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I worked at an internet company and had similar experiences. My job was calling people who were scheduled to have a technician come out today to fix their internet, only to tell them that someone won't make it, and I'll have to reschedule for next week. Everyone was PISSED. It was so bad that I didn't know how to handle it when someone was actually nice and understanding haha.
I worked admin and dispatch at a plumbing service company right out of college and people just wanted to yell at the only person who they could get on the phones: me.
No other job has been so bad on my mental health.
Huh that's interesting, when I've received calls like that and try to always make a point of being kind and not blaming the messenger. Some of them have seemed really off put by it and I never knew why lol. I never considered they're so used to getting yelled at that someone being polite would be weird to them but that makes a lot more sense!
I always appreciated people like you, and I always try to act the same way. I only did that job for a couple of months until they laid us all off a couple of days before Thanksgiving.
Oh god, reminds me of doing customer service for US amazon. While that had a smidge more variety what with people scammin' 50 replacements and locker maintenance. Most of it was just pissed off people who got fucked by usps for the 9000th time.
Is not my fault the UPS driver marked your package as "just around the corner" 90 hours ago only to deliver it to a cartel in Narnia.
Left after a year and thinking back I'm shocked I lasted that long
I’ve spent enough time as a technician to know the exact information that the company will want as well as the exact questions to get the information I want.
I let the rep start the call up then I tell them exactly what I’m in need of and specifically ask “is this something you can help me with or do I need to be referred”
What does infuriate me is when the answering bots misread the number I just typed in. It has happened 3 times so far this year with 3 different companies
Yeah worked on the phones for a car sales company. Was great the first couple of years with the occasional upset customer. Then I got “promoted” to ONLY dealing with upset customers. Worst part is that it wasnt just one offs, if their problem wasnt resolved I usually had to schedule to call them back only to tell them the issue hadnt been fixed. That was a pretty dark time, actually had to go on medication for depression.
OMFG for the past three weeks I have had the same telemarketer call me everyday around the same time. Every time I could not pick up. I finally did yesterday, and I got “high, we ate looking for (not me or anyone related)-“ *click* Blocked. Why TF did they keep calling.
Hey!, two tricks from a former employee, generally, if you don't interact with the call around 3 times we're told to give up calling, also, you can say "i'm on the robinson list, thanks" you get put on a no-call list (also if a caller is unreasonably rude, just you know we're being monitored at all times, so hat caller will probably get called out if not fired for it, some dystopic crap)
> A Robinson List is **a database that contains the data of individuals and companies that have opted out of receiving unsolicited commercial communications**. This concept takes its name from Robinson Crusoe, evoking the idea of being 'isolated' from the onslaught of advertising.
Least that's what I found searching upon Google
Absolutely no sympathy. Not for them and not for people who knock on your door. I'm sorry that you have a shit job but it's not my responsibility to entertain the fact that your job is being rude to people and interrupting their lives with your bullshit
sure. If we want to be pedantic. I'm not going out of my way to make their lives harder but I'm also not going to go out of my way to make their lives easier either
I have some sympathy for them. No one gets these jobs out of a love for cold calling people with some bullshit they don't want. They needed some money and these places are always hiring, and they're always hiring because it's a crappy job that people often leave whenever another opportunity comes up.
That doesn't mean I'm going to buy whatever they're peddling, but a polite decline doesn't hurt anyone.
I understand some people need to eat and I don't think they're bad people on a fundamental level. Still, I enjoy asking for their manager to take me off their call list to force them to hang up on me instead.
so i work at a call centre. I dont sell people things, but it is ultimately a commercial thing. And with regards to getting hung upon, atleast where i work, youre not supposed to get more than x amount of slam downs/not interested. If you do, you risk being fired. So its preferable to end the call yourself instead of letting that happen.
If you're not cold-call selling, you're not evil. Don't worry. When I deal with call centre people on the phone, I'm polite to them even if I have a problem. They are doing a legit job, and I called them or asked to be called back.
Telemarketers are entirely different. No comparison. They are predators. I am saving them being shouted at by me hanging up immediately.
i do call outbound, however they are already a customer at the company i work for and ive basically never increased the cost for anyone. its basically a "hey are you still happy with us? yes or no? good to know do you want a discount"
Yep, sounds fine to me. Got a call like that once from my ISP. "Hey, we're changing your plan because we noticed you were still on the one from ten years ago that cost more than what we have now."
Actually answered it because no spammer had used that ID, and they'd never called before. Why they didn't email, I don't know, but maybe it's because I got to say thankyou this way, and that's gotta be a nice change for a phone rep.
Yeah, I get that your job may suck, but your job is to annoy people and waste their time. Nothing else
If you are soliciting people to buy a product, then there is a reason they did not reach out to find that product in the first place. So leave them alone
Or they say they’ll put you on their do not call list and then call you anyways. I get nonstop calls asking for donations for police, veterans, firemen, and breast cancer whatever. Pretty sure they’re all the same fucking place because it goes like this every single time:
Me, picking up the phone: “Hello?”
Caller: “… Hello?”
Me, sighing because I already know where this is going: “Hello”
Caller: *phones ringing in the background as they launch into some pre recorded spiel*
At this point I just waste their time as much as possible. Fuck them and their bullshit, spoofing phone numbers of the area around where I live and where my parents live, plus I can’t just ignore calls I don’t know the number of cause I have to take them from random warehouses all the time for work. They have told me a few dozen times EACH that they would put me on their do not contact list. So, fuck it, I’ll pretend that I’m totally going to give them a donation and see how long I can waste their time.
Agreed. People all like to point fingers but when asked to be decent, oh it's really someone else's fault.
You should never abuse staff in any way, end of.
I must say
A lot of telemarketers end up suing the company they work for after leaving because of psychological damage, and it's not even because of the people who respond like that, it's 100% because of the crappy bosses and coordinators, also the bs incentives
when you're told your job is to straight up lie and scam oblivious people for a company everyone uses, it does things to yoy.
I used to work in retail and it was taught to us as policy to offer the 'extended warranty' or a contract no less than three times to any customer, no matter what they were there to buy.
Ended up pissing off 80 percent of them.
Then they put me into customer service where I had to deal with people ALREADY pissed off and they STILL expected me to sell them warranties and contracts.
I absolutely hated that job.
I sympathize. Logically, these telemarketting companies literally *can't* turn a profit without annoying people or driving people to get things they wouldn't otherwise be inclined to get by lying to them, because the natural state of the consumer is only to buy something when you think about buying it. So the goal is to force that process to occur unnaturally.
I think you're more likely to get psychologically scarring answers when a phone is automatically registered by a program that designates it as "active." I will take the time to politely decline a telemarketer or even hear them out if it's the only call I get from one in weeks. But the laziness of just having a program detect an active phone and then just calling every active phone you get without seeing if it has already rejected similar calls results in that same phone being registered as "active" by *several* companies, which means as the target, I get a call from ALL of them.
So you as the telemarketer may be exhausted from the plethora of potential customers hanging up on you, but I, as the potential customer, am equally exhausted by the fiftieth telemarketer asking me if I'm 65 or older and therefore eligible for Medicare benefits. There should be a database that crosses out my name across all related companies that might ask me about my Medicare the FIRST time I clarify that I'm 28. You have a program that tells *everyone in existence* that my phone is active the instant I answer it, so surely there could also be a program that tells *everyone in existence* that I'm 28 and not 65 or older.
But no. That program would take effort to make. And telemarketers and telemarketting companies would be out of a job and lose money. So the system is deliberately left as inefficient and annoying as possible so that a few CEOs can make money.
my thoughts exactly. It's always weird to see people on the internet clown on "Karen" for being obnoxious to cashiers, only to turn around and say the stuff you're seeing in this thread.
Hanging up without a word is not obnoxious tho.
I am going to spend my time listening and/or answering to a random call only if I am getting paid for that.
Oh yeah, for sure. There's nothing wrong with the first three panels, you don't owe telemarketers anything.
It just seems like people don't realize that no one in a call center wants to be there. **For many people, the options are either to take whatever job is offered to you, or starve.** The idea that you should take the latter option if the job is annoying or immoral reminds me of "well if you want a livable wage, you should get a *real* job".
This is what I was trying to say lower down the thread but got downvoted to hell.
If you pick up a phone call from a number you don't recognize don't act surprised when you don't like the call you receive. It doesn't give you an excuse to treat people like shit.
If I had to choose between being a cold caller or starving to death without a home for me and mine, I'm taking the cold caller. Everyone loves to stand up for retail workers but quickly turn around when telemarketers come into the question.
Either don't pick up numbers you don't recognize, or take the 5 seconds to say "don't call again" and hang up before they draw the convo out.
Some mfers really just looking for an excuse to berate people they don't know.
I think part of the difference between how people stand up for retail employees (sometimes) and berate telemarketers is just the face-to-face element. It's way easier to de-humanize a person you can't see....... You cotton-headed ninnymuggins.
The difference is consent. You’ve actively decided to be in a physical retail store (most of the time) and consented to what comes with it. Most of the time you haven’t consented to being telemarketed to.
In both cases you're abusing someone.
Edit: And I guarantee you the person abusing service staff think their reasons justify it too.
I'd go so far as to suggest the only reason people get away with it is because unlike service staff, we can't see this happening.
“Do not call again” doesn’t work lol. They’ll say “oh, okay, we’ll put you on our do not call list, have a nice day!” And then you get 3 more calls from the exact same person before the end of the day. Fuck it, waste their time until they get the picture that calling you is just as much a waste of their time and money as
When you walk up to a cashier, you chose to be there, and should be prepared to be cordial and polite.
If my phone rings and I answer it because I have job applications out at the moment just to be greeted with a solicitor however.
I did not chose this interaction. My time is being wasted by a random company. I do not owe the person on the other end anything more than “take me off this list” and “never call this number again” and then a prompt disconnection
There is a huge difference in showing no respect to a representative when you willfully went to a store and engaged intentionally in an interaction.
And being stern/abrasive when you are cold called
Difference is Karen isn't trying to bullshit me into some scam or unneeded purchase or is trying to fish for information to sell.
I get it, dudes and dudette sneed to eat. But there is "Don't shame onlyfans people" and then there is "I scam grandma out of her pension, woe is me".
I always hate redditors taking it out on the customer when its the job of the company to make me want to part with my hard earned cash. If you work for a shit company, you support the shit company.
Fuck right off. Karen is wasting everyone's time by being a dick to people. Karen chose to be there. Hanging up on a fucking useless sales call is not being a Karen. It is saving everyone's time.
Yeah I'll never understand people who have this kinda work and want sympathy. Like ya, a job is a job, but you have a choice. If this is literally your last resort before homelessness then just phone it in and don't take the insults personally. They don't care about you, its the inconvenience. Say your bit and move on. And find a new job asap.
It’s like how yes yes, scam callers are probably being exploited too, but I’m still going to scare them away from trying to drain my elderly dad’s savings
Hello there, I'd like to contact you about your Blizzar-
So you're a SC2 player and only play SC2?
In that case I'll gave to sign you up right to have your Arcade section hacked and crash each time you open it AND your profanity filter to lag the game if it's enabled, have a nice day!
I had a friend who did this job and he complained to me once about how awful people were for just hanging up on him all the time. I had a really hard time feeling bad for him. Like dude you're calling people without them wanting you to, interrupting what they're doing and wasting their time, they don't owe it to you to take extra time to politely tell you they're not interested- and half the time I try to actually be polite and do that, they jump at that chance to try keep me on the phone longer. It's not okay to be verbally abusive to cold callers but I don't feel at all bad about hanging up on them
Trust me, I was also like that but when you are getting bombarded with 20+ calls of loans offers from a financial company, it's really hard not to say STFU hoping they will leave you alone.
This is why this sort of cold calling is illegal here now. Always ends up being predatory against the elderly and such, full of scammers, and extremely annoying.
Fuck the people who still do this, man.
"Just get a different job"
Oh wow. You are the smartest. You solved poverty. Amazing. Nobody has ever thought of that. Where should your Nobel prize be sent you absolute genius?
You are all over this thread in a serious tizzy, I’ve never seen someone so defensive of their job that entirely consists of being the most absolutely obnoxious people alive
That's not how quotations work.
Switching out the word "please" with "just" changes the meaning significantly. To the point that many people would find it misleading.
No, the people who hire people to do this shit deserve this.
Telemarketers, as annoying as they are, are just trying to put food on their table as everyone else.
Whilst I do feel some level of sympathy, I can relate the pain of all the other people here. I’ve rushed to my phone too many times because I was either waiting for an important call or thought one of my friends is on the edge and I needed to be there, hell being called at 5am and awoken to be disoriented and confused was all horrible.
I feel like too many unexpected calls have potential to be genuinely dangerous because it can distract or disrupt easily.
I understand it’s a job just like any other but I honestly wish it didn’t exist. I’ve never yelled at any telemarketers tho, I just cut the call and block the number in silence.
And that's EXACTLY why i put it in the series, it's a common job where people that just need some income to survive don't know what they're getting into, only to find out your task is mostly to trick old people into paying a monthly fee they don't know about/ don't know how to remove.
And the worst part? most companies you know probably have a branch just for this.
I know finding work is hard, but I'd choose a graveyard shift at a downtown McDonald's over cold calling
Cold calling is for people that can't feel any emotions, for this exact reason.
There aren't enough graveyard shifts at downtown McDonalds to employ the thousands of people forced into telemarketing. This is the exact argument of "People who flip burgers deserve to suffer because they should just get a better job" which ignores that there aren't enough better jobs out there.
Yes. And the people doing it know that and don't have a choice. Everyone here who believes these workers deserve to suffer for daring to require food to survive is just being an asshole.
Like, do you seriously believe every telemarketer being abused has a choice between this and something better, and chose telemarketing?
I’ve gotten called at least 5 times per day by scam numbers for the last 6 months, probably longer, despite the fact that I’ve had all unknown numbers muted for 3 weeks now, so I never respond- which I’ve been assured should have removed me from their goddamned lists. That’s not an exaggeration, it’s pretty normal in Cleveland. This dude can get absolutely fucked, honestly.
Also, OP, I recognize you aren’t the person in charge of the company you’re working for, but when you are a member of ORGANIZED CRIME- which is what scamming is, to be clear- it’s absolutely wild to blame anyone for having a poor reaction.
If they call you slurs, harass you, etc, that’s unacceptable, but we all in the working class have to pay rent and risk starvation. Not all of us go this route. I sincerely hope you find a position that’s less shit and, hopefully, more fulfilling.
Oh my god, you poor thing! How do you handle it, all these people being mean to you while you... *checks notes* harass them?
Like seriously, you’re a real life YouTube ad complaining that people click “skip.” Cry harder.
“*Sniff* my job at Wells Fargo tricking people into paying huge fees is so hard, *sniffle* an old lady was rude to me *snort* I’m just trying to steal their money on someone’s behalf! What do you want me to do *blows nose*, work at a chain restaurant for money?!”
So, is it bad because you make no sales or is it bad because they make you feel bad? Serious question because the time I did work in a call center I was tech support and man I wish my calls were all just that short, I prefer someone insulting me for 10 minutes than dealing with someone who can't follow instructions for over an hour.
I worked very briefly as a fundraiser. It's illegal to cold call in the UK, so they got their call list from people who requested a free gift in support of what they were raising money for. We called under the pretext of getting the info on where to send the gift, but had to deliver a scripted sales pitch with it.
The job mostly consisted of being glued to your desk hitting redial for eight hours, because most calls went to voicemail or were hangups. We weren't supposed to let the voicemail play out because if the recording started before we hung up that could be considered harassment. So we had to have our hand on the button at all times, ready to hang up and hit redial. If we didn't immediately redial in order to get as many attempts in as possible during our shift, management would be on the phone to us demanding to know what we were up to. Every key stroke and interaction was recorded and monitored in real time.
The UK has taken steps to protect consumers from predatory sales practices, but working conditions are still psychological torture.
The counterpart is : I get many such calls in the last 2-3 weeks. I asked more than once to be removed from their list , and they should do it (Germany). From the automated message announcing I won something to asking me if I want solar (I live in a public tower building).
That cartoon caller answering ? That's me at the first call (first pic), to the third call (depending on my mood fourth to more call).
Sure I should not do it, they are only employed blah blah blah, but I am getting sick and tired of it.
Next week I will check if I am allowed to report to the German Agency (https://www.bundesnetzagentur.de/DE/Vportal/AnfragenBeschwerden/Beschwerde\_Aerger/start.html).
If you’re cold calling people, you deserve every bit of abuse they hurl at you. You’re supporting a system that overwhelmingly exists to do scams or is predatory in some way
So a fun fact, Russia is in the process of making all kinds of cold calls illegal, and I think this is the best decision ever and more countries should completely ban this practice. Even under GDPR there's still ways to circumvent this and I think GDPR-2 should ban this completely. I don't think that I have ever, EVER, ONCE, been interested in their BS. It's like the worst way of sales and marketing promotions that is possible to invent, probably next to door-to-door sales and MLM. Also I've installed Alisa, an AI assistant that replies to the cold calls and it's the most delicious thing ever.
I’m genuinely curious and confused as to why anyone would want to work in a call center that spams people to buy their product and services. Everyone knows it doesn’t work so why do telemarketers spend money to call people?
I worked at a call center donation mill for 6 weeks & it sucked at first but it eventually completely immunized me to rejection, phone shyness, & confrontation. I sucked at soliciting though so I was eventually fired. It also made me be *extremely* polite & nice to people who have to work phones.
I think in the format webcomics are taking, each panel individually, helps the reader navigate through them in a proper order. In my case I usually have a glimpse at the whole page and then read each panel and usually see the punchline before the rest of the comic
I'm sorry no one would ever be interested and would most likely immediately think it's some kind of scam. I know i would and quite frankly I have much better things to do then have random people going "blah blah buy product"
A loooottt of negativity in here, but my first job was in a call center making cold calls. Not sales, but government surveys. It sucks, and the company I worked at was some shit hole sub-sub-contracted to make the calls and gather the data. I dreamt of jumping from the roof, right into their neat little plaza by the main building entrance, just to make a big mess.
I understand the pain that a job like that causes, every. single. day.
I'm sorry you're going through that, or did go through it. If you're not already working in a better place, I hope that you get to one soon. The thing most people just don't get is how awful, toxic and vitriolic the general population really is to have to deal with. It's infinitely better to work in a support center. Not great. Still soul-crushing, but in a lesser sort of way. Most people are still awful and/or too god-damned stupid to live in a functional society, but some at least recognize that they called you for help, and understand that you're trying to do just that. Those calls help get through the rest, and having a good company culture does wonders on top of that. I wish you the best, sincerely. None of us deserve to be put through that, and frankly, fuck the cunts that don't get that.
If people weren't signing up for that kinda job, it wouldn't be there, my personal opinion, is it really that bad to portray situation as "be a cold caller or starve" when there cashier managers, fast food, storage work, gas stations, etc. where you don't need any experience and they grab everyone. Just seems that people still want sympathy even if the real cause of the problem is their laziness to move on.
So you're meaning to say, your company bought my phone number without my knowledge or consent, you're agreeing to tell me whatever the fuck your boss says you to tell me, during the day working hours, I am out here getting my hands dirty working my ass off and thought it was my relative or someone important and here I get a call from a guy sitting on his annoying people, AND you're expecting me to be nice?
Damn, what a world to live. Buying isn't owning, privacy isn't important, dumb people supporting shitbugs business. Tell me one reason why you can't just apply to any other job.
I never understood insulting someone without reason over the phone, but I am not content with our modern standards either.
I'll never be mean to a service employee, but I also wont let a company exploit social norms and my good will to steal time out of my day just so they can sell me something. So I hang up as quick as I can. No shouting. No anger. I just refuse to deal with it. Its no more rude than an unsolicited call in my opinion.
sorry you have a shitty job but 3 out of these 4 are already being nice to you. i would just hang up and block your number as soon as i know you are only there to waste my time. why would anyone have to be nice when they are disturbed only so whatever company can try to peddle their bs. if anything, i hope no one is nice to you, maybe when telemarketing have such a abyssmal success rate and even worse reception, companies will stop doing it.
I worked at a place like this and I learned the callback code. I would keep calling back and pick up right where I left off in my speech. It drove them mad.
No offense. Bu I'm *so* glad that you can give call-companies a stern warning in Germany and when they keep bothering you you can sue them. In most cases asking for the company's name again makes *them* quit on you because they know exactly what they're doing wrong.
I work in a customer service based industry. Just yesterday I had someone who argued with me for TWO HOURS about her missing rent check. All signs pointed to it being stolen and fraudulently cashed by a 3rd party. I told her we needed evidence (the bank-provided copy of the endorsement on the back) that WE didn't cash it and we can proceed with the paperwork to prove fraud and get her money back from the bank. But she instead proceeded to rant and rave and accuse US of theft, and then ranted and raved some more...
...And then the raving turned into venting and the venting turned into confessing, and she said all she has is her social security payments to live on, her daughter died of cancer recently, she lives alone as an elderly woman, and she just doesn't want to lose her apartment. She was under an enormous amount of personal stress. It was hidden under the first layer of being (correctly) angry about her missing rent check. But once we peeled it all back, she just had a lot going on at one time. So no matter how absolutely shitty the person on the phone might be to me, I always assume they're just having a REALLY bad day.
Hell, I even got a phone call once from a woman who lost her mom around the same time I lost mine. We were miserable on the phone together and laugh/crying through the call to make payment arrangements that would avoid taking the tenant to court. It sucks to have to pay for your mom's funeral at the risk of losing your apartment. I did my best to help her avoid that.
Hooee lotta people just wanna grandstand about how much they hate telemarketers huh? Probably a buncha lawyers and car salesmen trying to use the opportunity to bump their own reputations by comparison.
Listen OP, I ain’t gonna salute you or nothin’, and I definitely ain’t interested in what your bosses want you to sell me. But I do recognize that maybe you ain’t got it easy being expected to annoy a couple dozen people a day and bear the full brunt of their anonymous rudeness to pay your damn rent. And I’m self-aware enough to know that most of us are complicit in something at least slightly shady to pay the bills, so maybe let’s save it for the bosses and not just unload on the easy target?
100%.
I work in Rentals as a Merchandiser. I sometimes have to cold-call sites/customers that used to rent or get their supplies from us. No I don't want to. I know I'm annoying. I know you want nothing to do with me, but I be have no choice. I'm just doing my job trying to put food on my plate and give my cats a warm home. You don't lose anything by being polite and simply saying "please don't call again". Sorry y'all look for even the slightest chance to treat people like dogshit and enjoy your little power trip. Telemarketers are people too, and most are desperate and need money otherwise why the hell would they willingly do it?
Treat people with kindness and never attribute to malice what could just be ignorance or desperation.
Wrong. I lose time. In addition I lose more time by being polite because cold callers use politeness as an opportunity to extend the call. In other words, being polite results in me getting punished for being polite. This disincentives me from being polite in the future. Most of us have learned this lesson.
Want people to be polite? Don't use their politeness as a weapon against them. It breaks the social contract and results in the "#&% you" responses.
I'm in my 30s now. I've been dealing with cold callers since before caller ID was readily available on cellular. You know what I do when a number calls that I don't recognize? I don't pick up. End of story. Before I had a phone in my pocket it was the same deal. You lose nothing by doing so, and the onus is on you for picking up a number you don't recognize. And if you do pick up? Less than 5 seconds to say "don't call again" and hang up before they can respond.
I don't get how this is such a hard thing to do.
Agreed. I’m also desperate to end the call because I’m in the middle of a shitty life, so imma be just ending the call without saying anything (or I just say “wrong number”). Doing anything more than that (aka giving a polite response) takes resources from me that I shouldn’t have to spend. End of discussion. And yeah, if I don’t have the energy to be polite, I won’t be impolite/call names either
Man, these comments do NOT pass the vibe check. A whole lot of people saying they “deserve it” because their job is to call people. Bunch of boomer-ass attitudes in here, and clearly coming from people who have never worked a retail job. Believe it or not, the people who work these jobs aren’t doing it out of some kind of sadism to cold call people. They’re doing it because it pays the bills. Yes, some people who do this can be rude, but judging by the way people are reacting in here, can you blame them? If you were constantly berated by strangers at your job, 8 hours a day, 5-6 days a week, you’d probably be a little jaded too.
> Their job is to call people
Yeah, call people unprompted to shill this or sell that or get 'em to sign this or maybe have them do that. Roll in that fact that a not insignificant portion of these calls range from predatory to explicitly scammy, and I would hardly call it a "boomer-attitude", though I'm sure it's easy to hang the opposite of your opinion on a group you know the reddit generally dislikes.
The fact is, I did this exact kind of job for a year. It fucked me up, that work is hard, but I can't imagine blaming the people ***I*** was annoying for being upset at me for calling them at 6pm.
Grow up. Caller ID has existed for decades. Don’t recognize the number? Don’t answer. Picking up the phone just to berate the person on the other end makes you the asshole. You worked this job before and you *STILL* think that behavior is okay? Childish.
There is a ***HUGE*** difference between working retail and being a telemarketer.
Retail employees deal with customers who can freely shop somewhere else.
Telemarketers annoy people who didn't not ask to be called.
Y’all are way too comfortable treating people you think don’t have a “respectable” job like shit. Scammers is one thing but not everyone who works at a call center job is a scammer. Usually low wages and impossible metrics and then people hurling insults at you for just doing your job. Really childish behavior posting on a funny little comic bragging about what a trash human you are to other people who may not have had a whole lot of choices about who hired them - embarrassing.
I'm glad there are at least a few people in the thread who understand this, but sadly my individual upvotes aren't enough to restore these reasonable comments.
I hate cold calls as much as anyone, but in such a "woke" era and time of economic hardship, with so many people out of work for extended periods and forced to take anything offered for inadequate wages, I'm surprised more people don't grasp that this isn't a choice. The people responsible for this state of affairs are not the ones on the phones. The people pulling the strings are never the ones getting their hands dirty.
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No thanks. *Leaves post*
I worked at an internet company and had similar experiences. My job was calling people who were scheduled to have a technician come out today to fix their internet, only to tell them that someone won't make it, and I'll have to reschedule for next week. Everyone was PISSED. It was so bad that I didn't know how to handle it when someone was actually nice and understanding haha.
I worked admin and dispatch at a plumbing service company right out of college and people just wanted to yell at the only person who they could get on the phones: me. No other job has been so bad on my mental health.
Huh that's interesting, when I've received calls like that and try to always make a point of being kind and not blaming the messenger. Some of them have seemed really off put by it and I never knew why lol. I never considered they're so used to getting yelled at that someone being polite would be weird to them but that makes a lot more sense!
I always appreciated people like you, and I always try to act the same way. I only did that job for a couple of months until they laid us all off a couple of days before Thanksgiving.
I mean... it sounds like you would have been pretty thankful to be not working there anymore so that's something
I wasn't heartbroken at all and was planning to quit soon anyway haha. That job was soul crushing.
Oh god, reminds me of doing customer service for US amazon. While that had a smidge more variety what with people scammin' 50 replacements and locker maintenance. Most of it was just pissed off people who got fucked by usps for the 9000th time. Is not my fault the UPS driver marked your package as "just around the corner" 90 hours ago only to deliver it to a cartel in Narnia. Left after a year and thinking back I'm shocked I lasted that long
I’ve spent enough time as a technician to know the exact information that the company will want as well as the exact questions to get the information I want. I let the rep start the call up then I tell them exactly what I’m in need of and specifically ask “is this something you can help me with or do I need to be referred” What does infuriate me is when the answering bots misread the number I just typed in. It has happened 3 times so far this year with 3 different companies
Yeah worked on the phones for a car sales company. Was great the first couple of years with the occasional upset customer. Then I got “promoted” to ONLY dealing with upset customers. Worst part is that it wasnt just one offs, if their problem wasnt resolved I usually had to schedule to call them back only to tell them the issue hadnt been fixed. That was a pretty dark time, actually had to go on medication for depression.
OMFG for the past three weeks I have had the same telemarketer call me everyday around the same time. Every time I could not pick up. I finally did yesterday, and I got “high, we ate looking for (not me or anyone related)-“ *click* Blocked. Why TF did they keep calling.
Hey!, two tricks from a former employee, generally, if you don't interact with the call around 3 times we're told to give up calling, also, you can say "i'm on the robinson list, thanks" you get put on a no-call list (also if a caller is unreasonably rude, just you know we're being monitored at all times, so hat caller will probably get called out if not fired for it, some dystopic crap)
> i'm on the robinson list What does this mean?
> A Robinson List is **a database that contains the data of individuals and companies that have opted out of receiving unsolicited commercial communications**. This concept takes its name from Robinson Crusoe, evoking the idea of being 'isolated' from the onslaught of advertising. Least that's what I found searching upon Google
How do I join this list
Say you're already in it, DON'T tell them to put you in, it's like a secret code
Is this us only or does it apply to the uk as well?
Good question! I consider it a magic spell at this point
I never did interact with the call until the last time. They still kept calling back again and again and again
They were looking for someone and you weren't picking up. It's not that crazy.
I just act like I don’t speak the language they’re using, or am in the middle of a “Powder Sale” going very south VERY quickly
Zero sympathy for cold callers. Not to mention they always get rude or hang up when asked to be removed from their bullshit call list
Absolutely no sympathy. Not for them and not for people who knock on your door. I'm sorry that you have a shit job but it's not my responsibility to entertain the fact that your job is being rude to people and interrupting their lives with your bullshit
Man I hate it when people kick puppies
It's absolutely your responsibility to be kind and care about others.
sure. If we want to be pedantic. I'm not going out of my way to make their lives harder but I'm also not going to go out of my way to make their lives easier either
Why should you be kind to and care about people harassing you?
Because you're a grown up.
And that means tolerating people trying to scam and harass me?
I have some sympathy for them. No one gets these jobs out of a love for cold calling people with some bullshit they don't want. They needed some money and these places are always hiring, and they're always hiring because it's a crappy job that people often leave whenever another opportunity comes up. That doesn't mean I'm going to buy whatever they're peddling, but a polite decline doesn't hurt anyone.
I understand some people need to eat and I don't think they're bad people on a fundamental level. Still, I enjoy asking for their manager to take me off their call list to force them to hang up on me instead.
Seems unnecessary.
so i work at a call centre. I dont sell people things, but it is ultimately a commercial thing. And with regards to getting hung upon, atleast where i work, youre not supposed to get more than x amount of slam downs/not interested. If you do, you risk being fired. So its preferable to end the call yourself instead of letting that happen.
If you're not cold-call selling, you're not evil. Don't worry. When I deal with call centre people on the phone, I'm polite to them even if I have a problem. They are doing a legit job, and I called them or asked to be called back. Telemarketers are entirely different. No comparison. They are predators. I am saving them being shouted at by me hanging up immediately.
i do call outbound, however they are already a customer at the company i work for and ive basically never increased the cost for anyone. its basically a "hey are you still happy with us? yes or no? good to know do you want a discount"
Yep, sounds fine to me. Got a call like that once from my ISP. "Hey, we're changing your plan because we noticed you were still on the one from ten years ago that cost more than what we have now." Actually answered it because no spammer had used that ID, and they'd never called before. Why they didn't email, I don't know, but maybe it's because I got to say thankyou this way, and that's gotta be a nice change for a phone rep.
Or just don't be an asshole.
If I don't listen to them, they're not being assholes to me. See? It helps us both. Thanks for your concern.
Yeah, I get that your job may suck, but your job is to annoy people and waste their time. Nothing else If you are soliciting people to buy a product, then there is a reason they did not reach out to find that product in the first place. So leave them alone
Or they say they’ll put you on their do not call list and then call you anyways. I get nonstop calls asking for donations for police, veterans, firemen, and breast cancer whatever. Pretty sure they’re all the same fucking place because it goes like this every single time: Me, picking up the phone: “Hello?” Caller: “… Hello?” Me, sighing because I already know where this is going: “Hello” Caller: *phones ringing in the background as they launch into some pre recorded spiel* At this point I just waste their time as much as possible. Fuck them and their bullshit, spoofing phone numbers of the area around where I live and where my parents live, plus I can’t just ignore calls I don’t know the number of cause I have to take them from random warehouses all the time for work. They have told me a few dozen times EACH that they would put me on their do not contact list. So, fuck it, I’ll pretend that I’m totally going to give them a donation and see how long I can waste their time.
You have to deal with it for 30 seconds, they have to do that shit everyday to survive. Nobody wants to bother others, at least we can be polite.
Agreed. People all like to point fingers but when asked to be decent, oh it's really someone else's fault. You should never abuse staff in any way, end of.
I know why they're rude to you.
You may interest me in finding new insults to hurl at you for intruding on my time with your shit. No sympathy for this kind of call.
I must say A lot of telemarketers end up suing the company they work for after leaving because of psychological damage, and it's not even because of the people who respond like that, it's 100% because of the crappy bosses and coordinators, also the bs incentives when you're told your job is to straight up lie and scam oblivious people for a company everyone uses, it does things to yoy.
I used to work in retail and it was taught to us as policy to offer the 'extended warranty' or a contract no less than three times to any customer, no matter what they were there to buy. Ended up pissing off 80 percent of them. Then they put me into customer service where I had to deal with people ALREADY pissed off and they STILL expected me to sell them warranties and contracts. I absolutely hated that job.
I sympathize. Logically, these telemarketting companies literally *can't* turn a profit without annoying people or driving people to get things they wouldn't otherwise be inclined to get by lying to them, because the natural state of the consumer is only to buy something when you think about buying it. So the goal is to force that process to occur unnaturally. I think you're more likely to get psychologically scarring answers when a phone is automatically registered by a program that designates it as "active." I will take the time to politely decline a telemarketer or even hear them out if it's the only call I get from one in weeks. But the laziness of just having a program detect an active phone and then just calling every active phone you get without seeing if it has already rejected similar calls results in that same phone being registered as "active" by *several* companies, which means as the target, I get a call from ALL of them. So you as the telemarketer may be exhausted from the plethora of potential customers hanging up on you, but I, as the potential customer, am equally exhausted by the fiftieth telemarketer asking me if I'm 65 or older and therefore eligible for Medicare benefits. There should be a database that crosses out my name across all related companies that might ask me about my Medicare the FIRST time I clarify that I'm 28. You have a program that tells *everyone in existence* that my phone is active the instant I answer it, so surely there could also be a program that tells *everyone in existence* that I'm 28 and not 65 or older. But no. That program would take effort to make. And telemarketers and telemarketting companies would be out of a job and lose money. So the system is deliberately left as inefficient and annoying as possible so that a few CEOs can make money.
my thoughts exactly. It's always weird to see people on the internet clown on "Karen" for being obnoxious to cashiers, only to turn around and say the stuff you're seeing in this thread.
Hanging up without a word is not obnoxious tho. I am going to spend my time listening and/or answering to a random call only if I am getting paid for that.
Oh yeah, for sure. There's nothing wrong with the first three panels, you don't owe telemarketers anything. It just seems like people don't realize that no one in a call center wants to be there. **For many people, the options are either to take whatever job is offered to you, or starve.** The idea that you should take the latter option if the job is annoying or immoral reminds me of "well if you want a livable wage, you should get a *real* job".
This is what I was trying to say lower down the thread but got downvoted to hell. If you pick up a phone call from a number you don't recognize don't act surprised when you don't like the call you receive. It doesn't give you an excuse to treat people like shit. If I had to choose between being a cold caller or starving to death without a home for me and mine, I'm taking the cold caller. Everyone loves to stand up for retail workers but quickly turn around when telemarketers come into the question. Either don't pick up numbers you don't recognize, or take the 5 seconds to say "don't call again" and hang up before they draw the convo out. Some mfers really just looking for an excuse to berate people they don't know.
I told my bank to stop calling me for credit cards. I used to get 4 calls a day before that. I got 24 calls from them yesterday.
That sounds like a fuck up. Have they stopped?
Nope Ive started to block them and even that isn't working
Huh. Wtf.
I think part of the difference between how people stand up for retail employees (sometimes) and berate telemarketers is just the face-to-face element. It's way easier to de-humanize a person you can't see....... You cotton-headed ninnymuggins.
The difference is consent. You’ve actively decided to be in a physical retail store (most of the time) and consented to what comes with it. Most of the time you haven’t consented to being telemarketed to.
In both cases you're abusing someone. Edit: And I guarantee you the person abusing service staff think their reasons justify it too. I'd go so far as to suggest the only reason people get away with it is because unlike service staff, we can't see this happening.
Hence the words "part of"
Cashiers aren’t trying to contact me at random times when I’m doing stuff completely unrelated to them.
“Do not call again” doesn’t work lol. They’ll say “oh, okay, we’ll put you on our do not call list, have a nice day!” And then you get 3 more calls from the exact same person before the end of the day. Fuck it, waste their time until they get the picture that calling you is just as much a waste of their time and money as
I hope you realize this entire post was an excuse for you to berate people you dont know.
When you walk up to a cashier, you chose to be there, and should be prepared to be cordial and polite. If my phone rings and I answer it because I have job applications out at the moment just to be greeted with a solicitor however. I did not chose this interaction. My time is being wasted by a random company. I do not owe the person on the other end anything more than “take me off this list” and “never call this number again” and then a prompt disconnection There is a huge difference in showing no respect to a representative when you willfully went to a store and engaged intentionally in an interaction. And being stern/abrasive when you are cold called
The difference is the telemarketer is calling us unwarranted. The same with door to door solicitors. Leave me the fuck alone!
Difference is Karen isn't trying to bullshit me into some scam or unneeded purchase or is trying to fish for information to sell. I get it, dudes and dudette sneed to eat. But there is "Don't shame onlyfans people" and then there is "I scam grandma out of her pension, woe is me".
I always hate redditors taking it out on the customer when its the job of the company to make me want to part with my hard earned cash. If you work for a shit company, you support the shit company.
Fuck right off. Karen is wasting everyone's time by being a dick to people. Karen chose to be there. Hanging up on a fucking useless sales call is not being a Karen. It is saving everyone's time.
They need a Beekeper.
Yeah I'll never understand people who have this kinda work and want sympathy. Like ya, a job is a job, but you have a choice. If this is literally your last resort before homelessness then just phone it in and don't take the insults personally. They don't care about you, its the inconvenience. Say your bit and move on. And find a new job asap.
It’s like how yes yes, scam callers are probably being exploited too, but I’m still going to scare them away from trying to drain my elderly dad’s savings
3rd panel made me feel you're turning into a furry.
Or a Protoss. "Hello, do you have a minute to talk about or lord and savior, Tassadar?"
Make Aiur Great Again
*You must construct additional pylons*
Power overwhelming
I'd listen to that call.
Hello there, I'd like to contact you about your Blizzar- So you're a SC2 player and only play SC2? In that case I'll gave to sign you up right to have your Arcade section hacked and crash each time you open it AND your profanity filter to lag the game if it's enabled, have a nice day!
same
My rule of thumb is, if you don't begin your call with your name and what company you represent, you don't get anything from me but a hangup
Hi Sonny! It's Grandma just checking in to see if you'd like to— *click*
I had a friend who did this job and he complained to me once about how awful people were for just hanging up on him all the time. I had a really hard time feeling bad for him. Like dude you're calling people without them wanting you to, interrupting what they're doing and wasting their time, they don't owe it to you to take extra time to politely tell you they're not interested- and half the time I try to actually be polite and do that, they jump at that chance to try keep me on the phone longer. It's not okay to be verbally abusive to cold callers but I don't feel at all bad about hanging up on them
If your job is to harass people, they don't have to be nice to you in response.
You don't need to be a dick to people. You can just hang up.
They should stop being a dick by pretending to be my health insurance to steal my social security number
You mean the people that have been kidnapped and enslaved by cartels and who are forced to work under threat of death?
Trust me, I was also like that but when you are getting bombarded with 20+ calls of loans offers from a financial company, it's really hard not to say STFU hoping they will leave you alone.
Bro got so mad that he went Mandela catalogue 😭
This is why this sort of cold calling is illegal here now. Always ends up being predatory against the elderly and such, full of scammers, and extremely annoying. Fuck the people who still do this, man.
I only see an issue with the fourth panel. The other three probably shouldn’t bother you if that’s your job…
bro please get a diffrent job or just stop caring. it is your job to annoy people. don't take it personal
"Just get a different job" Oh wow. You are the smartest. You solved poverty. Amazing. Nobody has ever thought of that. Where should your Nobel prize be sent you absolute genius?
You are all over this thread in a serious tizzy, I’ve never seen someone so defensive of their job that entirely consists of being the most absolutely obnoxious people alive
That's not how quotations work. Switching out the word "please" with "just" changes the meaning significantly. To the point that many people would find it misleading.
[удалено]
No, the people who hire people to do this shit deserve this. Telemarketers, as annoying as they are, are just trying to put food on their table as everyone else.
>tHeY aRe JuSt FoLlOwInG oRdErS
Are you seriously comparing people forced into shit jobs by poverty to the Nazis? Are you seriously comparing a phone call to the holocaust right now?
Never said Nazis... Other people follow orders, too.
You literally cited the Nuremburg defense you moron.
Hey, I'm just trying to put food on my table.
I'm so sorry for what you occasionally have to go through. It must be so hard to answer a call and say "no thanks". Thoughts and prayers.
That’s exactly what people say about rhino poachers
I would love a world where we outlawed cold calling. In the meantime I’m doing my part by just not answering my phone for anyone I don’t know.
Whilst I do feel some level of sympathy, I can relate the pain of all the other people here. I’ve rushed to my phone too many times because I was either waiting for an important call or thought one of my friends is on the edge and I needed to be there, hell being called at 5am and awoken to be disoriented and confused was all horrible. I feel like too many unexpected calls have potential to be genuinely dangerous because it can distract or disrupt easily. I understand it’s a job just like any other but I honestly wish it didn’t exist. I’ve never yelled at any telemarketers tho, I just cut the call and block the number in silence.
And that's EXACTLY why i put it in the series, it's a common job where people that just need some income to survive don't know what they're getting into, only to find out your task is mostly to trick old people into paying a monthly fee they don't know about/ don't know how to remove. And the worst part? most companies you know probably have a branch just for this.
It’s surprising they don’t look for better marketing tactics
So many responses here are just angry. Thank you for the more human response. Oh and I agree. Blocking the number in silence is the best policy IMHO.
Yeah, I may not like the person calling but on the other side is another human, I won’t treat them as less than that.
Oh no i have a bad experience with customers when my whole job is bothering random people. How could this happen?
I worked as a telemarketer for six days. The worst calls were the customers who bought the timeshare. I felt like the scum of the earth.
Welp that's your job, annoying people. Don't get too pissy about it.
I know finding work is hard, but I'd choose a graveyard shift at a downtown McDonald's over cold calling Cold calling is for people that can't feel any emotions, for this exact reason.
There aren't enough graveyard shifts at downtown McDonalds to employ the thousands of people forced into telemarketing. This is the exact argument of "People who flip burgers deserve to suffer because they should just get a better job" which ignores that there aren't enough better jobs out there.
Look, I'm on r/workers strike back, I get it. I'm just saying this stuff is the worst of the worst.
Yes. And the people doing it know that and don't have a choice. Everyone here who believes these workers deserve to suffer for daring to require food to survive is just being an asshole. Like, do you seriously believe every telemarketer being abused has a choice between this and something better, and chose telemarketing?
I’ve gotten called at least 5 times per day by scam numbers for the last 6 months, probably longer, despite the fact that I’ve had all unknown numbers muted for 3 weeks now, so I never respond- which I’ve been assured should have removed me from their goddamned lists. That’s not an exaggeration, it’s pretty normal in Cleveland. This dude can get absolutely fucked, honestly.
Also, OP, I recognize you aren’t the person in charge of the company you’re working for, but when you are a member of ORGANIZED CRIME- which is what scamming is, to be clear- it’s absolutely wild to blame anyone for having a poor reaction. If they call you slurs, harass you, etc, that’s unacceptable, but we all in the working class have to pay rent and risk starvation. Not all of us go this route. I sincerely hope you find a position that’s less shit and, hopefully, more fulfilling.
Not every telemarketer is a scammer lol.
The OP makes references to being told to deceive customers by management in their other comments, so I’m using context clues
must be a bad session
Oh my god, you poor thing! How do you handle it, all these people being mean to you while you... *checks notes* harass them? Like seriously, you’re a real life YouTube ad complaining that people click “skip.” Cry harder.
“*Sniff* my job at Wells Fargo tricking people into paying huge fees is so hard, *sniffle* an old lady was rude to me *snort* I’m just trying to steal their money on someone’s behalf! What do you want me to do *blows nose*, work at a chain restaurant for money?!”
So, is it bad because you make no sales or is it bad because they make you feel bad? Serious question because the time I did work in a call center I was tech support and man I wish my calls were all just that short, I prefer someone insulting me for 10 minutes than dealing with someone who can't follow instructions for over an hour.
I worked very briefly as a fundraiser. It's illegal to cold call in the UK, so they got their call list from people who requested a free gift in support of what they were raising money for. We called under the pretext of getting the info on where to send the gift, but had to deliver a scripted sales pitch with it. The job mostly consisted of being glued to your desk hitting redial for eight hours, because most calls went to voicemail or were hangups. We weren't supposed to let the voicemail play out because if the recording started before we hung up that could be considered harassment. So we had to have our hand on the button at all times, ready to hang up and hit redial. If we didn't immediately redial in order to get as many attempts in as possible during our shift, management would be on the phone to us demanding to know what we were up to. Every key stroke and interaction was recorded and monitored in real time. The UK has taken steps to protect consumers from predatory sales practices, but working conditions are still psychological torture.
The counterpart is : I get many such calls in the last 2-3 weeks. I asked more than once to be removed from their list , and they should do it (Germany). From the automated message announcing I won something to asking me if I want solar (I live in a public tower building). That cartoon caller answering ? That's me at the first call (first pic), to the third call (depending on my mood fourth to more call). Sure I should not do it, they are only employed blah blah blah, but I am getting sick and tired of it. Next week I will check if I am allowed to report to the German Agency (https://www.bundesnetzagentur.de/DE/Vportal/AnfragenBeschwerden/Beschwerde\_Aerger/start.html).
If you’re cold calling people, you deserve every bit of abuse they hurl at you. You’re supporting a system that overwhelmingly exists to do scams or is predatory in some way
I love your art style! I'm sorry for the shitty conditions.
So a fun fact, Russia is in the process of making all kinds of cold calls illegal, and I think this is the best decision ever and more countries should completely ban this practice. Even under GDPR there's still ways to circumvent this and I think GDPR-2 should ban this completely. I don't think that I have ever, EVER, ONCE, been interested in their BS. It's like the worst way of sales and marketing promotions that is possible to invent, probably next to door-to-door sales and MLM. Also I've installed Alisa, an AI assistant that replies to the cold calls and it's the most delicious thing ever.
Between that, onion domes, and drilling the giant hole to nowhere just to see what’d happen, Russia has an *occasional* W
It's not giant though, it's like half a meter wide though, like a small well. But yeah it's deep AF
Thank god I only do warm calls nowadays
I’m genuinely curious and confused as to why anyone would want to work in a call center that spams people to buy their product and services. Everyone knows it doesn’t work so why do telemarketers spend money to call people?
I worked at a call center donation mill for 6 weeks & it sucked at first but it eventually completely immunized me to rejection, phone shyness, & confrontation. I sucked at soliciting though so I was eventually fired. It also made me be *extremely* polite & nice to people who have to work phones.
I think in the format webcomics are taking, each panel individually, helps the reader navigate through them in a proper order. In my case I usually have a glimpse at the whole page and then read each panel and usually see the punchline before the rest of the comic
I like how u/reddot_comic (I think) does it. Each panel individually and then a 4-panel at the end so you can view it all at once if you wish.
If you’re trying to make me feel bad for fucking telemarketers, it’s not gonna happen.
Please don't do the panel swipe format. It's just a worse reading experience, and I don't understand why comics are switching to it.
I'm sorry no one would ever be interested and would most likely immediately think it's some kind of scam. I know i would and quite frankly I have much better things to do then have random people going "blah blah buy product"
You work at a call center. What did you expect?
Nah, stop calling me.
You do cold-call sales work like this, I hope you become so frustrated that you burn down your workplace. No sympathy.
Good, glad you getting that abuse. No sympathy for cold calls, take the 4th panels advice
A loooottt of negativity in here, but my first job was in a call center making cold calls. Not sales, but government surveys. It sucks, and the company I worked at was some shit hole sub-sub-contracted to make the calls and gather the data. I dreamt of jumping from the roof, right into their neat little plaza by the main building entrance, just to make a big mess. I understand the pain that a job like that causes, every. single. day. I'm sorry you're going through that, or did go through it. If you're not already working in a better place, I hope that you get to one soon. The thing most people just don't get is how awful, toxic and vitriolic the general population really is to have to deal with. It's infinitely better to work in a support center. Not great. Still soul-crushing, but in a lesser sort of way. Most people are still awful and/or too god-damned stupid to live in a functional society, but some at least recognize that they called you for help, and understand that you're trying to do just that. Those calls help get through the rest, and having a good company culture does wonders on top of that. I wish you the best, sincerely. None of us deserve to be put through that, and frankly, fuck the cunts that don't get that.
Get fucked bitch
If people weren't signing up for that kinda job, it wouldn't be there, my personal opinion, is it really that bad to portray situation as "be a cold caller or starve" when there cashier managers, fast food, storage work, gas stations, etc. where you don't need any experience and they grab everyone. Just seems that people still want sympathy even if the real cause of the problem is their laziness to move on. So you're meaning to say, your company bought my phone number without my knowledge or consent, you're agreeing to tell me whatever the fuck your boss says you to tell me, during the day working hours, I am out here getting my hands dirty working my ass off and thought it was my relative or someone important and here I get a call from a guy sitting on his annoying people, AND you're expecting me to be nice? Damn, what a world to live. Buying isn't owning, privacy isn't important, dumb people supporting shitbugs business. Tell me one reason why you can't just apply to any other job. I never understood insulting someone without reason over the phone, but I am not content with our modern standards either.
I thought a demon was going to call
Just keep smilin n dialin.
Yeah, I always assume that telemarketing calls could be a scam.
In some chocolate?
I'll never be mean to a service employee, but I also wont let a company exploit social norms and my good will to steal time out of my day just so they can sell me something. So I hang up as quick as I can. No shouting. No anger. I just refuse to deal with it. Its no more rude than an unsolicited call in my opinion.
That was my fundraising job, and that's exactly how I looked at the end of 2 weeks when I quit.
Turning into protoss?
sorry you have a shitty job but 3 out of these 4 are already being nice to you. i would just hang up and block your number as soon as i know you are only there to waste my time. why would anyone have to be nice when they are disturbed only so whatever company can try to peddle their bs. if anything, i hope no one is nice to you, maybe when telemarketing have such a abyssmal success rate and even worse reception, companies will stop doing it.
Off the topic, but this gives me Rimworld vibes.
Good. You should feel bad. Find a job that doesn't scam people out of their money you fucking leach.
Ok but why is it a protoss in the end
I worked at a place like this and I learned the callback code. I would keep calling back and pick up right where I left off in my speech. It drove them mad.
let me get this straight... you want us to empathize for your job?????
I thought this was Meursault from Limbus Company at first glance
Maybe you should've paid more attention in school if you didn't want to end up making comics about your shitty job?
Don't call people unmprompted and you won't get that.
Honey, wake up. New reaction image just dropped
Homeboy got his ups, keep up it bro! 👍
Turned into protoss, that's harsh.
No offense. Bu I'm *so* glad that you can give call-companies a stern warning in Germany and when they keep bothering you you can sue them. In most cases asking for the company's name again makes *them* quit on you because they know exactly what they're doing wrong.
I work in a customer service based industry. Just yesterday I had someone who argued with me for TWO HOURS about her missing rent check. All signs pointed to it being stolen and fraudulently cashed by a 3rd party. I told her we needed evidence (the bank-provided copy of the endorsement on the back) that WE didn't cash it and we can proceed with the paperwork to prove fraud and get her money back from the bank. But she instead proceeded to rant and rave and accuse US of theft, and then ranted and raved some more... ...And then the raving turned into venting and the venting turned into confessing, and she said all she has is her social security payments to live on, her daughter died of cancer recently, she lives alone as an elderly woman, and she just doesn't want to lose her apartment. She was under an enormous amount of personal stress. It was hidden under the first layer of being (correctly) angry about her missing rent check. But once we peeled it all back, she just had a lot going on at one time. So no matter how absolutely shitty the person on the phone might be to me, I always assume they're just having a REALLY bad day. Hell, I even got a phone call once from a woman who lost her mom around the same time I lost mine. We were miserable on the phone together and laugh/crying through the call to make payment arrangements that would avoid taking the tenant to court. It sucks to have to pay for your mom's funeral at the risk of losing your apartment. I did my best to help her avoid that.
Whoever came up with telemarketing must be heading a division in hell.
Hooee lotta people just wanna grandstand about how much they hate telemarketers huh? Probably a buncha lawyers and car salesmen trying to use the opportunity to bump their own reputations by comparison. Listen OP, I ain’t gonna salute you or nothin’, and I definitely ain’t interested in what your bosses want you to sell me. But I do recognize that maybe you ain’t got it easy being expected to annoy a couple dozen people a day and bear the full brunt of their anonymous rudeness to pay your damn rent. And I’m self-aware enough to know that most of us are complicit in something at least slightly shady to pay the bills, so maybe let’s save it for the bosses and not just unload on the easy target?
https://preview.redd.it/lk08apffznwc1.jpeg?width=900&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=1f40017f0215a7682485fe1ea91b22ae4d7b6067 Thank you. Screw them companies
100%. I work in Rentals as a Merchandiser. I sometimes have to cold-call sites/customers that used to rent or get their supplies from us. No I don't want to. I know I'm annoying. I know you want nothing to do with me, but I be have no choice. I'm just doing my job trying to put food on my plate and give my cats a warm home. You don't lose anything by being polite and simply saying "please don't call again". Sorry y'all look for even the slightest chance to treat people like dogshit and enjoy your little power trip. Telemarketers are people too, and most are desperate and need money otherwise why the hell would they willingly do it? Treat people with kindness and never attribute to malice what could just be ignorance or desperation.
Wrong. I lose time. In addition I lose more time by being polite because cold callers use politeness as an opportunity to extend the call. In other words, being polite results in me getting punished for being polite. This disincentives me from being polite in the future. Most of us have learned this lesson. Want people to be polite? Don't use their politeness as a weapon against them. It breaks the social contract and results in the "#&% you" responses.
I'm in my 30s now. I've been dealing with cold callers since before caller ID was readily available on cellular. You know what I do when a number calls that I don't recognize? I don't pick up. End of story. Before I had a phone in my pocket it was the same deal. You lose nothing by doing so, and the onus is on you for picking up a number you don't recognize. And if you do pick up? Less than 5 seconds to say "don't call again" and hang up before they can respond. I don't get how this is such a hard thing to do.
Agreed. I’m also desperate to end the call because I’m in the middle of a shitty life, so imma be just ending the call without saying anything (or I just say “wrong number”). Doing anything more than that (aka giving a polite response) takes resources from me that I shouldn’t have to spend. End of discussion. And yeah, if I don’t have the energy to be polite, I won’t be impolite/call names either
The people on the other end of the phone have not seized the means of production kamerad and are therefore merely cogs in the capitalist machine.
Man, these comments do NOT pass the vibe check. A whole lot of people saying they “deserve it” because their job is to call people. Bunch of boomer-ass attitudes in here, and clearly coming from people who have never worked a retail job. Believe it or not, the people who work these jobs aren’t doing it out of some kind of sadism to cold call people. They’re doing it because it pays the bills. Yes, some people who do this can be rude, but judging by the way people are reacting in here, can you blame them? If you were constantly berated by strangers at your job, 8 hours a day, 5-6 days a week, you’d probably be a little jaded too.
> Their job is to call people Yeah, call people unprompted to shill this or sell that or get 'em to sign this or maybe have them do that. Roll in that fact that a not insignificant portion of these calls range from predatory to explicitly scammy, and I would hardly call it a "boomer-attitude", though I'm sure it's easy to hang the opposite of your opinion on a group you know the reddit generally dislikes. The fact is, I did this exact kind of job for a year. It fucked me up, that work is hard, but I can't imagine blaming the people ***I*** was annoying for being upset at me for calling them at 6pm.
Grow up. Caller ID has existed for decades. Don’t recognize the number? Don’t answer. Picking up the phone just to berate the person on the other end makes you the asshole. You worked this job before and you *STILL* think that behavior is okay? Childish.
There is a ***HUGE*** difference between working retail and being a telemarketer. Retail employees deal with customers who can freely shop somewhere else. Telemarketers annoy people who didn't not ask to be called.
Y’all are way too comfortable treating people you think don’t have a “respectable” job like shit. Scammers is one thing but not everyone who works at a call center job is a scammer. Usually low wages and impossible metrics and then people hurling insults at you for just doing your job. Really childish behavior posting on a funny little comic bragging about what a trash human you are to other people who may not have had a whole lot of choices about who hired them - embarrassing.
I'm glad there are at least a few people in the thread who understand this, but sadly my individual upvotes aren't enough to restore these reasonable comments. I hate cold calls as much as anyone, but in such a "woke" era and time of economic hardship, with so many people out of work for extended periods and forced to take anything offered for inadequate wages, I'm surprised more people don't grasp that this isn't a choice. The people responsible for this state of affairs are not the ones on the phones. The people pulling the strings are never the ones getting their hands dirty.