Monday, May. 12, 2003 - 9:55 p.m.

How To Protect Yourself From People Like Me

Having tried out the three major forms of professional people-bothering, allow me to give my advice on how to most effectively keep the people in my line of work at bey.

How to handle door-to-door canvassers:

If you want to help them, invite them in to use your bathroom. They really badly need to pee. Also, restrain your savage, bloodthirsty dogs.

If you want them to go away, don't be home. Or don't answer the door. Or before they can start their pitch, say you are adamant about not donating, but you'll be glad to take their literature. Signs that say, "no soliciting" may dissuade the faint of heart, but not if they believe that asking for donations or religious conversions doesn't count as solicitation. A "beware of dog" sign would work much better. If they are after money, the sooner you give them a donation, the sooner they will leave.

Do not, as it happened to me at one house, shreik loudly and then slam the door with great force. Never treat canvassers rudely because they know where you live (and in this case, the URL to her business' website was painted on her car. Were I a hacker bent on revenge, she'd rue the day she slammed a door in my face.)

How to handle telemarketers:

If you want to help them: give them the phone numbers of your friends, family, and business associates.

If you want them to go away: Hang up. This is not rude; in fact, hanging up immediately is the best favor you can do for them, because their time is money. The sooner you let them go, the sooner they can call someone else more likely to buy. And believe me, they're quite used to getting hung up on, and it won't hurt their feelings. If you can't bear to hang up, just say the magic words, "please take me off your list", or "please put me on the do-not-call list". Put yourself on the official national do-not-call list. Automated call-screening services such as Call Intercept and Privacy Director work quite well. Just don't get the kind that says, "If you are a telemarketer, hang up now. If not, press 1 to complete your call." Come on, that's an open door.

Do not waste their time. If you are certain you have no intention of buying, do not listen to their whole pitch, and then let them overcome your objections ; that's really the rudest thing you can do. Do not vent all your anger onto them. They're just a poor shmuck trying to make a living. Do not hold them responsible for the sins of all other telemarketers. They're only following orders.

How to handle phone survey interviewers:

If you want to help them, do their survey. Answer it honestly and quickly. Their time is money too. If you wanna chat, save it for after the survey is complete. If you wanna make jokes, great, but be serious when responding to their questions. Some surveys can be up to an hour long, so if you're unsure you want to spend that kind of time, don't be shy about asking how long it will take. Some surveys pay you money. If you're only willing to do it for money, ask if the survey pays (but don't ask the interviewer to cut you a deal. They have no such power. An interviewer is just a Borg drone, sitting in a cube in front of a computer screen that gives them orders.) Be willing to divulge personal financial information such as your annual household income before taxes, which credit cards you have, and where your money is invested.

If you want them to go away, listen to their whole introduction, and then say the magic words, "I'm not interested". But sometimes people who say they're not interested still get called again if the survey company has run out of fresh numbers to dial (sample). If you want to make doubly sure they never call again, say, "please don't ever call again", or "please take me off your list", or "please put me on the do-not-call list". The super-secret magic words are, "I work in market research". That will disqualify you for almost every survey.

Do not hang up immediately. If you don't listen to their entire introduction, then their protocol is to presume you didn't know what you were refusing. Then you get coded as, "respondent not available", and they will call again and again until you either do the survey or listen to their whole introduction before refusing. Do not lie to them and say you're too busy right now. Interviewers are not allowed to interpret what you mean, so they have to take all you say literally. If you say you're too busy right at this moment, they will call back every ten minutes and ask, "how about now? Are you ready to do the survey now?" If you mean that you don't ever want to be called again, have a backbone and say so. Do not waste their time. Once you start answering their questions, you have committed to seeing this survey through to it's end. People who hang up in the middle of a survey are ASSHOLES. Doing so means all the information you gave is discarded, and the interviewer might have lost the opportunity for a considerable commission that they need to feed their starving family. Do not give them information they don't ask for. If they're asking you multiple choice questions, and you're giving them essay responses, you're just wasting everyone's time. The interviewer probably doesn't care about your opinion, and even if they do, your opinion will never get to anyone with the power to change things unless you answer the questions the way they are asked. Remember that your responses are typed into a computer by the interviewer; your voice is not recorded. Some questions are "open-end" questions where an essay-type response is desired. Now feel free to speak your mind on the issue. Speak slowly so the interviewer can type down everything you say verbatim. Do not vent all your anger onto them. They're just a poor shmuck trying to make a living. Do not hold them responsible for the sins of telemarketers, because they're not telemarketers. Don't blame them for the length, subject matter, or stupidity of their survey. They're only following orders.

A lot of people are really ignorant about how to handle survey people. Here are some funny real-life quotes I heard on the phone (warning: contains jackal language!):

stranger than fiction	my commentary
"Do you know you're committing an illegal act?"	Actually, you're wrong. The new laws apply only to telemarketers, and I'm not selling a blessed thing. Phone surveys are used by the government and by electoral candidates, so it's unlikely that surveys will ever be banned.
"Sorry, I'm not interesting."	I get this a lot from Asian immigrants. Yes, I know you're not interesting, but would you like to do my survey?
"It's against the law to call on Sundays."	Ma'am, your head is so far up your ass, the Bible Belt is cutting off the circulation to your brain. No, we don't live in a Born-Again Christian theocracy. Yet.
"I already talked to someone about that." and "Someone just called me on that; that's okay."	You're not giving me any useful information here. It's not okay. I need to know whether you will do my survey or not, and you're telling me about some other phone call. Now, I can surmise that you told the last caller that you were busy, and that's why you're getting called back now, you dumbshit. You were too polite to just say, "fuck off," and now you're paying the price.
Answering machine: "Hello, you've reached the home of whoever you're calling."	This person understands where I'm coming from.
"I don't have time."	You're going to get called again. Nanny nanny poo poo.
"No, you don't call at this unlisted number."	I just did, numbskull.
"I'm all set, thanks."	You're all set? All set with WHAT??? You are not all set until you have completed my survey.
I told him I was doing a survey about alcoholic beverages. He said the names of his three favorite drinks and then hung up.	Amusing. You must think that was helping me in some small way.
Me: "Do you or does anyone in your household work in market research?" Respondent: "No." Me: "The automotive industry?" Respondent: "No." Me: "The Washington State Department of Tr*nsportation?" Respondent: "I SAID NO!!!" and hangs up.	No.
"Don't call me at home. Call me at work." click.	When I was telemarketing, I would sometimes get, "This is a business. Call me at home" click. To both, I ask, at what number? Or do you assume that the Totality has you so well-monitored that I already know everything about you?
"At 10 O'clock at night? You've got a lot of balls."	*snif* No one has ever said that to me before. (This guy was in New York City.)
"At 10:00 at night? FUCK YOU!!!"	It was 9pm in his time zone.
"This is a private number" and "How did you get this number? This number is unlisted."	Listen, they don't tell me how the sample was generated. But sometimes the sample has such a large percentage of non-working numbers, I'm sure the computer is just dialing randomly. Which means, of course, that you are defenseless against our wrath. You have no power. There is no safe place for you. Get used to it.
"I think you have a lot of nerve calling on Sunday"	And the Orthodox Jews would think I have a lot of chutzpah calling on Saturday. But you know what? Unlike you, they're smart enough to NOT ANSWER THE PHONE when they don't want to receive calls.
"On Sunday evening?"	Well, duh.
"On Thanksgiving Eve?" (one of my coworkers got this one last Fall.)	There's no such thing as Thanksgiving Eve. The evening exists, but no one in their right mind celebrates it. I think you should have yourself committed. And electroshock. Yeah. You need electroshock.
"This is an invasion of privacy!"	Yeah, just like the album by Ratt!
Me: "I'm sorry, but from your answers to the screener questions, it looks like you're not in the demographic group this survey is targeting, so I won't have any more questions for you. I appreciate your time, and have a great day." Respondent: "ASSHOLE!!!" click.	Are you feeling angry because your need for acceptance isn't being met?
Me: "Are you familiar with the V*isa C*heck C*ard?." Old lady respondent: "What did you say? SEX CARD?!!"	I'm too sexy for this call.
"You called 3 times already."	And I will keep calling, Bozo, until you figure out how to say the word, "no".
Respondent, partway through the screener questions: "Let me ask you a question. Are you a religious person?" Me: "Nope." Respondent: "If you were, you'd realize that this is Sunday, and I never do business on a Sunday."	Yeah, that's presuming that to be religious means to practice your particular religion, sir, in which the Bible clearly states, "thou shalt not answer telephone surveys on Sunday."
On a Sunday evening: "Are you aware The Sopranos just came on?"	No, can't say I am, as I don't have a TV, and could never afford cable. You need to wake up to the fact that rest of the world does not revolve around your television any more than it revolves around your neighbor's fundamentalism.
"Are you one of those robots?"	No, I'm a real boy!

newest archive guestbook email rings profile Diaryland