• (cs)

    What's truly sad, in my opinion, is that I didn't even notice the "guys" mistake...really. I finally caught that bit on my third review of the email. I suppose it's because I see junk like this so often, my brain is just numb to it.

  • George (unregistered)

    For those that might not have heard of him, I present to you the King of Bad English: George the Tech Support Guy:

    http://chroniclesofgeorge.nanc.com/

  • Michael (unregistered) in reply to Marc
    Marc:
    I find that it is fun (and efficient) to do something unexpected and out of their script:

    1. Do you get a bonus for the number of successful calls you make? yes. Then I think you are wasting both my time and your money.

    2. Thank you so much for calling me. I am making statistics about phone advertising. Would you mind answering a few questions? You age, country of origin, revenue, how long have you worked in this position.... thank you very much for your call.

    I have only thought of doing 2), but 1) works very well.

    My personal favorite was a phone call from MCI offering me savings on my long distance. I politely explained to the girl on the other end that I didn't have a phone. She couldn't even think of how to respond to that.

  • (cs) in reply to Michael

    My brother dealt with a cold caller in an interesting manner once. The call was from a cemetery plot looking to sell a few. His response:

    Finally a sign! I've been praying for God to let me know if I should try to continue my miserable existence or just end it all. God has finally spoken to me through you! <sound of a slamming book on a table and hang up>

    I laughed my butt off for days.

  • diaphanein (unregistered)

    My favorite regarding lack of comprehension of distance involved my Dad.

    It was early one weekday morning, and he received a phone call from his company's corporate headquarters instructing him to report to a hospital in Spokane, WA, for a random drug test. He was told he had 30 minutes to arrive at the hospital for the test, or he would be fired for failing to complete the screening in the prescribed time. My father lives in western Montana. The resulting exhange ensued:

    Dad: "Miss, I cannot possibly make it to that hospital in 30 minutes." Her: "Then you will be fired." Dad: "Miss, you do not understand. It is physically impossible for me to make it there in that time. If it was even possible, I would have to break numerous laws even to pull it off." Her: "I don't understand..." Dad: "THAT HOSPITAL IS OVER 200 MILES AWAY!" Her: "Well, its only a half-inch on the map."

    She was looking at a national map to judge whether or not he could make it in 30 minutes. To her credit, at least she got out the map before the call.

  • Ambo (unregistered) in reply to unklegwar
    unklegwar:
    anon:
    I don't talk to cold callers for longer than enough time to say "Sorry, the cat's on fire -- gotta go"

    I'm using that!!!!!!

    I love that! It almost makes me wish I still had a land line, so I would have a chance to use it.

    Before I got fed up with all those stupid calls and had my home phone disconnected. I would let my daughter answer the phone. This was when she was 3 and 4 and She LOVED to talk on the phone. She'd talk to the people until they hung up on her. Then I'd just laugh. It amazed me how long some of the people would talk to her. I guess they thought eventually I'd take the phone from her. NOT!

  • Ambo (unregistered) in reply to Franz Kafka

    I know. 99.5% of the time when I call tech support in India, I get someone who barely speaks English and gets really mad when you say, I'm sorry could you repeat that?"

    Although one time I had someone from a northern US state call me about something. I finally had to remind her I was in the south. I asked her if she could slow down because I was having trouble hearing that fast. So, maybe it's just me.

  • (cs)

    I don't jack with cold callers because I figure they're probably just poor saps who couldn't get any other job, and they surely must hate being at that job far worse than we hate having them call, but they have a family to support and it's either that or the street.

    So when they call, it usually goes like this: Her: "Hi, I'm calling from Foo Incorporated to let you know that we'd like to make you an offer than can save you up to 50% on your monthly..."

    Me: "Thanks, I'm not going to be interested in that."

    Her: "Okay, I can understand that, but I want to assure you that this is one of the best..."

    Me: "I'm going to hang up now. Have a nice day."

    Her: "Well, I hate to see you miss out on..."

    Me: click

    However, I did get to make one stammer once, not with fake but with real information. The housing market dipped really low a few years back and I refinanced my house just when it was at the lowest point (not premonition, just good timing). Then it began edging back up, but people were still marveling at how low it was and I kept getting calls advising me that there was no time like the present to refinance and their company could offer me blah blah blah.

    One day one of these folks called and said, "Hello, I represent Foobar Bank, and we'd like to offer you a once in a lifetime chance to lower your mortgage rates..."

    I said, "I have a 15 year note at 4.8 percent."

    She said, "I... y... you... wow... you have a very good mortgage."

    I said, "Yes, I do. Have a nice day."

    http://howtoprankatelemarketer.ytmnd.com/

  • (cs) in reply to Michael
    Michael:

    My personal favorite was a phone call from MCI offering me savings on my long distance. I politely explained to the girl on the other end that I didn't have a phone. She couldn't even think of how to respond to that.

    I once told the Grolier people that I didn't know how to read.

    Remember that the poor bastages on the other end are just doing their job. It sucks and it sucks to be them, but they are people. I'm sure that they hate their job as much as you hate being called.

  • Glenn Lasher (unregistered) in reply to ContractorInLivingHell
    Advice for those folks who have outsourced their recruiting efforts to anyone who will try, including to companies in India or Pakistan, etc.: before calling a candidate, make sure you know what part of the state they live in so you don't waste your time. Unless you know someone wants to relocate, chances are they won't even consider a job more than 20 miles away

    Let's take this advice a step further.

    Monster.com classifies Albany , NY and Poughkeepsie, NY as a single area. They are 80 miles and 90 minutes apart. This is one of the several reasons why I believe them to be about as handy as a fart in a glove.

    Never mind if you outsource to India/Pakistan, how about familiarising yourself with the landscape where you are recruiting regardless of where you are located?

  • Mr. Nice Guy (unregistered) in reply to ContractorInLivingHell
    ContractorInLivingHell:
    It makes the caller look like a dolt when you have to explain to them that, for example, New York is not just the City and its surrounding suburbs, but a larger-than-it-looks state with thousands of sq. miles of land which can take as much as 16 hours to drive across.

    I get your point re: relative locations, and that there's much more to "NY" than just the City - I argue this quite a bit, myself - but this "16 hour" figure just smacks me as wrong. I do drive across NY, every week, from Sleepy Hollow, just north of the City, to Salamanca, an hour east of Erie. This is about the length of New York. It takes me six hours. It takes five to get from Salamanca to Albany. Of course, I don't head up toward Plattsburgh, but there's no way it takes 10 hours to get from Albany to Plattsburgh. Or, heading the other direction, from the tip of Long Island to Sleepy Hollow.

    Now, in crappy weather, for which the Southern Tier of New York is well known, yeah, it might add extra time. Maybe a half-hour to an hour, tops. Shoot, in 16 hours, I can get from Salamanca to Kansas City, with a couple of pit stops, or almost to Atlanta. Say, are you driving when of them newfangled jaloppies...? :-)

    captcha: riaa - not a good sign... :-(

  • (cs) in reply to anon
    anon:
    barely fluent.

    barely fluent?

  • Zygo (unregistered)
    Hi, gays, I just called you several minutes ago and I understand you are pretty busy and do not have time for a cold calls, especially,, being working with my horonable competitor.

    "horonable competitor"? I'm sure that's some kind of insult, but I'm not sure against who's reputation is being sullied or for what.

    It does remind me of that Simpsons episode...

    Mr. Burns: Horons. Pathetic horons in my employ, stealing my precious money. This is hopeless. None of these cretins deserves a promotion.

  • jtsampson (unregistered)

    Best way to handle a cold call: Turn the tables and try to get them to buy whatever you are selling.

    Seriously, try it some time. Its fun. Almost sold a case of Thin Mints once!

  • facetious (unregistered)

    This gay is awesome. I'm totally calling all gays "gays" from now on.

  • Nats (unregistered) in reply to un.sined

    I received a cold call about something I was actually interested in. It took about 15 minutes to give the guy my information, he could not spell anything. Here is an example. Him: -What is your address? Me: -7366... Him: -7368... Me: - No, it's 7344 Him: -Oh, ok. Me: -Cinnamon Teal Dr. Him: -Can you please spell it? Me: -C-i-n-n-a-m-n-o-n Him: -C-i-m-n-a... Me: - No, it's C, like Cynthia, I, like Icon, M, like Mary, etc, etc Him: -Ok, let me see, C-i-m-n-a-o-m-n Me:- No, it's cinnamon, like spice in cookies, etc, etc, etc At the end he ended up with wrong address, phone number and name that doesn't even resemble mine.
    He was American. I don't know why, but I just felt so sorry for that guy. So yes, the whole point of above WTF is people who can not possible be salesmen, foreigners or not. :( Sad.

  • Nats (unregistered) in reply to webdev101

    I totally bummed phone interview with Anheuser-Busch. Tech interview was led by the developer who originally was from India. After asking to repeat every question 3 times and still not being able to understand I just stalled, because I was too shy to tell them I didn't understand what the guy was asking. At the end they just decided I couldn't answer the question and moved on to the next one. I answered couple of them that I actually could understand, but in a scheme of things it wasn't enough, so they never even called me back. :(

  • (cs) in reply to Nats
    Nats:
    I received a cold call about something I was actually interested in. It took about 15 minutes to give the guy my information, he could not spell anything. Here is an example. Him: -What is your address? Me: -7366... Him: -7368... Me: - No, it's 7344 Him: -Oh, ok. Me: -Cinnamon Teal Dr. Him: -Can you please spell it? Me: -C-i-n-n-a-m-n-o-n Him: -C-i-m-n-a... Me: - No, it's C, like Cynthia, I, like Icon, M, like Mary, etc, etc Him: -Ok, let me see, C-i-m-n-a-o-m-n Me:- No, it's cinnamon, like spice in cookies, etc, etc, etc At the end he ended up with wrong address, phone number and name that doesn't even resemble mine. He was American. I don't know why, but I just felt so sorry for that guy. So yes, the whole point of above WTF is people who can not possible be salesmen, foreigners or not. :( Sad.
    Uh...I'm hoping that there's something I'm missing here. You were genuinely interested in the service/product and wanted to give him your real information but you repeatedly misspoke and gave him incorrect information?

    "It's Cinnamon. C-I-M..." "7366. No, 7344."

    Wha?

  • Nats (unregistered) in reply to Saladin

    Oh, man. Got bit too excited about the message, mistyped everything. Now that deserves wtf. LOL

  • Harrow (unregistered) in reply to UnFleshed One
    UnFleshed One:
    > Wow, that's hard to type, but I swear that's what it says!

    Hm, so what does it say? Don't get me wrong, I understand all the words, all the misspelled words, and can even reconstruct most of the misplaced words (kind of a word puzzle).

    But what is the message? O_o

    He is saying that a co-worker was fired for violating safety regs, but he doesn't think that is fair, because none of them are getting adequate safety training. He is trying to be constructive instead of just complaining, and suggests ways that his employer improve or increase the safety training.

    Judging by the quality of the language in the memo, this poor guy is in mortal danger no matter how much training he gets.

    -Harrow.

  • (cs) in reply to Harrow

    And sometimes I wonder about these "safety training" classes.

    I mean seriously, if someone is going to race forklifts, no amount of training will prevent this. If someone is at the top of a 20 foot ladder and just needs to reach that one little piece way out there, they are going to stretch rather than climb down the ladder, move it and climb back up regardless of how many times you told them not to. This fired employee was perhaps rightly fired for doing something we all know is wrong. He is an adult and needs to take responsibility for his own actions.

    "Safety Training" is not meant to make workers safer, it is meant to reduce the company's liability when their workers do stupid things.

    Now a class that shows the worker the proper way to move a 20 foot ladder is helpful, not many people know how to do that.

  • P A U L (unregistered) in reply to Franz Kafka
    Franz Kafka:
    P A U L:
    Broken English. Inconsiderate. Persistent.

    Sounds like ORACLE is at it again!

    Broken English - foreigner or Business Major?

    <sling target="HP">I think a minor in business and major in medieval studies.</sling>

  • SynergizeTHIS (unregistered)

    Its not a cold call, but I got this email after meeting with a sales droid trying to sell me a high-cap OC-12. What kind of engrish is this?

    QUOTE (names & locations changed...everything else is verbatim):

    I will prepare a formal quote and provide the SLA and throughput guarantees coupled with the endpoint addresses. It was good being back out @ your location on Friday and being informed as to the direction of Company. I think there are some areas where we can produce win-win scenarios based on the synergies between on companies. For one, once the OC12 pipe is in place between LocationA and LocationB it will be just a matter of cross-connects to the handoff points. Secondly, the interconnection between LocationA and LocationC.

    I would like to have you execute the attached LOA which will allow us to pull your customer service records and fax it back to me @ the number on my card. This will allow us to do an apples to apples quote on the 24 PRIs and the long distance service we discussed. Let me know your thoughts on this and if you can get this back to me this week?

    In closing, J**** we will work diligently to earn your business and provide the Highest level of customer service in the industry. Let me know if you have any question or concerns. Hope you had a grand weekend.

    END QUOTE

  • Yu-Gi-Oh! (unregistered) in reply to compassionate
    compassionate:
    ...It's the company's fault for their awful approach to staffing...

    "Fault", the word is not. "Business Plan", the correct phrase is.

  • Old and Cynical (unregistered)

    I used to manage the help desk for a company. The switchboard put all cold calls through to us.

    I told my staff they could abuse the heck out of those vendors. If they didn't have time they would just hang up. If they had the time they would torment them until they got bored and then hang up on them.

    Ah, what a morale booster. I still get comments from some of them about how much fun they had.

  • (cs) in reply to SynergizeTHIS
    SynergizeTHIS:
    Its not a cold call, but I got this email after meeting with a sales droid trying to sell me a high-cap OC-12. What kind of engrish is this?

    QUOTE (names & locations changed...everything else is verbatim):

    I will prepare a formal quote and provide the SLA and throughput guarantees coupled with the endpoint addresses. It was good being back out @ your location on Friday and being informed as to the direction of Company. I think there are some areas where we can produce win-win scenarios based on the synergies between on companies. For one, once the OC12 pipe is in place between LocationA and LocationB it will be just a matter of cross-connects to the handoff points. Secondly, the interconnection between LocationA and LocationC.

    I would like to have you execute the attached LOA which will allow us to pull your customer service records and fax it back to me @ the number on my card. This will allow us to do an apples to apples quote on the 24 PRIs and the long distance service we discussed. Let me know your thoughts on this and if you can get this back to me this week?

    In closing, J**** we will work diligently to earn your business and provide the Highest level of customer service in the industry. Let me know if you have any question or concerns. Hope you had a grand weekend.

    END QUOTE

    BINGO!

    It's been a while since I did telco in anger, but that sounds like fairly standard telco sales-ese to me. The "txt msg abbr" stuff would cause me to raise an eyebrow, and it's a bit heavy on the buzzwords, but nothing any more extreme than we've all seen/heard/read a hundred times.

  • (((OOO---OOO))) (unregistered) in reply to shadowman
    shadowman:
    anon:
    Pholks who use the phone for work should at least be operationally fluent in the language.

    I don't talk to cold callers for longer than enough time to say "Sorry, the cat's on fire -- gotta go" or "I'm sorry, he passed away a couple of days ago. You can reach his family at the funeral home.".

    Unfortunately there have also been a lot of times where I've called a company and have dealt with a CSR who was barely fluent in English. This frustrates me to no end.

    Some companies have learned. I called one monolithic company at 1am and the call was routed through to the East Indian office. The folks there spoke perfect English. I was shocked.

    Shocked by English from India? You are aware that English is one of the official languages there, right?

    https://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/print/in.html

    Hey! English is one of the official languages here in Texas, too! Yeee-hah!!!

  • BIG tex (unregistered) in reply to shadowman
    shadowman:
    anon:
    Pholks who use the phone for work should at least be operationally fluent in the language.

    I don't talk to cold callers for longer than enough time to say "Sorry, the cat's on fire -- gotta go" or "I'm sorry, he passed away a couple of days ago. You can reach his family at the funeral home.".

    Unfortunately there have also been a lot of times where I've called a company and have dealt with a CSR who was barely fluent in English. This frustrates me to no end.

    Some companies have learned. I called one monolithic company at 1am and the call was routed through to the East Indian office. The folks there spoke perfect English. I was shocked.

    Shocked by English from India? You are aware that English is one of the official languages there, right?

    https://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/print/in.html

    Hey! English is one of the official languages here in Texas, too! Yeee-hah!!!

  • (cs)

    "horonable" is now officially my Word Of The Week. I plan to see how many places I can use it in the next 7 days.

    But first I need to figure out what it means. Any suggestions?

  • (cs)
    [email protected] www.pcmall.com

    I don't suppose '---' = 'suc'?

  • Xeronos (unregistered) in reply to ContractorInLivingHell

    'but a larger-than-it-looks state with thousands of sq. miles of land which can take as much as 16 hours to drive across'

    No but seriously what crack are you smoking? It's 10 hours TOPS to get across New York State. Hell, it takes around 14 to get across my home state, Texas.

    captcha: howdy (how appropriate!)

  • iw (unregistered)

    This isn't really surprising, because I see this every single day (I work in a Japanese .com that handles international B2B stuff). The real WTF, I suppose, is that this comes from inside the US. I see this kind of broken English everyday from China, Korea, Brazil, and from just about anywhere. Strange as it may seem, actual, real business is transacted with this level of English.

    It's frightening.

  • bpkennedy (unregistered)

    a cold caller is fate giving you a free prank call.

  • (cs) in reply to ContractorInLivingHell
    ContractorInLivingHell:
    ... New York is not just the City and its surrounding suburbs, but a larger-than-it-looks state with thousands of sq. miles of land which can take as much as 16 hours to drive across.

    16 hours? What are you driving a segway? 16 hours should get you 1/3 of the way across the country. Even if you are stuck in NYC traffic, it shouldn't take you 16 hours to get across the state.

  • Josh (unregistered)

    This showed up on the main page like this:

    [image]

    ...was WTF? for a sec.

    CAPTCHA: burned

  • SuzieQ (unregistered) in reply to compassionate
    compassionate:
    I have always felt sort of sorry for sales people like this who are "hired" in the sort of way cattle are lined up outside a slaughterhouse and then are given no training and impossible quotas. Not that I have bought from them. It's the company's fault for their awful approach to staffing, not the poor "employee" (lamb for the slaughter) who is just told to sit at the console while the computer dials the phone trying to find a number that is answered by a human.

    Cattle - Lambs - Are you trying to get every living creature into your 'slaughter-house' metaphor?

  • lucius (unregistered)

    I've had PCMall cold call me before w/ the harassing hard sell. Needless to say, never buying from that place.

  • CrazyOne (unregistered) in reply to nobody
    nobody:
    To me, an additional WTF is why he spent 15 minutes politely trying to end the call.

    That's what I was thinking. Why waste time talking to them? Heck, most of the time I don't even bother letting them give a response. Anyone else still get the stupid toner sales cold calls? They don't deserve any time, just "Not interested <click>". Although one time a few years ago I strung along some poor woman for 15 minutes or more, can't remember much, but at the time it was fun. She kept answering back with stuff, I don't know why.

    In my office phones are picked up by a human, but usually not me, then the calls will get "screened" to a degree (they try to ask who it is before handing it over; we all do that unless we already know who it is that's calling). Sometimes I just pick up the phone and say "What are you selling?" (Sometimes on the toner ones I can tell and ask "Are you selling toner?" although one time it turned out to be some poor guy selling printing services who screwed up by asking for someone in charge of buying imaging blah blah.)

    BTW, PC Mall sucks. They actually called me a couple times recently, too. First time I told them flat out that I'm never using them again (they've screwed up too many times in the past, already gave them one last chance and they screwed it up). Of course, because apparently nobody can keep track of this, they called again like the next week (someone different). WTF? Maybe spend some money on software and systems instead of annoying cold calls.

  • Baldrin (unregistered) in reply to webdev101
    webdev101:
    Do not rush to blame everything to outsourcing. I have worked with people with worst English then me (English is not my first language) and they were customer reps. And one of them was director of customer service where I was programmer. This was in a company in USA (Florida).

    America has so many people who do not speak or understand English and have no ambition to learn the language. So why blame outsourcing? Granted chances are the company had outsourced their cold call operations to some country where English is not the primary language but do you know for sure it is outsourced? Jump to conclusion is becoming the motto of some people.

    "They took our jobs!"

  • Ambo (unregistered) in reply to woodle
    woodle:
    "horonable" is now officially my Word Of The Week. I plan to see how many places I can use it in the next 7 days.

    But first I need to figure out what it means. Any suggestions?

    Horonable = with in accordance characterized or principles by of honor

  • Martin (unregistered)

    I am surprised no one has mentioned the telemarketing couterscript yet. http://www.xs4all.nl/~egbg/counterscript.html

    Captcha: pinball. Fits well :-)

  • no name (unregistered) in reply to FredSaw
    FredSaw:
    I don't jack with cold callers because I figure they're probably just poor saps who couldn't get any other job.

    Bah!!

    If it bothers them that much they can just get a job doing something a little more respectable, like drug dealing, or they could be a stripper, or a web designer.

  • Maserati (unregistered) in reply to Xeronos

    16 hours to get across NY State ? Yeah, I had a car like that once.

    My worst cold call was from a company that my predecessor had bought a box of screen cleaning spray from. Good stuff, doesn't streak and works really well on a monitor or TV. I won't mention the brand. Now, my predecessor was laid off 4 months before I was hired, about 5 years now. I still had, at present usage another 6 years worth of the stuff left (never emptied a can, gave several out to the people people who take care of their gear) out of that box of 12 in the server room, so I don't remotely need any. No way am I going to remember the name of the company that made the stuff. My predecessor was a classic case, I still have more Xerographic modules for one of our copiers than I've used in 4.5 years.

    So one day the cleaning products people call. A minimum of 5 years after the last sale, more likely 6. And we establish very quickly how long I've been there and that I never met my predecessor. We then move into Phase Two: Shock. He can't believe I don't recognize the name of his company and the product immediately. I'm shocked he told me I "must not be very good at [my] job."

    Now, I've done business-to-business telemarketing (college, living on rice, selling books) and got my first full-time IT gig at that (evil) company. But they're a whole 'nother post, nay, a whole website.

    captcha: dreadlocks (yeah mon !)

  • (cs)

    I call WTF:

    • Sales is communication. Communication requires good language in the prospective customer's native language. Bad language skills exposed to the (prospective) immediately imply an un-professional approach on behalf of the (prospective) supplier. Period. No second chances here.

    • Hello ......... e-mail spell checker ................ Hello ....................... Seriously, I would have taken the time to forward the e-mail to this guy's supervisor and/or top management for the common good of all - with reason because of the (inadvertent) sexual implications of the content alone.

    On an unrelated issue: I am strict with sales dudes: no suit, no biz and a complaint to the sales dude's management because of the insuitable attire. Only sales guys.

    Whenever I talk to sales dudes I try to get the voice recording on my mobile (equipped with suitable additional memory) application to start. Sometimes I even tell them about it ..... on a few occasions we had disputes about who said what - the voice recording nipped them in the bud each bud.

    Addendum (2007-01-31 00:51): ... nipped them in the bud each TIME.

    Sorry.

  • (cs) in reply to Franz Kafka
    Franz Kafka:
    shadowman:
    anon:
    Pholks who use the phone for work should at least be operationally fluent in the language.

    I don't talk to cold callers for longer than enough time to say "Sorry, the cat's on fire -- gotta go" or "I'm sorry, he passed away a couple of days ago. You can reach his family at the funeral home.".

    Unfortunately there have also been a lot of times where I've called a company and have dealt with a CSR who was barely fluent in English. This frustrates me to no end.

    Some companies have learned. I called one monolithic company at 1am and the call was routed through to the East Indian office. The folks there spoke perfect English. I was shocked.

    Shocked by English from India? You are aware that English is one of the official languages there, right?

    https://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/print/in.html

    One of 12. I'm shocked when I call India and get someone who speaks English and actually speaks it. A good number of the people I've talked to sound like they're speaking hindi with different words, and of course they call themselves Bob.

    When I started working with indian/pakistani colleagues back in '98, it took me about three months to develop an ear for their accent. (Remark: I am tone deaf)

  • (cs) in reply to Ambo
    Ambo:
    I know. 99.5% of the time when I call tech support in India, I get someone who barely speaks English and gets really mad when you say, I'm sorry could you repeat that?"

    Although one time I had someone from a northern US state call me about something. I finally had to remind her I was in the south. I asked her if she could slow down because I was having trouble hearing that fast. So, maybe it's just me.

    Let me share with you this tidbit:

    When TV shows/features produced in the german-speaking part of Switzerland are aired on german TV networks then they very often come with subtitles in "high" (read: pure) german. The issue is that their swiss-german dialect would be otherwise incomprehensible to german native speakers.

  • Gizmo (unregistered) in reply to snoofle

    Ermm... you do know about the Do Not Call list, do you not? Once on it (there's a "grace period" after sign-up as it takes time for the telemarketers to sync/purge their lists), only non-profit and/or survey calls are allowed (or if you have a "previous business relationship" with company "X"). Works pretty well, actually.

    You can find it here:

    https://www.donotcall.gov/default.aspx

  • cm (unregistered) in reply to Ambo
    Ambo:
    woodle:
    "horonable" is now officially my Word Of The Week. I plan to see how many places I can use it in the next 7 days.

    But first I need to figure out what it means. Any suggestions?

    Horonable = with in accordance characterized or principles by of honor

    You misspelt "horon".

  • (cs) in reply to Mr. Nice Guy
    Mr. Nice Guy:
    ContractorInLivingHell:
    It makes the caller look like a dolt when you have to explain to them that, for example, New York is not just the City and its surrounding suburbs, but a larger-than-it-looks state with thousands of sq. miles of land which can take as much as 16 hours to drive across.

    I get your point re: relative locations, and that there's much more to "NY" than just the City - I argue this quite a bit, myself - but this "16 hour" figure just smacks me as wrong. I do drive across NY, every week, from Sleepy Hollow, just north of the City, to Salamanca, an hour east of Erie. This is about the length of New York. It takes me six hours. It takes five to get from Salamanca to Albany. Of course, I don't head up toward Plattsburgh, but there's no way it takes 10 hours to get from Albany to Plattsburgh. Or, heading the other direction, from the tip of Long Island to Sleepy Hollow.

    Now, in crappy weather, for which the Southern Tier of New York is well known, yeah, it might add extra time. Maybe a half-hour to an hour, tops. Shoot, in 16 hours, I can get from Salamanca to Kansas City, with a couple of pit stops, or almost to Atlanta. Say, are you driving when of them newfangled jaloppies...? :-)

    captcha: riaa - not a good sign... :-(

    Maybe ContractorInLivingHell is thinking of world war II when there was a US nation-wide speed limit of 35 mph ..... -:)

  • (cs) in reply to SynergizeTHIS
    SynergizeTHIS:
    Its not a cold call, but I got this email after meeting with a sales droid trying to sell me a high-cap OC-12. What kind of engrish is this?

    QUOTE (names & locations changed...everything else is verbatim):

    I will prepare a formal quote and provide the SLA and throughput guarantees coupled with the endpoint addresses. It was good being back out @ your location on Friday and being informed as to the direction of Company. I think there are some areas where we can produce win-win scenarios based on the synergies between on companies. For one, once the OC12 pipe is in place between LocationA and LocationB it will be just a matter of cross-connects to the handoff points. Secondly, the interconnection between LocationA and LocationC.

    I would like to have you execute the attached LOA which will allow us to pull your customer service records and fax it back to me @ the number on my card. This will allow us to do an apples to apples quote on the 24 PRIs and the long distance service we discussed. Let me know your thoughts on this and if you can get this back to me this week?

    In closing, J**** we will work diligently to earn your business and provide the Highest level of customer service in the industry. Let me know if you have any question or concerns. Hope you had a grand weekend.

    END QUOTE

    Looks like gibberish - see Corporate Gibberish Generator™

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