Are telemarketers making everyone me rude?

Lately I have been getting an onslaught of calls from various organizations like the company telling me that the OM Insurance on my car is lapsing, my student’s loans can be lowered or the American Coalition for … well I’m not quite sure because I hung up on whoever was talking. Frankly, I hung up on all of them. Each time it felt like I was being rude.

Let me explain. My phone rang the other day. Of course I did not recognize the number but I answered anyway. There was a long awkward pause. Right away I figured it was a telemarketer however, just as I was about to hang up a lady said, hello, are you there? So, not wanting to hang up on her I said yes. She replied thank you and proceeded to tell me whatever it was. I told her that I wasn’t interested and she said, something like, I understand but it would be… So, it wasn’t until after a couple of retorts when something peculiar happened. Her reply did not line up with my answer to which I then stated that I was a physicist working on time travel so I can bring back Einstein. Her response, was a pause and to repeat, all-be-it in a different way, the sales pitch. Damn, it. They got me. I was talking to a computer.

When did this happen? Everyone was so excited about Google’s auto answering service last year but it seems someone out there is already perfecting this technology. The lady on the phone was real. Or so it felt. Now when I get these phone calls I hang up but I start to think, am I hanging up on actual people.

I mean there has to still be jobs out there where someone is forced to dress in their Sunday best, trot down to the call center, sit in front of a phone and cold call hundreds of people pedaling Chevy Chase credit cards. At which point I do not want to hang up on them. No, I do not want to be called but I also want those people to feed their families. Hell, I was one of those callers in college. It was often miserable. Being hung up on and yelled at for calling during dinner as if you had a choice of when and who the phone system dialed, could be quite discouraging. Your job connected directly to the amount of yeses you could obtain. Though you can learn a lot about yourself when you do that sort of thing. Like, I had been doing it so long that I could say the three paragraph script while writing a joke to my friend in the next cubicle and not miss a beat. To me that was a little freaky but interesting. Another interesting thing about call centers, like I mentioned earlier, the dress code. I always wondered why everyone was not in their pajamas making these calls. I mean, who was seeing us? But I digress.

I would rather let these people start while I find a break in the pitch and let them down gently. I do not want your product. I don’t want the newspaper, lawn care, knives, credit cards or whatever else you are pushing, good day sir. That’s how you end a call properly, right? Not today, I just hang up the phone in mid-sentence never really knowing was that a real person? If so, I was too rude to someone trying to make a living. If not, I’m left wishing I hung up even earlier than I did.

I could go on and talk about screening calls but I think my point here is, The Game Is Changing. Also, I am changing. I’m feeling less and less rude. I am feeling more and more entitled to just hang up on a person on the phone and in real life. Meaning, my temper for the foolishness has gotten short. That person right in front of me with the polished pitch…

Hey sir, get to the point.

What is it you’re pushing so I can tell you I don’t want it?

Thanks.

(Walk away)

So Rude!