many other someone’s talking on the phone.

They all start the same, “Good evening/morning/afternoon, can I speak to Mr. Harrison?” You know by the way he just said “Harrison” that he has never said it before and quite possibly is wondering why he is speaking to Harry’s son and not Harry himself. Generally this is the point that I will hang up, but every now and then I am kind of interested in what they are selling.

If you ask them what they want, you will interrupt their memorized sales pitch and they have to refocus. Once they start again, just ask them what they want again and once more there is a pause and then refocus. Sometimes they will say the phone call is being recorded and I will interrupt them to say that I don’t care about that…what do you want?

It always makes me smile when they say that their company wants to save me money. I ask them “Why would a company that I have never heard of before want to save me money? How is the company making money?” He will say “Oh we aren’t making money.” “Well then how do you get paid?”

On a good day I will just tell them I’m not interested, but on a bad day I ask if their mother is proud of them for ripping unsuspecting people off. Do you feel good about yourself? When a friend asks what you do for a living, do you tell them you are a swindler and a thief that preys on the elderly? You should be ashamed of yourself!

Somewhere in there they will either just hang up or they start to defend themselves and sometimes have even told me to Fuck Off! Then I ask is this conversation still being recorded and if so, I am guessing you will be looking for a job real soon. Maybe you can kidnap little girls and sell them to the child sex trade. Oh, have a nice day…

I don’t get as many calls now that I have call display. If I don’t recognize the number then I just let it go to the answering machine. I must be getting soft in my old age. Everyone has to make a living. Personally, I would rather see my family starve than feed them stealing money from some other families mouths.

There are legitimate outfits that do cold calling, and I feel sorry for them. They get lumped in with the scammers and tele-crooks which is unfortunate. They will just have to figure out another system to sell their product. I’d prefer it if they would come right out at the beginning and say, “Hi, I am selling furnace cleaning for the XYZ furnace company. Do you have a minute or two to talk with me about how I can save you some money and make some for my employers?