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Personal Essay: Annoying Telemarketers

8/23/2015

You Have the Wrong Number

By Gretchen Gales
QuailBellMagazine.com

*Editor's Note: This piece orignally appeared on Life In 10 Minutes on June 30th, 2015.

I get a little irritated with telemarketers. So when a representative from a marketing company called (for the second year in a row) claiming that one of my friends recommended me for a position, I knew right away that was not the case. The previous year a friend applied for a position with the company and gave my name strictly as a reference. Instead, the company called and claimed that my friend recommended me for a job instead.

"Hello, Gretchen. I'm with [insert company here] and your friend [insert friend's name here] has told us you would be interested in working with us. Do you have a few minutes?"

"Well, yes, but this is the second year in a row this has happened."

"Ma'am?"

"My name was strictly given as a means of recommendation, not for a job."

"Well yes, that's how the company works, by recommendation."

"But what I'm saying is my name was not given as a recommendation for a job. I don't appreciate you lying to me. What you're trying to do is deceitful and wrong."

"I do not appreciate the way you are talking to me, Ma'am," she growled. "I'm just doing my job."

I felt a twinge of guilt. "Yes, I know, I'm sorry. I know it's not your fault you're just following orders, but I--"

"We'll mark you down as uninterested." I heard a click on the other line.

I sat there feeling guilty. Not because I called the company out on their scam, but because I snapped at someone that had little to do with the real problem. Someone that needed a job and income badly enough to deal with intimidating management, pressure to make sales to get a decent commission, and to deal with those like me becoming increasingly frustrated with a society so starved for a living that many are forced continue a cycle of scraping the bottom and scamming just to survive.

#Real #MarketingScams #Telemarketers #TheStateOfOurEconomy #GettingSnippy