Author
|
Topic: Zapping telemarketers
|
radiorahim
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 2777
|
posted 19 January 2004 03:33 AM
Found this handy article on how to zap those irritating telemarketing calls.There's a little .wav file that plays the three tones that the phone company normally uses to indicate your number isn't in service. You just record the tones at the beginning of your outgoing voice mail message. The telemarketing companies' autodialers hear the three tones, assume your telephone number isn't in service and take your number off the list of verified telephone numbers. You can stop telemarketers
From: a Micro$oft-free computer | Registered: Jun 2002
| IP: Logged
|
|
N-SIGN
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 4596
|
posted 19 January 2004 04:55 AM
I have some experience working in this industry and I don't think it will work - usually it requires a human to hear the phone company message before it can be classified as a dead line and get placed on an "out of service" list, plus different area codes and phone companies have different messages and not all of them have tones at the beginning - it may work on a few. A lot of times the autodialer will connect the caller while the phone is still ringing. There really is zero margin for error as far as vaild numbers go, if a telemarketer receives a bad phone list they won't go to the same dataminer again, at least for that area. Maintaining those lists is a big industry. If you really want to avoid telemarketing without using electronic gizmos: Shoppers rewards clubs, air miles, free draws, and contests are major sources of these numbers. *** Nothing is ever free *** The chance at the prize or reward is what you receive for selling your consumer data to dataminers and phone solicitors. If you want less calls don't give out your number or other personal information. Magazines, mail order and credit card purchases generate a lot of consumer data too, avoid these things and pay cash when you shop in a store. When you get called.... 1) Refuse the service, but don't just hang up. Sometimes if you don't say an outright "no" the telemarketer will call back. The same goes for just picking up the phone and hanging it up.... that will get a callback for sure, as will putting your little baby on the phone or claiming the relevant person is not home. Also if you've ever bought anything by phone, expect a lot more advertising directed at you... 2) Put on an answering machine message that tells telemarketers, or just tell them yourself to put you on their do not call list - you won't hurt their feelings. They make about 600 calls each per day... People do honour them but it may take up to 90 days for your request to cycle through the system. 3) Don't get excited and talk really fast when you are asking to be put on "yerdonotcalllist" or make some other request - ask calmly - chances are the caller is using a crappy headset and won't understand what your saying if you're all excited and tense (also consider they might be having trouble with your accent - so blathering really fast and slamming the receiver is not a great policy). 4) Don't swear at the person, call them names, or generally say anything you wouldn't say in a face to face conversation. Some telemarketers will put you on "call back" just for revenge - of course, they aren't supposed to. Keep in mind if you are issuing death threats that all these calls are logged and there is a very good chance the telemarketer is actually looking at your name and address on screen while talking to you. Also, especially on the prairies and in the maritimes there is a chance the caller is actually one of your neighbours - most cities in those areas have numerous call centres. Telemarketing can be annoying, but they would go out of business if at least some people didn't use the services and make them profitable. [ 19 January 2004: Message edited by: N-SIGN ]
From: Canada | Registered: Oct 2003
| IP: Logged
|
|
Tommy_Paine
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 214
|
posted 19 January 2004 05:21 AM
Two weeks ago I returned a deffective piece of merchandise to Canadian Tire.I kept the reciept, and the pakaging, and even the Canadian Tire money-- and conditions to be met for refund. Actually, everything went smoothly. The customer service guy said they'd had a lot of trouble with that particular item, and there wasn't a hassle. He required me to give name, phone number, address. Which I did of course. Except I changed the last digit on my phone number. Unfortunately, my daughter corrected my "error". I should have, and will in the future be denying such information to retailers. Since the fucking asshole Canadian Tire Corporation got that info, I have been recieving multiple solicitations a night, and even on the weekends.
From: The Alley, Behind Montgomery's Tavern | Registered: Apr 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
Michelle
Moderator
Babbler # 560
|
posted 19 January 2004 08:17 AM
Yes, I don't think you should be required to give your name and address and telephone number when returning an item to the store, especially if you paid cash for it. That always annoys me.And you know what really REALLY gets on my nerves? When you go to a place like Radio Shack and, even if you are paying in cash, they want to fill out a whole form with you, name, address, phone number, e-mail address, name of firstborn child, religion...okay, okay, maybe not the last two. When they ask me for my name, I just say politely, "No thanks, I'm paying cash." They say, "Oh, it's just in case you want to return it." I tell them, "That's okay. I'll keep the receipt." They say, "It's also for the warrantee." I say, "This costs ten bucks. If it doesn't work when I get it home, I will return it with my receipt. If it breaks down within a year, I'll buy another one." I'm always polite about it, though, because I know the folks at the front desk are just minimum wage slaves who have to do what management tells them. (People who are rude to telemarketers might also keep that in mind.) I've started buying almost everything with cash these days. I'm getting really annoyed at how much information retailers want from me. Like, piss OFF. I don't even want to use interac anymore.
From: I've got a fever, and the only prescription is more cowbell. | Registered: May 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
terra1st
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 4605
|
posted 19 January 2004 10:18 AM
Two thoughts on telemarketers/telemarketing:1) I was once called about getting a subscription for the national post... I, of course, said no, I wouldn't like to accept the great offer. The TMer asked why, and I gave the rant about media ownership "don't get much union/environmentalist stuff in the NP"... And she asked why not, and so I offered "you get paid crappy, right? and you take a sick day you lose pay, right? and if you can't get a sitter..." In the end she gave me her home addy and phone number and I sent her a package on unionizing her workplace! 2) I am waiting to recieve 10 copies of a book from germany about unionizing militant unions in call centres. It's written in a writing style that reminds me of crimethinc, but - so far as I have read - without the crappy anti-worker bias. I could sell copies of the book to babblers at cost (aprox $11-12, plus postage) and you could send them to the next telemarketer who calls, if anyone is interested... Cheers.
From: saskatoon | Registered: Oct 2003
| IP: Logged
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Kashla
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 1297
|
posted 24 January 2004 10:50 AM
TIPS FOR TELEMARKETERS Three Little Words That Work!!! (1) The three little words are: "Hold on please..." Saying this, while putting down your phone and walking off (instead of hanging-up immediately) would make each telemarketing call so much more time consuming that boiler room sales would grind to a halt. Then when you eventually hear the phone company's "beep-beep-beep" tone, you know it's time to go back and hang up your handset, which has efficiently completed its task. These three little words will help eliminate telephone soliciting. (2) Do you ever get those annoying phone calls with no one on the other end? This is a telemarketing technique where a machine makes phone calls and records the time of day when a person answers the phone. This technique is used to determine the best time of day for a "real" sales person to call back and get someone at home. What you can do after answering, if you notice there is no one there, is to immediately start hitting your # button on the phone, 6 or 7 times, as quickly as possible. This confuses the machine that dialed the call and it kicks your number out of their system. Since doing this, my phone calls have decreased dramatically. THIS IS THE BEST ONE ... (3) When you get "ads" enclosed with your phone or utility bill, return these ads" with your payment. Let the sending companies throw their own junk mail away. When you get those "pre-approved" letters in the mail for everything from credit cards to 2nd mortgages and similar type junk, do not throw away the return envelope. Most of these come with postage-paid return envelopes, right? It costs them more than the regular 37 cents postage "IF" and when they receive them back. It costs them nothing if you throw them away! The postage was around 50 cents before! the last increase and it is according to the weight. In that case, why not get rid of some of your other junk mail and put it in these cool little, postage-paid return envelopes. One of Andy Rooney's (60 minutes) ideas ... Send an ad for your local chimney cleaner to American Express ... Send a pizza coupon to Citibank. If you didn't get anything else that day, then just send them their blank application back! If you want to remain anonymous, just make sure your name isn't on anything you send them. You can even send the envelope back empty if you want to just to keep them guessing! Eventually, the banks and credit card companies will begin getting their own junk back in the mail. Let's let them know what it's like to get lots of junk mail, and, best of all they're paying for it ... Twice! Let's help keep our postal service busy since they are saying that e-mail is cutting into their business profits and that's why they need to increase postage costs again. You get the idea! If enough people follow these tips, it will work!
From: Saskatchewan | Registered: Sep 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
drunken American gun nut
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 4892
|
posted 24 January 2004 11:06 AM
quote: Originally posted by radiorahim: Found this handy article on how to zap those irritating telemarketing calls.There's a little .wav file that plays the three tones that the phone company normally uses to indicate your number isn't in service. You just record the tones at the beginning of your outgoing voice mail message. The telemarketing companies' autodialers hear the three tones, assume your telephone number isn't in service and take your number off the list of verified telephone numbers. You can stop telemarketers
Whenever telemarketers call me I always breathe real heavy into the phone and ask them what they're wearing.
From: the belly of the beast | Registered: Jan 2004
| IP: Logged
|
|
Ron Webb
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 2256
|
posted 24 January 2004 12:48 PM
Sure, there are all sorts of techniques you can use to get off companies' phone lists or to avoid getting on in the first place; but what I resent most is the fact that I have to take any action at all to keep them from bothering me.This is a form of negative option marketing, where I'm assumed to want their calling "service" unless I tell them otherwise. It has a bad enough reputation even in cases where a prior contractual arrangement suggested implied consent (e.g., when your cable company adds extra channels to your service unless you specifically opt out); but when a stranger assumes that I welcome such calls in the middle of dinner unless I tell them otherwise, IMHO that is intolerable. So I make no effort to keep my number off their lists, and I don't ask to be placed on "do not call" lists. My goal is to make their business as unviable as possible. I want their lists to be crowded with number of people just like me who will waste as much of their time as I can without any chance that I will buy their cruddy products. When a telemarketer calls, I'm always polite. I'm usually curious about their products, so I listen their spiel and ask a lot of questions. I want to know about their company too: how did they get my name? Does the person calling have any personal knowledge of the product? Do they work for the company or are they a subcontractor? Can I get a number so I can call you back if I need more info? (Yeah, right! ) I avoid saying I'm not interested, but I NEVER actually buy anything. My Dad says that I'm being unfair. After all, he says, the telemarketers need jobs too. Sure, so do heroin pushers, but that's no justification for what they do. Like I said, I'm always polite, because I bear no personal grudge against the wage slaves that do the actual calling; but all the same, I want to see their business shut down and their industry disappear. Telemarketing should be illegal. [ 24 January 2004: Message edited by: Ron Webb ]
From: Winnipeg | Registered: Feb 2002
| IP: Logged
|
|
skdadl
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 478
|
posted 24 January 2004 12:58 PM
Ron Webb, you have taken the words out of my mouth. I couldn't agree more.Telemarketing should be illegal -- so let's follow the money. Who is our real main target here? The phone companies. Remember Lily Tomlin? WE are the Telephone Company. We are om-NI-po-tent! My position on my phone is that it is my phone. I have it for my purposes. It is for me to phone out and to receive calls that bear at least some distant logical human relation to my real life. I don't have it so that the phone company or any other company can make money from it. This is a political issue, and we must pursue it. There must be a lot of people like me for whom a ringing phone is an urgent matter. I have lived through a period two years long when the telephone was a danger every time it rang, and it is still an urgent problem for me. Yes, I have been curt with telemarketers, and the argument that they are just earning a living strikes me much as it does Ron Webb -- so are the drug pushers. The whole business is rotten; the continental organization of our telecomm industries is corrupt and politically despicable, and if people don't understand yet what is wrong with taking one of those jobs, then we have some political arguing to do, don't we?
From: gone | Registered: May 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
|
|
|
|
Michelle
Moderator
Babbler # 560
|
posted 24 January 2004 01:24 PM
Amway is different. That is a multi-level marketing scam where the participants spend their own money on all the sales products and do not turn a profit. It is cult-like in that the company urges its members to stop associating with anyone who is not involved with the company, or who has rejected an overture to become involved with the company. They also try to dictate every aspect of your personal life to you, telling you what you should or shouldn't do in your free time. In fact, with Amway, there's no such thing as "free time" because all waking hours are supposed to be devoted to becoming successful or visualizing yourself as a successful salesperson for Amway.Not only that, but Amway is a pyramid scheme where, instead of selling products, they sell the promise of money to their members. The only reason their racket is protected is because the pyramid is worth millions (perhaps billions? I'm not sure), and the company has many prominent American politicians deep in their pockets. It's not having to listen to a sales pitch by an Amway representative that makes me resent the Amway empire. It's the fact that people who join Amway are sucked in under false pretences, and are victimized as cult victims are. Anyone who thinks that cult-like organizations like Amway are comparable to a part-time job at a telemarketing firm are deeply ignorant about the nature of Amway, or telemarketing, or both. Telemarketing is a regular (shitty) job with hourly wages (or salary). And from what I've seen, most people don't take telemarketing jobs because they have always dreamed, since they were a little kid, of growing up and doing phone soliciting. They do it because nothing else is available at the time. Whereas most people who get sucked into Amway are ordinary working folks who are promised that they'll make more money by working for 4 hours a week at home in a month than they'll make at their ordinary job in a year if they just devote their entire lives to Amway. People's entire lives are ruined by Amway, through lost relationships with family and friends, to financial ruin and employment loss. [ 24 January 2004: Message edited by: Michelle ]
From: I've got a fever, and the only prescription is more cowbell. | Registered: May 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
|
Michelle
Moderator
Babbler # 560
|
posted 24 January 2004 01:44 PM
quote: Originally posted by Ron Webb: There are economically depressed areas where dealing drugs is the only way for a kid to make a good wage. There are young women who put themselves through university by hooking. Of course I'm not suggesting that the social impact of telemarketing compares with the harm done by heroin or the social stigma of prostitution. Which is why I can be polite to them on the phone.
This is true. However, as I've mentioned in other threads, I really don't have a problem with hooking or dealing (soft) drugs as an occupation anyhow. You did say "heroin dealer", and I don't think that's comparable to a telemarketer because a telemarketer is not pushing harmful, unregulated products on a populace of victims, many of whom are children. It's a pretty distant analogy, and one that people who work in a call centre in order to AVOID having to find illegal means of earning money if there aren't any other employment options might find pretty offensive. And I think it's a pretty slim claim to say that a one minute ordeal of hearing the phone ring, wondering if it's bad news, answering it, and hearing a telemarketer on the other end outweighs the ordeal of the telemarketer who is probably in financial straits and stuck in a miserable job for 8 hours a day. [ 24 January 2004: Message edited by: Michelle ]
From: I've got a fever, and the only prescription is more cowbell. | Registered: May 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
skdadl
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 478
|
posted 24 January 2004 01:45 PM
quote: Anyone who thinks that cult-like organizations like Amway are comparable to a part-time job at a telemarketing firm are deeply ignorant about the nature of Amway, or telemarketing, or both.
No one is comparing Amway (an organization/company) to jobs -- we are comparing Amway to other companies. When one perceives a political problem with either one's buying/consuming or one's own selling/labour for pay, then one either stops buying that shit or stops selling to/working for that organization. No doubt one can be a nice person without having thought about the continental organization of the telecomm industry, the way it works against competition, gouges consumers living in smaller centres, or tends more and more to be making profits from corrupt practices like telemarketing than from serving the public. No doubt. But labour solidarity is supposed to involve at least minimal political awareness. We do not encourage desperate workers to work at exploitative or immoral or corrupt organizations, however much they need the money. Labour solidarity is politics, and political awareness means knowing what the telecomm industry is doing to real human beings. Telemarketing is part of that. If people taking those jobs don't yet know what is wrong with them, at the very least, we don't have to support their lack of awareness.
From: gone | Registered: May 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
4t2
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 3655
|
posted 24 January 2004 01:47 PM
What's the big problem with telemarketers? I agree totally and completely with the Do-Not-Call stuff in the US, and don't believe that there is any right, constitutional, natural, or otherwise, to hawk your products over the phone in the most annoying way possible. However, surely the broad social damage done by other aspects of the modern market (eeugh) is more substantial - i.e. the entire hire purchase industry, many credit card firms, environmentally insensitive oil companies, fast food, to name but a few. Why telemarketers? Are we allowing the frustration we naturally experience at the intrusion into our (personal) lives to exaggerate the damage? If anyone would be akin to drug dealers in my view (although I recoil slightly from them being seen as the lowest of the low - it's a common conservative crime-panic image), it would be some of the examples above, that, while they don't cause huge personal hardship, have societal consequences far worse. I know the personal is political but in this case I think the personal is clouding judgement...
From: Beyond the familiar... | Registered: Jan 2003
| IP: Logged
|
|
|
Michelle
Moderator
Babbler # 560
|
posted 24 January 2004 01:53 PM
quote: Originally posted by skdadl: But labour solidarity is supposed to involve at least minimal political awareness. We do not encourage desperate workers to work at exploitative or immoral or corrupt organizations, however much they need the money. Labour solidarity is politics, and political awareness means knowing what the telecomm industry is doing to real human beings. Telemarketing is part of that. If people taking those jobs don't yet know what is wrong with them, at the very least, we don't have to support their lack of awareness.
Well, that's a fine ideal to have when you're not the one facing welfare or eviction or bankruptcy for sticking to your principles and not taking a job that is perfectly legal. And not only perfectly legal, but really, let's face it, not very harmful to anyone either. I don't like the telemarketing industry either, and I'm all for the elimination or tight regulation of the practice through controls or legislation. I have no problem with what you've written about how call centres have swept the nation, and become a staple of the employment market, and I hate it too. But that's not the part of your post or Ron's that I had a problem with. I had a problem with the fact that you would blame workers for taking a job when they're desperate, or compare them to heroin pushers whose job actually HARMS people (and no, sorry, I don't consider the nuisance of a phone call to be "harm"). It's not only ridiculous, but offensive. [ 24 January 2004: Message edited by: Michelle ]
From: I've got a fever, and the only prescription is more cowbell. | Registered: May 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
|
|
Michelle
Moderator
Babbler # 560
|
posted 24 January 2004 02:12 PM
Besides, maybe people who work in telemarketing jobs DID think politically about the type of job they chose. Maybe it was a choice between working at a discount retailer like Walmart, that sells slave labour products and treats their workers like cattle, or working at a fast food restaurant, whose products contribute to the cutting down of the rainforest, whose food is contributing to the obesity and poor health of the western world, and is causing an environmental catastrophe, or working at a telemarketing centre, where the worst they do is to take one minute out of the day of a "bored, middle class North American" (I believe that's how we classify ourselves here, right?).Please, tell me about all the abundant, wonderful, ethically-sound, non-skilled, minimum wage job choices there are out there for people who are unemployed and who need to find something that will keep them off the welfare line or out of a homeless shelter. [ 24 January 2004: Message edited by: Michelle ]
From: I've got a fever, and the only prescription is more cowbell. | Registered: May 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
skdadl
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 478
|
posted 24 January 2004 02:25 PM
Why do you insist on using terms like "blame," Michelle? If I have "blamed" anybody, it has been the industry -- and governments like the Mulroney government that sold us out to big telecomm. I have tried to keep talking about the industry and those political problems. You keep insisting that I am "blaming" the workers, and I'm not. Unemployment is a serious political problem, yes; and it gets more serious the more politically aware you are. A lot of people have to figure out original ways to survive. Some of my best friends are manual workers, eg: they seem to like it, often. You can belittle the problem I had with both telemarketers and salespeople at the door (in central Toronto on a summer's evening, that could be five of each), but I repeat, we were in genuine danger from those people, and for what? So a bunch of corporations plus the phone company could use our private lives to make profits beyond what they already make from the legitimate goods or services they sell?
From: gone | Registered: May 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
Michelle
Moderator
Babbler # 560
|
posted 24 January 2004 03:18 PM
I used the term "blame" because blaming is what you were doing when you said: quote: and the argument that they are just earning a living strikes me much as it does Ron Webb -- so are the drug pushers.
quote: We do not encourage desperate workers to work at exploitative or immoral or corrupt organizations, however much they need the money.If people taking those jobs don't yet know what is wrong with them, at the very least, we don't have to support their lack of awareness.
and particularly quote: I am asking people to think politically, Michelle, and you are just feeling sorry for them. Sorry: that won't wash. I've been broke, and when broke, I would not have been interested in anyone who felt sorry for me. There also have always been a lot of things I wouldn't have done, however broke -- and I try to keep that list up to date.
How do you figure you're NOT blaming them for taking the job? I already said I didn't have a problem with your "big picture" analysis. My problem in this thread came in when you and Ron compared the ethics of taking a job telemarketing to drug-pushing, and claiming that if you were down and out, you would virtuously refuse to take a job telemarketing. That took your analysis well out of the realm of big-picture corporate politics and right into the realm of blaming (yes blaming) those on the bottom for the systemic economic problems that victimize them. I also can't imagine how anyone could be in "genuine danger" from a one-minute telemarketing phone call, so I hardly see how I'm "belittling" your problem.
From: I've got a fever, and the only prescription is more cowbell. | Registered: May 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
|
|
skdadl
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 478
|
posted 24 January 2004 03:44 PM
In medical emergencies, there is such a thing as having to answer the phone every time it rings. And that in spite of the fact that answering the phone may leave someone else in danger. So, like: in that situation, the only phone calls you want are the ones you need. That, after all, is why we get phones. It is my phone. I just kept thinking that, the whole time we were in danger: how can Bell's extra profits be worth more than my husband's life and my peace of mind? How? I didn't get the phone for Bell. I got the phone for me.
From: gone | Registered: May 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
|
|
Michelle
Moderator
Babbler # 560
|
posted 24 January 2004 04:50 PM
I will agree with skdadl, lagatta, in that I don't think people should have to pay for call display to get rid of telemarketers. And you'd still have to go over and look at the phone to see who is calling. I think it would be great if telemarketing were illegal too, although I'm not sure exactly how political parties would get out the vote if it were.Anyhow, I'm not claiming that anyone should have to provide their phone for Bell's purposes. I just found it a little hard to believe that a one minute phone call (even five of them in a day) could possibly be as strong a claim to sympathy as facing financial ruin and homelessness. Even in a medical emergency. I didn't want to get too personal here, but since the personal examples were brought up by skdadl in order to justify her criticism of telemarketers for taking those jobs, I am responding to what she has written. I know that if injury would happen if I left someone alone for a moment during a medical emergency, I'd let whomever was calling, whether it was a telemarketer, or a friend, or the public health nurse, or anyone else, to leave a message on my voice mail and call them back immediately after the danger had passed. And I have a hard time believing that if someone was calling about something important that they wouldn't leave a message, knowing how the situation is with a sole caregiver looking after someone. Next, skdadl says she's been broke before but there were "some" jobs she wouldn't do because of the ethics involved, and left us to infer that telemarketing is one of them. But she didn't respond to my enquiry about what other unskilled jobs are out there in abundance for someone in desperate straits to take, that would be more ethical and do less harm socially than a telemarketing job. Also, I would be interested to hear more about when skdadl was facing the choice between an "unethical" job and homelessness, and virtuously passed up the unethical job, choosing homelessness. I have to admit, earlier this summer when I was faced with that choice, I chose to do telemarketing for three nights for some quick cash to pay the rent while I was looking for a "real" job. I guess I wasn't quite so virtuous. I'm not sure how many people were injured as a result of my work on those three nights, but I hope not too many. Maybe I'm being a bit sarcastic. But it's hard not to take personally the comparison of telemarketers to drug pushers, and sanctimonious claims that someone would choose unemployment and homelessness over a telemarketing job and so should everyone else, when you've been faced with that situation in recent memory.
From: I've got a fever, and the only prescription is more cowbell. | Registered: May 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
skdadl
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 478
|
posted 24 January 2004 04:59 PM
Right. I'm not trying to make this a serious political discussion. I'm just being sanctimonious. Essential public services should be public services. Telecomm is one of them. Let's try to encourage Canadians at least to enter the 21st century, shall we? Unemployment and homelessness are different topics. But the horrors faced by the unemployed do not, in my view, justify assaults on other ordinary people -- as happens, eg, when the unemployed agree to be scabs, or when someone decides to set the interests of health-care workers against the interests of those who are sick. You are falling into a trap, Michelle. It is called divide and conquer.
From: gone | Registered: May 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
|
|
|
skdadl
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 478
|
posted 24 January 2004 05:30 PM
It is not a claim to virtue, Michelle. It is a claim to political intelligence.Michelle, this discussion is going exactly where you used to take discussions about scabbing. Sorry, but people of a certain kind of political education can do no other than say, "I stand here." There are things I will not do. And I have offered a modest version of the usually accepted rationale for resisting those kinds of employment. Take it or leave it.
From: gone | Registered: May 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
|
|
|
|
skdadl
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 478
|
posted 24 January 2004 07:43 PM
rasmus, I am shocked that you are shocked -- at least, if you have read this entire thread and could still write what you wrote.My remarks were not classist, as all politically active workers will know. I don't know many unionized workers who believe that their dignity derives from the crappy work that they do. Most of them believe their dignity derives from being human beings, and further that that dignity is increased when those of us who have crappy jobs stand up on our hind legs and say "This is one hell of a crappy job!" That doesn't necessarily mean that you quit the job. But it sure as hell doesn't mean that you look for rationalizations for your criminal employer, either. Earlier in this thread, a discussion developed that shocked me, that implied that a certain sort of crappy work itself was justified. Sorry -- I'm not biting. If Michelle was simply claiming that we all should be nice to one another, that's one thing. But she and others were going further. They were justifying the work itself. The work is not justified. It is toxic both to the people who do it and to society as a whole. rasmus: you shock me.
From: gone | Registered: May 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
|
Michelle
Moderator
Babbler # 560
|
posted 24 January 2004 08:06 PM
You did so compare them to scabs: quote: But the horrors faced by the unemployed do not, in my view, justify assaults on other ordinary people -- as happens, eg, when the unemployed agree to be scabs, or when someone decides to set the interests of health-care workers against the interests of those who are sick.
And yes, you DO attack the people who are doing the work by claiming that you would never stoop so low as they do and take a telemarketing job if you were in their shoes. If you HAD stuck to the big picture stuff and stuck to the immorality of the industry itself, I could have agreed with you. But you went further than that and moralized about the decision by the individual to take a telemarketing job when that's what's out there. And in no way was I justifying the industry as a whole. I think the industry is rotten, and I think it's a damned shame that call centres are the new "solution" to regional unemployment. I think those places are sweatshops (having worked in one briefly), and I think the industry produces nothing of value. But that doesn't make the people who take jobs with that industry out of desperation (and please, introduce me to a few telemarketers who are there because they love their job and it's just so satisfying for them) immoral for choosing the lesser of two evils. And yes, classist is the PERFECT word to describe such an attitude towards telemarketers. [ 24 January 2004: Message edited by: Michelle ]
From: I've got a fever, and the only prescription is more cowbell. | Registered: May 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
skdadl
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 478
|
posted 24 January 2004 08:10 PM
Michelle, your style of argument defeats me.I offer a range of examples of ways in which the working class is divided and conquered, and you say that I am making equations. I say that political awareness gradually teaches people about choices they must make, and you say that I am refusing to "stoop so low." !!! Where do you get such language? You make the equations, Michelle, and you do the moral projections.
From: gone | Registered: May 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
|
|
Ron Webb
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 2256
|
posted 24 January 2004 09:00 PM
I think we pretty much agree, Michelle. As I said, my quarrel is with the industry, not with the people they employ. I too would take a telemarketing job if that were the only job I could get.There are just two things that I wish I could convince you of: 1. It's a false comparison to argue that my "one-minute ordeal" on the phone is outweighed by the need of the caller for a job. It's kind of like suggesting that the bank employee who fiddles with the computer system to steal a fraction of a cent from every account transaction is not really committing a serious crime, because each individual theft is trivial. That one minute ordeal is repeated hundreds of times a day for each caller. To make the comparison a fair one, you would need to accumulate all those minutes into one individual and ask if a telemarketer's job is worth the aggravation of one person spending the entire day being interrupted by sales calls. IMHO it is not. 2. Telemarketing is just one among many marketing options. If it were illegal, then businesses would simply switch to something else -- in-store promotions, radio and TV ads, mailings -- all of which would need to be staffed. In fact, if businesses are choosing telemarketing over those other methods, it must mean that they see them as more cost-effective -- which is capitalist-speak for employing fewer people than the alternatives. In other words, telemarketing probably kills more jobs than it creates. [ 24 January 2004: Message edited by: Ron Webb ]
From: Winnipeg | Registered: Feb 2002
| IP: Logged
|
|
|
DrConway
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 490
|
posted 25 January 2004 03:01 PM
quote: Originally posted by skdadl: Not moral! Political!And everyone always has a choice.
To what? Make 7 bucks an hour or stay on welfare and be shat on by society*? Some choice. * And with BC's two-year in every 5 year time limit on welfare, even this becomes less of an assured choice. We've done our own leap back into the Dirty Thirties. [ 25 January 2004: Message edited by: DrConway ]
From: You shall not side with the great against the powerless. | Registered: May 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
|
DrConway
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 490
|
posted 25 January 2004 03:11 PM
Hell, I worked at a gas station and later at a cosmetics factory.The former is harmful to the environment since it's the primary vector through which the internal combustion engine is kept running. The latter is just plain useless since it sells pointless cosmetics to people with too much money to waste. So yeah, I haven't exactly got a sterling record of working only jobs that don't screw anything up.
From: You shall not side with the great against the powerless. | Registered: May 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
N-SIGN
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 4596
|
posted 25 January 2004 03:38 PM
As far as the telemarketer/heroin dealer comparision goes.... I work in Telemarketing right now, its not my field - I am a IT person by trade - but a lot of those jobs went overseas. They are hard to find right now, and the Saskatchewan job market is never really good in any field. So because I spend the last few years building and working for schools in Africa, and Southeast Asia for stipends - after leaving a job with an organic food co-operative who were great people but didn't have any money and volunteering my skills to some very good political causes.... I became really desperate for money... I remember the feeling of buying a coffee a few months ago and thinking what an exotic, unaffordable luxury it was.... So now on babble, I am right wing nerd who fell to the status of heroin dealer because I needed to pay my student loans and get some decent clothes on my back?
From: Canada | Registered: Oct 2003
| IP: Logged
|
|
|
N-SIGN
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 4596
|
posted 26 January 2004 01:18 AM
If everyone who is suggesting alternatives to telemarketing could provide me a list of the the ethical companies and vacancies that I am eligible for, I promise not only to follow up the leads, I will if hired as a result of one of these leads:- Make reparations to the community I have damaged by donating the equivalent of one weeks' salary to rabble.ca over the period of one year from my start date. - Post a public apology within one hundred days of starting my new position to all the people I have annoyed in my brief (2 week) but current telemarketing career, under my real name on a Web Site which I will launch, pay for, and maintain for a minimum of one year. - Donate at least 8 volunteer hours per month, over the next year to a community/political group selected by me but approved by the person who provides me the lead, which will use my marketable skills for good ends. Provided, said lead is: 1) Full time, 36 + hours per week 2) Permanent or contract based with at least a two-year term 3) In my field (Information Systems: Web Design, Instruction, Systems Analysis, Network Admin/Analysis, I'll even take helpdesk) 4) Paying at least a living wage, comparable to similar positions in the same field 5) Located in Canada To take up the challenge, or ask questions please send me a private message.
From: Canada | Registered: Oct 2003
| IP: Logged
|
|
Michelle
Moderator
Babbler # 560
|
posted 26 January 2004 08:19 AM
N-SIGN: But listen, you heroin pusher, this isn't good enough: quote: Post a public apology within one hundred days of starting my new position to all the people I have annoyed
Not annoyed. HARMED. Put into MORTAL DANGER. If you're going to confess, get it right. And I will add a challenge for anyone who agrees that "people always have choices" when it comes to employment for people who, unlike N-SIGN above, do not have a skilled trade like IT, but have a lack of skills or experience or education or who is facing ageism, sexism, or racism in hiring: Please give us a list of ethical jobs that are easy to find, that someone in the situation above might realistically choose over telemarketing. Please list those industries that offer the same job skill level, but that are more environmentally friendly and less harmful socially than telemarketing. It's true, there are tons of unskilled, low-waged jobs out there that people could take. So let's hear about the alternatives. The ones that spring immediately to mind are as follows. Fast food places are always hiring. Discount retailers are always hiring. Most chain retail stores are always hiring at some location or other. Basically, the retail service sector is the alternate choice to telemarketing. I would love to hear about how much more ethical it would be to work at Walmart or McDonald's or Old Navy than it is to work as a telemarketer. Or about how it is the only moral choice, on principle, for a worker to choose welfare and/or homelessness over a telemarketing or retail job. Bonus points for anyone who can argue that last point when the worker is not single and independent, but, say, a person with dependents who not only might get evicted, but his or her children might as well. Tell me all about how it would be much better for a person to live with their dependents in a homeless shelter or to declare bankruptcy than to take a telemarketing job.
From: I've got a fever, and the only prescription is more cowbell. | Registered: May 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
terra1st
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 4605
|
posted 26 January 2004 11:38 AM
quote: When one perceives a political problem with either one's buying/consuming or one's own selling/labour for pay, then one either stops buying that shit or stops selling to/working for that organization.But labour solidarity is supposed to involve at least minimal political awareness. We do not encourage desperate workers to work at exploitative or immoral or corrupt organizations, however much they need the money. Labour solidarity is politics, and political awareness means knowing what the telecomm industry is doing to real human beings. Telemarketing is part of that. If people taking those jobs don't yet know what is wrong with them, at the very least, we don't have to support their lack of awareness.
Great. Scew the people who work at auto plants gas stations anywhere that sells cigarretts wal marts (and all those like it) Chapters (and all those like it) uranium, nickel, coal mines (and all those like it) pulp and paper companines fast food restaurants fisheries workers the brick (and all those like it) grocery stores (for throwing out food instead of giving it to soup kitchens) sports stores just about anyplace in a mall but especially screw the people who work at those evil call centres! How could those semi/unskilled people accept JOBS! Much better for them to die with dignity (UNlike the rest of us)! NSign- the books aren't in yet.. Apparently it takes quite a while to ship from germany. :-( Soon I hope.
From: saskatoon | Registered: Oct 2003
| IP: Logged
|
|
|
Doug
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 44
|
posted 26 January 2004 01:05 PM
quote: Originally posted by skdadl:
Socialists in this country used to believe in nationalizing essential services. Just like health care, the railways, the airlines, and so forth, telecomm, in my view, should be nationalized. The phone system is necessary to people -- it should be for the people, not the corps.
Judging by the amount of junk mail I get, I suspect a phone company run like Canada Post would, if anything, do even more to encourage call centres than Bell does. Anyway, the only reason there is telemarketing is that it works. All it takes is a small percentage of the people called to say yes to an offer to justify the expense of the whole thing. Whoever these people are, it's all their fault.
From: Toronto, Canada | Registered: Apr 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
N-SIGN
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 4596
|
posted 27 January 2004 02:00 AM
quote:
Anyway, the only reason there is telemarketing is that it works. All it takes is a small percentage of the people called to say yes to an offer to justify the expense of the whole thing. Whoever these people are, it's all their fault.
I know I was suprised when I found out what that percentage really is... its a pretty high number - not fifty percent, but a very sizable minority. This is a hidden market, something like the pre-Internet porno business - a multibillion dollar industry which "nobody" contributed too. I would also like to say that I agree with the regulation scenario, and can think of some convincing reasons why telemarketing should be illegal. But consider, that the same legislation that would ban telemarketing would put a lot of charities, political parties (think of e-day), and even some democratic institutions like polling in certain danger and providing those areas loopholes would slipperly slope the entire industry back into existence. Also keep in mind, that for the legislation to be effective it would have to cover every jurisdiction in North America...if not the world. I could think of plenty of governments that would want to be to telemarketing what Las Vegas used to be to gambling. Considering how lucurative this industry is to phone companies, and the governments who host them (the telemarketers income taxes, and sales taxes from the goods they move) - they aren't going anywhere. I'll repeat, guarding your information is the only way to stop these calls.
From: Canada | Registered: Oct 2003
| IP: Logged
|
|
|
|
Michelle
Moderator
Babbler # 560
|
posted 07 July 2007 06:19 AM
Woo hoo! Canada may be getting a Do Not Call registry! quote: It's been an overwhelming success and touted as a model for Canada. In the months after the American Federal Trade Commission established its do not call registry in October 2003, 60 million people signed up, eager to prevent most telemarketers from contacting them at home.By Sept. 30, 2006, that list had grown to 132,219,163 telephone numbers — landline and cellphone — according to the latest FTC annual report to Congress on the registry. The program was designed to block about 80 per cent of telemarketing calls. Consumers register the numbers they want protected. The concept is simple: if you do not want to receive calls from telemarketers, you fill out a form, call a toll-free number or register online.
I want the Canadian one to be even better than the American one, and I have the perfect way to make it that way - instead of making people who DON'T want calls from telemarketers go out of their way to call up and put their name on the list, make it so that every phone number in Canada is already on the list, and let those who WANT telemarketing calls sign up. [ 07 July 2007: Message edited by: Michelle ]
From: I've got a fever, and the only prescription is more cowbell. | Registered: May 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
|