5 ms·

Why do I have to waste part of my life on these scum?

maxerickson 12y ago
Do you expect a revealing answer to that question? I don't think I'm suggesting something that wastes part of your life. What I suggest directly restores usefulness to the phone, and it likely forces the call center companies to report unsuccessful calls instead of no answers to their customers (and if done in large numbers it should have an impact).
- yebyen 12y ago
  He's right. I work in a call center (not calling on the phones, I keep up the infrastructure) where we do mostly market research for our clients which involves calling their customers. Utility companies, medical offices, consulting services, they will all honor do-not-call requests and so will any legitimate call center business. That is thankless work, the people on the phones are mostly not scum, but the number of people that answer the phone and treat them as such makes me feel for them so I'm happy to look the other way at some minor bad behavior like being short with a person or hanging up, when every third person they talk to is some jerk who only knows how to yell "IM ON THE DO-NOT-CALL LIST I JUST TALKED TO YOU LAST WEEK I ALREADY TOLD YOU NOW WHAT YOU ARE DOING IS ILLEGAL GIVE ME YOUR MANAGER RIGHT NAO!!1one" Just because you talked to _some_ call center somewhere, it does not follow that every call center in the fleet automatically knows you are not to be contacted. We have do-not-call lists, and the best way to make sure you get that treatment is to ask for it. You don't have to ruin your day and someone else's by getting mad about it. Five magic words can liberate you: "do not call me again". Second best way: when you sign up for services, don't give them your phone number! They can't give it to us if they don't have it to begin with. If hearing the phone ring makes you so mad, seriously just don't give it out to any companies that could just as easily deal with you by post.
  - coldpie 12y ago
    Anyone who calls me for any reason other than giving me information relevant to me, personally, is scum and will be treated as such. Your company's "market research" is not useful to me, so yeah, I'm going to hang up on or swear at your employees. Fuck off and find a non-scum job.
    - maxerickson 12y ago
      Forgive me for being all preachy, but I think the majority of people taking outbound call center jobs aren't exactly swimming in better choices. They also probably aren't going to reevaluate everything because somebody emoted at them. The other side of it is that being polite or neutral probably costs you less time and energy than embracing your rage.
      - coldpie 12y ago
        I'm generally on the side of people who are just doing their jobs and have to do something shitty that is out of their control. Getting angry at a store clerk because of their store's return policy is dumb. But when your job is specifically to annoy me, you can fuck right off, and I'll let you know. I'd rather have these people on the dole than calling me. You're right that it'd save me some effort being less rage-y about this, but if you're going to be distracting me and wasting my time, I'm going to give you some form of payback.
    - yebyen 12y ago
      You know, a lot of these calls are personally relevant too. Would you rather pick up the phone and wait on hold for 45 minutes to talk to someone at your gas company again after they already didn't fix your problem last week, or would you like to get a call asking how your service appointment went so you can say "Unresolved issues. Please escalate" and get a call later from someone who can actually fix it while their boss is watching? For the record, I subscribe to the George Carlin definition of A Phone Call, "The brief exchange of a few vital pieces of information." I am with you, I honestly don't want to get phone calls from anyone for pretty much any reason. http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=A+Phone+Call http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=A+Phone+Call

Do you expect a revealing answer to that question? I don't think I'm suggesting something that wastes part of your life. What I suggest directly restores usefulness to the phone, and it likely forces the call center companies to report unsuccessful calls instead of no answers to their customers (and if done in large numbers it should have an impact).

yebyen 12y ago
He's right. I work in a call center (not calling on the phones, I keep up the infrastructure) where we do mostly market research for our clients which involves calling their customers. Utility companies, medical offices, consulting services, they will all honor do-not-call requests and so will any legitimate call center business. That is thankless work, the people on the phones are mostly not scum, but the number of people that answer the phone and treat them as such makes me feel for them so I'm happy to look the other way at some minor bad behavior like being short with a person or hanging up, when every third person they talk to is some jerk who only knows how to yell "IM ON THE DO-NOT-CALL LIST I JUST TALKED TO YOU LAST WEEK I ALREADY TOLD YOU NOW WHAT YOU ARE DOING IS ILLEGAL GIVE ME YOUR MANAGER RIGHT NAO!!1one" Just because you talked to _some_ call center somewhere, it does not follow that every call center in the fleet automatically knows you are not to be contacted. We have do-not-call lists, and the best way to make sure you get that treatment is to ask for it. You don't have to ruin your day and someone else's by getting mad about it. Five magic words can liberate you: "do not call me again". Second best way: when you sign up for services, don't give them your phone number! They can't give it to us if they don't have it to begin with. If hearing the phone ring makes you so mad, seriously just don't give it out to any companies that could just as easily deal with you by post.
- coldpie 12y ago
  Anyone who calls me for any reason other than giving me information relevant to me, personally, is scum and will be treated as such. Your company's "market research" is not useful to me, so yeah, I'm going to hang up on or swear at your employees. Fuck off and find a non-scum job.
  - maxerickson 12y ago
    Forgive me for being all preachy, but I think the majority of people taking outbound call center jobs aren't exactly swimming in better choices. They also probably aren't going to reevaluate everything because somebody emoted at them. The other side of it is that being polite or neutral probably costs you less time and energy than embracing your rage.
    - coldpie 12y ago
      I'm generally on the side of people who are just doing their jobs and have to do something shitty that is out of their control. Getting angry at a store clerk because of their store's return policy is dumb. But when your job is specifically to annoy me, you can fuck right off, and I'll let you know. I'd rather have these people on the dole than calling me. You're right that it'd save me some effort being less rage-y about this, but if you're going to be distracting me and wasting my time, I'm going to give you some form of payback.
  - yebyen 12y ago
    You know, a lot of these calls are personally relevant too. Would you rather pick up the phone and wait on hold for 45 minutes to talk to someone at your gas company again after they already didn't fix your problem last week, or would you like to get a call asking how your service appointment went so you can say "Unresolved issues. Please escalate" and get a call later from someone who can actually fix it while their boss is watching? For the record, I subscribe to the George Carlin definition of A Phone Call, "The brief exchange of a few vital pieces of information." I am with you, I honestly don't want to get phone calls from anyone for pretty much any reason. http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=A+Phone+Call http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=A+Phone+Call