trials of a call boy

[faustus]

not quite EB related but i feel like 'fessing up

THE TRIALS OF A CALL BOY

My name is David, but like many in my shame-ridden profession I’ve adopted a pseudonym, a duplicitous mask through which I lead a double life. You may not realise it yet, but it’s likely that I’ve solicited your nearest and dearest, for many of my clients are bored housewifes and on rarer occasions, curious husbands. Should we ever cross paths however, you’ll no doubt feel either a sense of pity or complete and utter derision for me and the life I’ve come to lead.

For I am a telephone interviewer and yes, I’m the one who keeps writing your phone number in the stalls of public toilets.

Detest your existence? Here’s an idea: take out all that suppressed rage – y’know, like when they teased you in grade 7 about those god-awful braces of yours – summon it like a sorcerer conjures a spell and channel it towards me. Don’t worry, abuse has added at least an extra $2.50 onto our hourly wages and recently our union began subsidising our group therapy sessions on Monday and Wednesday nights. Besides, resilience to abuse, insult, ridicule and shame, it all just builds character, doesn’t it?

Perhaps I’ve gotten off on the wrong foot. Don’t get me wrong, should we ever meet you’d find me to be mild-mannered, however if there’s but one thing that a call boy despises it’s the abuse from people whose contempt for telephone interviewers may be reasoned thus:

I am not you.

I earn more money than you.

Therefore not only is my time more valuable than yours, but you are scum.

So what great injustice have I commited upon you? Did I just rape your dear children? No, worse. I dared interrupt you for 20 seconds; in more progressive countries you’d get the chair for that. Call me old-fashioned, but what happened to a simple and polite decline, the old “thanks, but no thanks”? Alas, the notion of transnational brotherhood appears but a dream within the hearts of naive market researchers such as myself.

However to the credit of my fellow Australians, in more recent times it appears that market researcher abuse has entered a Renaissance, a period in which the traditional barrage of expletives has been cast aside for more creative and unorthodox avenues of expression. Mainstream society has now caught onto this viroid meme and whilst we are still in our embryonic stage, I have every faith that Australia will have amongst the world’s rudest and caustic individuals within the next decade. Hence, I offer the following tips for those who seek to soar to greater heights of excellence:

When I ring you attempting to solicit a survey, try to appear as non-threatening as possible. I’m sure to drop my guard if my initial assessment of you isn’t that of a double digit IQ’ed, flanelette wearing, goon-swilling, Holiday 50s choking caveman. Actually, this demographic appears quite courteous and will oftentimes cooperate; perhaps it’s then advisable to adopt this persona. Once the gates of Troy have opened as it were, it is then when you must deliver your blow with precision and perfection. It is here that I must fault the execution of many people, for gratuitous swearing is so passe these days. No, you must sneak below radar under the guise of peace and unity and then surface with the piercing rage of a flaming arrow.

Comment on my genetic similarity to the soup of single-celled organisms that gorges upon canine faeces. Perhaps point out that I have a penchant for sexual relations with my siblings or, better yet, Miranda Devine. Creativity, improvisation and above all, the efficient catharsis of every iota of fury within you are all keys to the successful abuse of a market researcher. And finally, practise, practise, practise. I can’t stress that enough especially to the younger kids out there who like tossing a few insults around with their mates after school.

As for me, some days are better than others. Working the phones is tough and things aren’t like how they used to be. You don’t know when you’ll get your next client and these days surveys take around 20 to 20 minutes instead of the traditional 5 minute quickie. Even then you’re always worrying about what they’re thinking, if they’re getting bored and if they’ll stop before the job’s done. I don’t know how long it’ll take for me to get my act together and get a proper job trafficking drugs. But then again as they say in the classics, I’m young and need the money. Aren’t and don’t we all.

[Skulking Lurker]

I gave it away when too many one legged (or no legged) women kept falling in love with me.

Now as interesting as that may seem to some, and don't get me wrong- they are usually better people than most- my personal integrity and conscience started to really grind on me, so there was no other direction to go, other than pursue other avenues of fortune and community service.

[Dubius]

You speak of hard days; at work, making nice with people you don’t like; and you recall days when you had to go to school, enduring the rigors of fellow students that gave you hell - but you stayed as school, and later work - because each in time, is necessary. At the end of each social trial; as a student, or now, as a worker, do you get to go home and find some peace, and private dignity; the sacred alone?

I am certain you did, and still do.

Most of the productive section of Australian society is engaged in productive work, and the other in tertiary, or the value added component of industry; where the products of industry are refined, and have value added by those of us not skilled in production.

Sales are an important component of the tertiary economy, but it seems that you have been taught that harassment and cajolery matters.

Rubbish.

Sales are advertising, advertising, and advertising. The creative, coercive, cult of personality – ‘Booyah’ part, comes only after a client is attracted to the advertised product in the first place! Large corporations like Mc Donald’s, Microsoft, Toyota and General Motors don’t employ telemarketing as a means of selling their product because it means invading their client’s personal space! Though I am sure all of these companies and their business peers, have at one time or another engaged in clandestine telemarket research - they all know that their reputation would be ruined if they rang and harassed their clients personally, in their own homes, after work hours. Generally, telemarketing and its research component are socially onerous; they intermittently irritate potential or existing clients, invade their privacy, and create a hostile reaction to the goods and services offered. Market research is only employed by large companies because they can avoid the brunt of consumer rage, hiding as they do by the agents that employ you…..

Every job has its challenges. We all have to make a living, however your living draws on the collective spending habits of Australian society. You know you are invading our privacy when you ring the phone number of someone you don’t know, during family times, like at 6:00pm to 8:30pm – when your biggest market - families (consumers) - are sitting down to dinner, and spending time with loved ones.

You know you are annoying, as you have been specifically trained in overcoming objections, and coached at how to handle abuse; if you don’t like the conditions you work under, get another job or enjoy the abuse – you’ve earned it.

[nabraxas]

as a night shift worker i sleep during the day.

recently i have taken to turning the phone off while i sleep.

it used to be that i would stay asleep as the phone rang, or it would wake me up, stop ringing & i'd fall back to sleep.

in the last week though i had 3 calls that just kept on ringing.

you wake up w/a start. "huh? what's that noise? oh the phone, ignore it." 3 minutes later it's still ringing---must be an emergency, answer the phone--"hello, could i ask you a few...."

i wonder what kind ov castles these people must live in, where it might take over 3 minutes to get from the kitchen to the phone.

[Amulte]

I was one of them once. eventually learnt that the few who want it cant afford it and those who can are not home or dont need it. Now thats oxymoron

[Jesus On Peyote]

riiiight...