Eccentric Flower:199809/when salesmen call at dusk

three september ninety eight one p m

when salesmen call at dusk

For a list of all the ways technology has failed to improve the quality of life, press 3 now.

--Alice Kahn

Diane Patterson wrote yesterday about telephone solicitors.

She notes that anyone who calls on the personal line for her husband will have to go through her - she answers that line 99% of the time, and people trying to sell him something will get short shrift. If it's business, then for heaven's sake call him on his business line.

We have a somewhat different solution at our domicile: We don't answer the phone.

The issue is often moot, since I usually connect to the internet within an hour of getting home, and generally don't disconnect until bedtime, which is quite late. We have only one phone line, and my dialer disables Call Waiting, the bane of man's existence, with extreme prejudice ... so that handles those pesky calls neatly.

Still, once in a while I actually read a book or something - or, more likely, am on the computer doing work which doesn't require me to pay for connect time. So the phone is occasionally available. When the salesmen call at dusk - hey, that sounds like a horror movie! -

SEE the annoyed expressions of the victims!

HEAR the screams of agony!

Are you prepared for ....

WHEN SALESMEN CALL AT DUSK

Ahem.

As I think I was saying, when salesmen call around 6 or 7 p.m., the calls are likely to be for my significant other. (I get phonespam mostly from headhunters, who strike in the daytime; I just ignore their messages on the machine.) The telephone's in her name, so she gets calls from the long-distance companies. She also has an especially excitable credit-card company.

The interesting thing is that these people will refuse to talk to anyone else but the person they want to pitch to, so I have taken to answering the phone. If they use her full name, I know it's a salesbeing. "She's not here. May I take a message?" (She's actually in the other room watching TV.)

They always refuse to leave a message, of course. What could they possibly say that would get her to call them back?

Telemarketers KNOW that people don't like them and don't want to deal with them, and yet their jobs require them to do it. I feel sorry for them. Yet I also can't help wondering why they don't get a better job. I think I'd rather try to go work retail sales in a department store someplace than cold-call people. If someone starts browsing in the shoe department, you can assume they have at least a passing interest in buying some shoes.

While I'm on the subject, I passed by my boss's office today and listened to him deliver a long stream of burning rhetoric into the telephone, ending with the words, "... burn in hell!" This is very unlike him, and anyway he wasn't unhappy-looking; he was grinning.

The Institvte has been suffering through another round of spam lately - messages about "Attract Women Eeasily!" [sic] which are trying to sell some pheromone cologne.

We do a lot of spam-fighting, but you can't block everything, you know. Oddly enough, email spam doesn't bother me. I just delete it. (Telephone spam represents more of an intrusion into my life; email spam is beneath my radar.)

Anyway, the spammers foolishly put an 800 number in their message which you could call "to remove yourself permanently from the list," but which, of course, led to their call-directing system and their sales pitch. (NEVER call the "to remove" number or write to the "to remove" address. This just gets their attention. If you want to get rid of a spammer, trace the name of the real server he's sending from and complain to them.)

First my boss called this number and left the stream of invective. Then he called it again and let their ACD sit in a loop while waiting for him to take action. They all time out eventually and hang up on you, of course, but he was enjoying himself so much that I didn't bother to point that out.

We take our little victories where we can find them.

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