Scenario 1: You’ve just come home from a long day at work and you’re about to sit down for dinner when suddenly the phone rings. So you pick it up and the voice at the other end asks, “Hi, may I speak to Mr. Smith?” “Yes, speaking…” you answer. Then, the son-of-a-bitch begins his seemingly endless barrage of canned lines, in his attempt to sell you some piece of crap that you don’t care to hear about. Scenario 2: It’s early in the morning, and you’re trying to catch some much needed sleep, perhaps even in the middle of a pleasant dream, when the damn phone rings. Who would call this early in the morning, you think to yourself. Then, soon after you answer the phone, you realize that the caller is the inbred sibling of last night’s dinnertime telemarketer, and you slam down the receiver, pissed.
Sound familiar? Yes, we all hate telemarketers, and it makes you wonder what else they do besides spending hours of their pitiful excuse of a life harassing people at dinner time or at 8 in the morning. It’s not like anyone’s gonna be interested in whatever shitty snake oil they’re peddling, but yet they call, and after an experience or two, you realize that they’re the most persistent, thick-skinned low-lifes the world has ever seen. If you haven’t learned by now, let’s get one thing straight: It’s not worth being polite, patient, or nice to these assholes! Any attempt by you to courteously fend off their aggressive marketing just isn’t going to cut it. Besides, they’ve just annoyed the hell out of you, do you really want to let them off this easy? Here are a few ways you can turn the tables on your tormenters:
1) Something I like to do, if my laptop happens to be on, is to let them listen to some ‘soothing’ music. On the top of my list of songs is “Shut Your Fucking Face Uncle Fucker” from South Park. The easiest and fastest way is to find it on YouTube and start playing it. Crank up the volume all the way, put the phone receiver right beside your computer speaker, and then blast the fucker on the line with the Uncle Fucker song. Of course, you could use any song of your choice. Be creative. (Another song that comes to mind is Achy Breaky Heart by Billy Cyrus. Yes, it’s that bad!!)
2) Do some heavy wheezing and coughing into the receiver, and make it sound as sinister as possible. You could add some moaning and groaning too, for good measure. Improvise. It’s a common skill in any crank caller’s repertoire.
3) Place the phone receiver on the floor, and let the idiot ramble away. By the time he’s wasted 5 minutes finishing up his canned speech, he’ll realize he’s been talking to your carpet. If he’s intelligent enough, he’ll hang up. (Intelligent telemarketer?? Gee… what an oxymoron.) This technique is great for when you are too tired for anything else. Also, I had one case where the telemarketer for whatever reason could not disconnect the line as long as I did not hang up! LOL. After 5 minutes, I could hear the frantic discussions and sheer panic on the other side. Golden.
4) Passive-aggressive technique: Listen to all his crap, then go “I’m sorry?” or “I didn’t catch the last part,” or “Could you repeat?” Seriously, that would annoy even the most annoying telemarketers. Waste the moron’s time, as telemarketers usually have a quota to make. Keep him on the line for as long as possible. Chat with him, ask him silly questions etc, but above all, have fun doing it! Once again, use your own creativity and imagination. If you have any ideas, I’d like to hear them.
5) Hit on the guy/gal. Regardless of the idiot’s gender, start hitting on him/her. Soon enough, s/he will probably be more eager to end the conversation than you are!
Enough suggestions for now. Oh, and you can also register your home number with the National Do Not Call Registry. It won’t get rid of all the annoying telemarketers, but it might help reduce the number of irritating calls you get. Lastly, if you have any additional interesting ways of dealing with these twits, feel free to contact me. Cheers.
Tags: harassers, harassing, phone, telemarketer, telemarketers
