Filed under: general
remember the good ol’ days when, invariably at dinner time, you’d receive all sorts of lovely calls from carpet companies and investment firms and siding installers… ahhh yes…
well when the national “do not call” list came about i was right there signing us up… and for the most part it has worked like a charm… i’d say we probably get 90% less calls than we did way back when… if i understand it right only non profit-types and folks you’ve done business with before are allowed to call you…
and as an aside i have spent a fair amount of time in “sales” and as such have made tons of cold calls both in person and over the phone… it often times kinda sucks and i understand that and i certainly don’t begrudge these folks the right to make a living… and i think in fact i’m more likely to give ‘em a chance and listen to what they’re saying than a lot of other folks…
having said that…
the phone rings last week… gonna say it was tuesday… i’m playing with the chilluns… i scope out the caller i.d. thingy and its an 800 number without a name attached… ‘leave a message’ thinks i… i’m busy…
alas… no message… well whatever… couldn’t have been that important… the next day… middle of the day… same number calls again… ‘eat it’ thinks i… again no message…
the same number called the next day as well… and when they called on friday i figured it was time i said “hi”… i mean… must be pretty important… er… well maybe they woulda left a message if it was important… but anyway… i prepare… i pick up the phone and say “hi”… i wait the 2-3 seconds while the auto dialer transfers me over to a person… i love that… nice personal touch… but i digress… and then the slickest, most saccharine dude i think i’ve ever heard says “hey - is this carl?”… err… well dipshit ol’ pal… apart from the fact that there’s about five people on the planet that call me that and you most certainly ain’t one of ‘em… sure … why not… “heck yeah - this is carl!!!… how the dickens are ya?”…
well my new bestest pal ever was calling from the state patrol… actually, as he explained, he was calling on behalf of the state patrol as a courtesy call just to say “thanks”…
i think ’sweet’ and say “yer welcome amigo… have a nice life…”
but it was not to be that easy…
love-of-my-life karen bought a couple of tickets to a charity baseball game two years ago… i remember this… we didn’t go…
so i say to my new pal earl (not because that’s his name but because that’s what i’m gonna call him from now on because it sounds slick and sleazy in a bad-used-car-salesman or calling-on-behalf-of-the-state-patrol sort of way (my apologies to anyone named earl)) “hey man - glad we could help out and i sure do appreciate the call just to say thanks two years later but i’m afraid i can’t help you out right now earl“…
as another aside i know the call’s not gonna end here… anyone worth their salt on the phone’s gonna ask a couple more times and i would expect nothing less from earl…
but he just won’t stop… i tell him no three times… he keeps asking… err… “no”… err… “no”…
err… “hey earl… pal-o’-mine… i’ve got a new idea… how’s about you just go ahead and scratch me off yer list there and don’t call any more?”…
when he kept going at that point i just hung up and got on with life…
so in conclusion… allow me to state that, whilst i truly do appreciate everything the state patrol does for me and my family on the highways and byways of the great state of washington, from now on they’re just gonna have to do it solely with our tax dollars instead of getting additional donations… ‘cuz they hired earl…
