Job Snob

[ImNotDancing]

Just wanted to get a feeler out there for other peoples opinions...

My DF just got a call from a telemarketer and reeled of a whole spiel about the telephone preference service but then ended with the words 'get a better job'.

I was fuming on the other persons behalf, DF may find the phone calls annoying but who is he to deem whether their job is good enough? I told him it's the equivelent of telling me working in retail that one day I'll get a real job. AIBU?

So many of these calls are scams, especially if TPS registered, so if that was the case it's a pretty mild thing to say. If someone was trying to climb in through your window you'd probably say worse.

If I've got time I tend to try and keep them occupied as long as possible. At least then they're not calling other people.

I am on TPS and still gets calls. Usually occasionally but every couple of months an aggressive scammer gets my number and starts calling three times a day. Despite what PPs have said a polite request to not call again is completely ignored.

I always start with that, the next call gets 'why are you calling me when I asked to be removed from your database'. After that I get annoyed. I never swear at the callers but I have pointed out that they are breaking the law and are criminals and asked them why they break the law for a living.
The latest lot started using disguised phone numbers - showing it is calling from different parts of the country when it is all the same company. I tell them I don't deal with companies that disguise their numbers, when they deny that I just ask them to tell me which town they are in, they never can and hang up when I refuse to continue the conversation until they do.

Previous posters referred to customer service. This isn't customer service, I am not a customer and they are not providing a service. I give them a chance to remove me from their list and if they refuse I stop caring if I hurt their feelings.

Imagine walking up the street and somebody poking you saying excuse me excuse me excuse me im not selling anything but.. that is how people feel if they are phoned and annoyed they eventually lose patience

Yanbu

Your father and everyone here saying the persons job adds no value... Someone even said better to be on the dole!... The industry and the company are at fault.., the poor sod on the phone is NOT they are just working to support themselves and their family. It IS better than being on the dole.

just realised the irony of the whole situation is in his spare time he does telecanvassing for a local political group haha

They so are Derek with their perky smiles and ipads and chasing you up the street you need to have your trainers on ready to sprint somedays.

he's not a chugger

haha i just wanted make sure

I don't understand why the companies doing this still exist. It's 2016! Who buys from cold callers? I can't believe they make money for it. Reckon they're all fly by night companies who con old ladies out of their savings then disappear to start up again next week under a new name

NotMe it was me who said I'd have more respect for someone on the dole, and I stand by it. These jobs are harming people, vulnerable people. It's like 'fuck you, old person, I don't care as long as I get my bonus'.

YANBU. Any legal job is better than no job at all.

"in his spare time he does telecanvassing for a local political group"

Are you going to tell him to get a better pass time?

I work in sales on the phone (no outbound calls though). People often talk to me like I'm something on the bottom of their shoe, hang up on me and call me names when I can't magic up a hotel room for them on the night they want (and they barter in the price). And they phoned me!!!

boom i do constantly! thats a daughters job haha

limitedperiodonly
Your post about licking arses being the Prime Minister's job made me laugh.
On a general note, we are with BT Call Guardian and it cuts out all those irritating call centre calls.
I was on crutches after an op and we had elderly parents who might be phoning because they had fallen at home. I could not ignore the phone and would struggle to answer it, only to be met by a telesalesman. Ugh!

I have no issues with real customer help line jobs, I don't think those are shitty job at all and they provide a necessary service (if there are problems it's usually that the workers have too little autonomy to make decisions).

But most of the calls I receive at home are dodgy or actual fraud attempts (we're on the register, so by default the companies cold calling are doing something wrong). I have no qualms telling the frauds to find a better way to make a living. And even if it's just a nuisance call, the person on the other end was rude first by phoning me in the first place, so no, I don't think your father was overly rude.

As a student I worked in a call centre for exactly three days. I found out the script we were working from was full of lies. That if a person on the other end was stupid enough to agree to a sales visit they'd be relentlessly pressured by manipulative tactics to sign up to an expensive deal on the spot. And that the attitude of the people working in the room with me was utterly callous. I won't repeat the kind of language that was used about the people they phoned once they hung up.

YBU IMO.

A neighbours elderly father lost £1m yes thats right £1m to scammers. He was an elderly widowed professional man. They persuaded him to remortgage his house.

I had one the other day YELLING at me because I wouldn't believe she was from Talktalk and I wouldn't give her remote access to my computer. I called Talktalk afterwards and they confirmed it was a scam.

So apologies to non criminal cold callers but you see why some of us are not particularly mindful of manners when you call.

Ah sorry, I can see I was a bit outdated saying they only blocked sales calls. It used to be the case, when I was a teenager I worked in telephone market research and we had a little script to read out when people told us they were registered with the TPS explaining that it blocked sales not research etc.

And yes people were incredibly rude to us sometimes. But some people I worked with were equally bad, I remember someone slamming the phone down on my boss so he called back and said 'I'm sorry we appear to have been cut off' and started his spiel again

"It used to be the case, when I was a teenager I worked in telephone market research and we had a little script to read out when people told us they were registered with the TPS explaining that it blocked sales not research etc."

See, cold caller's just don't get it. The feeling that they're entitled to phone and interupt. They feel they're right and that when someone they've called tells them that they've registered with TPS, rather than apologising and hanging up, they read a" Well, actually you're wrong " speech.

It doesn't enter their head to consider that the person mentioned TPS because they don't want to be disturbed. Now you're correcting them and telling them that you're entitled to disturb them. No wonder they swear at you.

I manage to get them to go away without telling them to get a better job!

I play with them a little first, then they hang up on me, although I am perfectly polite while I do so.

They have a better job than I do, being unemployed, so I couldn't say that anyway, but it means I have little else to do but amuse myself at their expense!

yy Definitely

I used to work in a call centre - we only called people who were already signed up to our service to remind them to accept business that was coming their way, but people were still unbelievably rude. There was definitely occasions where we were told to get a better job.

When I was moved to the in-bound desk (i.e. a helpline) it actually got even worse. I was called every name under the sun for not being able to allow people to get out of the contract they'd signed (I always felt a bit uncomfortable with the way it had been sold to them but I had no control over that).

I left years ago and now work in front-line IT support so all the hostility is face-to-face, but I definitely get sworn at less . I'm always polite to cold callers now. It must be a bloody awful job.

Signed up with TPS but still getting them. I try to be polite to cold callers but over the years I have had them:

slam down the receiver rudely on me (happens at least once a week, even with supposedly reputable firms)

try to con me/hack my computer

not give their name/company first (this is surprisingly common even among non-scammers)

refuse to give their name/company at all

be rude about my financial situations (yes you guessed it, charity chuggers)

keep arguing back when I explain I am not interested

give misleading information about the company/product

calling repeatedly after I have said I am not interested (who wants 3 calls about double-glazing from the same company in one week after you have explained that all your windows are already double-glazed?)

most of them start with an outright lie: this is not a sales call (we are not just talking scammers here, but supposedly reputable firms)

Since I sometimes work from home, every cold call represents a potential loss of income for me, and as I have poorly relatives in various parts of the world I dare not leave calls unanswered.

How would these cold callers react if their income was affected by people insisting on calling them at their call desk and not taking no for an answer? And then ringing up again? And again? Judging by how they react when I politely tell them I am not interested- probably very rudely.