Thursday, August 16

5 Reasons to be Nice to Telemarketers

The Moaning meme is haunting me.

Being a telemarketer, I have been thrown into Room 101 by my fellow Memers so often that I’ve had an escalator installed. This attack on telemarketers seems somewhat harsh, so I have taken it upon myself to defend my profession.

With my sales skills, I should be able to end the unfair prejudice for ever.

5 Reasons to be Nice to Telemarketers

  1. We can afford our own alcohol.
    Every person in a call centre is one less person on the street begging. Being of a higher class than the homeless however, we do our begging via the phone. And unlike the street-beggars we tell you straight out where your money is going – we’ll be buying alcohol so we can forget the hellish way we earn a living.

  2. We hold back the evil advance of McDonalds
    If we weren't calling you we'd be flipping burgers. And, with our brilliant sales skills, healthy eating wouldn't stand a chance.

  3. We offer free counseling
    Where else can you find hundreds of people who actually expect to take your abuse? In fact, we wait till you’re at your most stressed before ringing, just so you can scream, swear and threaten us until you’ve released all your tension. And we take it all with an empathic smile. It’s only after you've hung up that we start swearing back.

  4. We call your parents more than you do
    It's us who listens to their meandering stories, us who waste our lives away as they hunt for their paperwork, us who help them remember their birth days, us who coax them back to sanity in a gentle but firm tone of voice...

  5. And if none of that works …

  6. We call your parents more than you do.
    Once we get them talking they tell us everything...
    Be nice the next time we ring you, or we be ringing the tabloids instead...
Photo provided by millieudrop on Flickr

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

For a change, the nice lady who called from the newspaper to try and sell me a subscription to the New York Times this morning actually heard me when I said "No, but thank you for calling to ask." I was amazed! Usually I get someone with a poor grasp of English who keeps on talking after I have said no, thank you at least 5 or 6 times. I eventually give up being nice and hang up.

And yes, fresh out of school, I had that job for a few months too (until I was about ready to eat the drywall off the walls).

Melanie said...

Funny list!

I'm ALWAYS nice to telemarketers. I do get irritated when I had to say no a million times, but I am still always kind. Gotta remember they are people too, just trying to make a living like the rest of us.

Linda said...

You might call my mother more than I do but at least she doesn't hang up on me! Well ... not recently anyway ...

Anonymous said...

FC, if you're talking to my Mom, can you mention that we wanted to spend Christmas with my wife's family this year? She might take it better from someone who's less likely to deprive her of a gift.

Thanks, I owe you.
- CG

SandyCarlson said...

Excellent post! Thanks for the laugh. I find telemarketers and the help people at YouTube and Lulu to be the nicest invisible people around. And, hey, at least you guys are thinking of us. When else would the phone ring if it weren't for you! We get to walk around with the phone to our head like we have friends. We need you!

Dale said...

My mother will talk to you for hours but then not buy anything.

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