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>I'd prefer not to waste the time of human employees on the phone because they're just minimum wage workers trying to earn a paycheck. I'm still perfectly fine

>I'd prefer not to waste the time of human employees on the phone because they're just minimum wage workers trying to earn a paycheck. I'm still perfectly fine wasting their time. Honestly, I don't get this reasoning that if they are doing it for a small financial gain, they are resolved of any blame for any harm they cause (even if the harm is just annoying me and wasting my time). Yet I see the reasoning being used in multiple instances where they are causing hassle or worse (say when they lie to you about whats in phone contracts, which is my pet peeve).

jasode 11y ago
>I don't get this reasoning that ... they are resolved of any blame ... annoying me ... causing hassle Yes, I agree that annoyance is being made and hassle is being caused but I assign the "they" part more to the owners of the businesses rather than the low-level employees working the phones. Those workers are just cogs in a wheel. Therefore, I don't derive any satisfaction of justice by making employees suffer the games of an AI Turing Test. On the other hand, I am happy when business owners pay $100,000 fines for ignoring the Do-Not-Call list. The workers vs owners distinction is the same for fast-food cashiers asking "do you want to Super Size that?", or Radio Shack employee requesting my phone number for their database, or a retail employee trying to sell me an "extended warranty". For each of those situations, I'm annoyed but it's not necessary for me to socially shame the low-level workers with rants about obesity and high-fat consumption, the dangers of privacy invasion and identity theft, and the financial foolishness of 3rd-party warranties. All those employees are just cogs in a wheel and they are required to follow a script and upsell those things. Otherwise, they are fired. I see most telemarketing employees in equivalent situations++. Waging war with those low-level employees seems like fighting the wrong layer. Instead, just don't spend money with the business or utilize technical tricks (e.g. phone TeleZapper). ++To level set, I'm not talking about criminal activities such as scammers making calls to trick senior citizens into wiring their life savings. I'm talking about the single mother or starving college student who sees a job ad for "$8/hour tele-sales" and hopes to get money for diapers or ramen noodles. The telemarketing I was thinking of was newspaper subscriptions, church donations, burglar alarms monitoring, etc.
- Lawtonfogle 11y ago
  >For each of those situations, I'm annoyed but it's not necessary for me to socially shame the low-level workers with rants about obesity and high-fat consumption, the dangers of privacy invasion and identity theft, and the financial foolishness of 3rd-party warranties. And yet, if we did that to such an extent that most people couldn't work those jobs with those policies, would not society be better off as a whole? >Waging war with those low-level employees seems like fighting the wrong layer. Speaking of war, the general way it goes is that you shoot the soldiers even though they are just following orders and there are a dozen more to take their place. Ideally taking out the general would be best, but when not given the opportunity to do so you target the highest ranking person in front of you, even if that is the lowly private who is on the same level as you.
  - Merad 11y ago
    > And yet, if we did that to such an extent that most people couldn't work those jobs with those policies, would not society be better off as a whole? Your attitude isn't just out of touch with reality, it's somewhere between 'callous and unsympathetic' and 'sociopathic.' Roughly 95% of the people who work in crappy low-wage jobs like fast food or call centers already hate their jobs. They already hate what their employers tell them they have to do. They aren't there because they love cold calling strangers or asking you to upgrade your meal by 1000 calories, they're there because they need a paycheck and have little other alternative. I can only speak from personal experience regarding call centers, but I imagine fast food isn't very different. Most people absolutely do get out of those jobs as fast as they can. In the call center I worked at, average tenure was 6 months if not less (that's exactly how long I lasted, FWIW). And you know what? Every time a person walks out the door, someone else walks in to take their place, because the world has no shortage of desperate people. Taking the stance of 'we should torture these people as much as possible because we don't have access to their employers' is bad enough, but to smugly claim that it's really for their own good and the good of society is frankly disturbing.
    - Lawtonfogle 11y ago
      >Your attitude isn't just out of touch with reality, it's somewhere between 'callous and unsympathetic' and 'sociopathic.' As is needed of any soldier killing a guy who doesn't want to be there just as much as they don't. Probably the most sociopathic thing I did today was I just ate a Butterfingers candy bar, made by Nestle, and thus likely involved child slavery, which I funded by buying the candy bar. But I do think my informed apathy is a step up from ignorant bliss. >Roughly 95% of the people who work in crappy low-wage jobs like fast food or call centers already hate their jobs. They already hate what their employers tell them they have to do. They aren't there because they love cold calling strangers or asking you to upgrade your meal by 1000 calories, they're there because they need a paycheck and have little other alternative. And if their work isn't a net harm for me, I'll try try to make their day more pleasant. But when I'm at the local cell store again because another family member was lied to about their contract, or when you just interrupted my concentration while solving some problem to try to get me to sign up for some service that will be near impossible to cancel and which comes with more fine print than my employment contract, then I am not going to excuse you just because you did such for money. >Taking the stance of 'we should torture these people as much as possible because we don't have access to their employers' is bad enough, but to smugly claim that it's really for their own good and the good of society is frankly disturbing. >torture I found the bug.
zaccus 11y ago
I used to work as a telemarketer because there was a recession on and that was the only job I could find after months of looking. I was literally a couple weeks away from being homeless, so I wasn't much inclined to care if I was causing hassle. It's legal, there's a market for it, and I need to eat. If it makes you feel better about yourself to shit on your economic inferiors, you go right ahead. But if you think you're teaching that telemarketer a lesson or somehow punishing them, you're not. They won't even remember you at the end of the day. You are one of 100+ calls that telemarketer has to make every day. And if you don't say the magic words "please take my name off your list", they will call you again next week. So you're really just wasting your own time.
- Lawtonfogle 11y ago
  >It's legal, there's a market for it, and I need to eat. Releasing steam against the telemarketer is legal, there's a reason for it, and it relieves the immediate tension build up. >They won't even remember you at the end of the day. Depends upon spontaneous creativity. I don't have much, so they probably want. But in some ways, even if you don't directly recall the experience, it can still have an impact. If I had not eaten every meal I don't remember anything about, I would be dead right now. >If it makes you feel better about yourself to shit on your economic inferiors, You make it sound like it is because they are economically inferiors is the reason people react negatively and in doing so ignore all the actual reasons people don't like telemarketers. >So you're really just wasting your own time. The telemarketer already did that for me.

jasode 11y ago

>I don't get this reasoning that ... they are resolved of any blame ... annoying me ... causing hassle Yes, I agree that annoyance is being made and hassle is being caused but I assign the "they" part more to the owners of the businesses rather than the low-level employees working the phones. Those workers are just cogs in a wheel. Therefore, I don't derive any satisfaction of justice by making employees suffer the games of an AI Turing Test. On the other hand, I am happy when business owners pay $100,000 fines for ignoring the Do-Not-Call list. The workers vs owners distinction is the same for fast-food cashiers asking "do you want to Super Size that?", or Radio Shack employee requesting my phone number for their database, or a retail employee trying to sell me an "extended warranty". For each of those situations, I'm annoyed but it's not necessary for me to socially shame the low-level workers with rants about obesity and high-fat consumption, the dangers of privacy invasion and identity theft, and the financial foolishness of 3rd-party warranties. All those employees are just cogs in a wheel and they are required to follow a script and upsell those things. Otherwise, they are fired. I see most telemarketing employees in equivalent situations++. Waging war with those low-level employees seems like fighting the wrong layer. Instead, just don't spend money with the business or utilize technical tricks (e.g. phone TeleZapper). ++To level set, I'm not talking about criminal activities such as scammers making calls to trick senior citizens into wiring their life savings. I'm talking about the single mother or starving college student who sees a job ad for "$8/hour tele-sales" and hopes to get money for diapers or ramen noodles. The telemarketing I was thinking of was newspaper subscriptions, church donations, burglar alarms monitoring, etc.

Lawtonfogle 11y ago
>For each of those situations, I'm annoyed but it's not necessary for me to socially shame the low-level workers with rants about obesity and high-fat consumption, the dangers of privacy invasion and identity theft, and the financial foolishness of 3rd-party warranties. And yet, if we did that to such an extent that most people couldn't work those jobs with those policies, would not society be better off as a whole? >Waging war with those low-level employees seems like fighting the wrong layer. Speaking of war, the general way it goes is that you shoot the soldiers even though they are just following orders and there are a dozen more to take their place. Ideally taking out the general would be best, but when not given the opportunity to do so you target the highest ranking person in front of you, even if that is the lowly private who is on the same level as you.
- Merad 11y ago
  > And yet, if we did that to such an extent that most people couldn't work those jobs with those policies, would not society be better off as a whole? Your attitude isn't just out of touch with reality, it's somewhere between 'callous and unsympathetic' and 'sociopathic.' Roughly 95% of the people who work in crappy low-wage jobs like fast food or call centers already hate their jobs. They already hate what their employers tell them they have to do. They aren't there because they love cold calling strangers or asking you to upgrade your meal by 1000 calories, they're there because they need a paycheck and have little other alternative. I can only speak from personal experience regarding call centers, but I imagine fast food isn't very different. Most people absolutely do get out of those jobs as fast as they can. In the call center I worked at, average tenure was 6 months if not less (that's exactly how long I lasted, FWIW). And you know what? Every time a person walks out the door, someone else walks in to take their place, because the world has no shortage of desperate people. Taking the stance of 'we should torture these people as much as possible because we don't have access to their employers' is bad enough, but to smugly claim that it's really for their own good and the good of society is frankly disturbing.
  - Lawtonfogle 11y ago
    >Your attitude isn't just out of touch with reality, it's somewhere between 'callous and unsympathetic' and 'sociopathic.' As is needed of any soldier killing a guy who doesn't want to be there just as much as they don't. Probably the most sociopathic thing I did today was I just ate a Butterfingers candy bar, made by Nestle, and thus likely involved child slavery, which I funded by buying the candy bar. But I do think my informed apathy is a step up from ignorant bliss. >Roughly 95% of the people who work in crappy low-wage jobs like fast food or call centers already hate their jobs. They already hate what their employers tell them they have to do. They aren't there because they love cold calling strangers or asking you to upgrade your meal by 1000 calories, they're there because they need a paycheck and have little other alternative. And if their work isn't a net harm for me, I'll try try to make their day more pleasant. But when I'm at the local cell store again because another family member was lied to about their contract, or when you just interrupted my concentration while solving some problem to try to get me to sign up for some service that will be near impossible to cancel and which comes with more fine print than my employment contract, then I am not going to excuse you just because you did such for money. >Taking the stance of 'we should torture these people as much as possible because we don't have access to their employers' is bad enough, but to smugly claim that it's really for their own good and the good of society is frankly disturbing. >torture I found the bug.

zaccus 11y ago

I used to work as a telemarketer because there was a recession on and that was the only job I could find after months of looking. I was literally a couple weeks away from being homeless, so I wasn't much inclined to care if I was causing hassle. It's legal, there's a market for it, and I need to eat. If it makes you feel better about yourself to shit on your economic inferiors, you go right ahead. But if you think you're teaching that telemarketer a lesson or somehow punishing them, you're not. They won't even remember you at the end of the day. You are one of 100+ calls that telemarketer has to make every day. And if you don't say the magic words "please take my name off your list", they will call you again next week. So you're really just wasting your own time.

Lawtonfogle 11y ago
>It's legal, there's a market for it, and I need to eat. Releasing steam against the telemarketer is legal, there's a reason for it, and it relieves the immediate tension build up. >They won't even remember you at the end of the day. Depends upon spontaneous creativity. I don't have much, so they probably want. But in some ways, even if you don't directly recall the experience, it can still have an impact. If I had not eaten every meal I don't remember anything about, I would be dead right now. >If it makes you feel better about yourself to shit on your economic inferiors, You make it sound like it is because they are economically inferiors is the reason people react negatively and in doing so ignore all the actual reasons people don't like telemarketers. >So you're really just wasting your own time. The telemarketer already did that for me.