What If Telemarketers Called On the Gem Saloon?

Ever wonder if telemarketers keep lists of “insane/problem” households or phone numbers? I am convinced (CONVINCED!) that they do, even though nobody has ever shown me proof, and I’ve never read any articles about the subject.

When I lived in Charlotte, I once had a knock down drag out conversation with one woman telemarketer in which I was doing my best Al Swearengen routine of the most vile insults you can imagine. She gave me the standard threats of how I can’t talk to somebody like that, and you can be reported, etc. etc. I was undaunted, pointing out to the b**** that it was SHE who called me, not the other way around, and that hanging up and dying was always an option for her (and what I was openly rooting for).

The exchange was brutal enough and vile enough, that it even left me a bit shaken afterward, but I definitely seemed to notice a dramatic reduction in such calls in its wake. Had my name been put on some “raging psychopath/don’t even thing about it” list?

My logic for sometimes firing back at telemarketers with Deadwood-esque tirades every now and then, is admittedly Machiavellian in nature. The end justifies the means.

If I can just help push ONE telemarketer to the brink of quitting, that puts a financial drag on the company who needs to then recruit, re-hire, and retrain a new one. This MUST be one of THE major cost concerns of any business that does this.

Thus, it would be very much in the interest of telemarketing companies to AVOID at all costs, phone numbers where the guy on the end of the line, is so vile and willing to abuse, that they don’t want to risk exposure to their callers to me – the bastard child of Satan.

Pleasantly “asking to be taken of the list” is like asking for another kick in the nuts from these people in my opinion. They’ll smile and say the right things, and then make a note that “customer is pleasant, and home between 12-3.”

Oh, trust me. They make notes like this. They have to. They are in the data collection business. If I believe that, then why not believe that they have a “do not call, insane!” list as well. They must keep this internally, and probably share it with other companies who are also mutually wary of losing telemarketers to the ravages of the job.

It may be a naïve, and ill-informed view of the telemarketing world, but even so, treating these people like the low lives they are, does feel pretty good every now and then.