• (cs) in reply to (((OOO---OOO)))
    (((OOO---OOO))):
    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!!!

    Only when spoken while chewing about 100 grams of well-masticated chewing gum - otherwise it's a foreign language.

  • (cs) in reply to themagni

    Have found it necessary to make cold calls 4 or 5 times in the past 2 decades, most times for new technology. Also found the real decision makers to be the most responsive to realistic new possibilities.

    Mass telemarketing for sales, pre-sales, etc. is another matter. A 3 year-old is great when a persona calls. Used to get quite a few computerized survey calls; no human involved in the call. Upon answering such a call, the receiver would get placed on whatever noisy household appliance was running to ensure the recording system would have audio to track. Hung up when that off-hook tone became noticeable. Took over a year before they reprogrammed those systems to stop calling that number...

  • Bo, the ancient mainframer (unregistered)

    A company here in Denmark has turned dealing with cold callers into a fine art.

    Enjoy: www.wedonotuse.com

    /Bo

  • ulmi (unregistered)

    Surely, that mail's subject line is supposed to read "Urgent business proposal".

  • pgroen (unregistered)

    I once worked in a company where everyone tried to invent new ways to discourage cold callers; we even created a website for that specific purpose:

    WeDoNotUse.com

  • Jamie (unregistered) in reply to snoofle

    I often hand the phone to my 5 year old daughter. She rabbles on about what she did at school that day, and what she is about to eat for dinner. Its amazing how long these sales people hang on for.

  • Jens (unregistered)

    Being a foreigner, Dane, I appologize for any bad English in this post.

    I just wanted to share a story from Denmark, where a company has begun telling cold callers (assuming I understand what a cold call is) "We don't use that here". Even when they try selling phones, toiletpaper, copying machines etc. The funniest part is where a research & polling company calls them up, and asks "I would like to speak to the person i charge of telephony" and they answer "We dont use that here".

    Click the "Union Jack" to see English text. http://www.vibrugerikke.dk/

  • Martijn (unregistered) in reply to iceburg

    "Hi, gays"

    He was deciding on whether to write "guys" or "gals" and just decided to go for the syntactical AND semantical middle ground?

  • Mark B (unregistered)

    is it just me that thinks that it was odd for him to give out he email address to a cold caller ?

  • sys<in (unregistered)

    So my phone rang. It was for my predecessor and the receptionist had it transferred to me.

    What's important to know is that I had gotten the promotion the way princes get promoted to kings: My predecessor ("Bob Smith") had died almost two years before the call.

    ColdCaller: Can I please talk to "Bob Smith"? Me: Bob is "no longer with the firm". Can I help you? CC: Oh, I'm ____ from ____. Bob was interested in buying our product. Me: When did you last speak to Bob? CC: Uhm, just a few weeks ago - he was very interested ... Me: No you didn't and no he wasn't. <Click>

  • (cs) in reply to none

    My favourite put down so far was when someone phoned me to offer a new phone service. I asked them if it had an option to block cold callers and waited for the idea to sink in. To be fair, they got the idea quite quickly.

  • Morten (unregistered) in reply to craaazy

    Check out this site for ideas on handling cold callers: http://www.wedonotuse.com/

    Cheers, Morten

  • Jonathan (unregistered) in reply to FredSaw

    I once stopped a persistent financial services consultant in his tracks. After several minutes of patter, he started talking about a special package for professionals:

    "Do you have any professional qualifications, Jonathan?"

    "Yes Mark, I'm a trained killer."

    (I served in the British Army).

  • Frank (unregistered) in reply to akatherder

    Any recruiter worth their weight in sandwiches should be able to type up a google map for "Schenectady, NY to Yonkers, NY".

    Yes, but can they pronounce Schenectady, or better yet, Niskayuna? Unless they're calling from "1 River Road", the answer is, probably not.

    Frank

  • (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... :-(

    I've lived in various parts of NY (state) for most of my life. If takes about 90 minutes to get from the eastern tip of Long Island to NYC, 3 hours from NYC to Albany (depending on where in NYC you start), about 5-6 hours from Albany to Buffalo and about 5 hours from Albany to Canada.

    I happen to live about 35 miles from where I work in Manhattan, and the commute is about an hour in and 90 minutes out at the end of the day. Given MapQuest, it's amazing that head hunters don't understand why I won't commute further than this!

  • Crazy Dave (unregistered) in reply to SynergizeTHIS
    SynergizeTHIS:
    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.

    I dont know if its sad or not, but the above is completely reasonable to me. Apart from the misplaced @ the rest (including the acronyms like SLA: Service Level Agreement, an important part of any client/support relationship) seems quite..well..normal.

  • Tech Guy (unregistered) in reply to JulioChavez

    I usually have fun with these guys. I am not the "Decision Maker" that they are looking for, but I talked to my manager and he gave me the go ahead to pretend to be him. I usually talk very slowly and make my answers short and uncertain. Typically, they want to add you to a list or send you something. I usually tell them that we don't have phones/email or that we don't read. When telling them that I/we can't read, I usually do it in a shameful tone and try to make them feel bad about it. If they ask why/how we don't have phones/email, I tell them it is to cut down on costs.

    Cheers!

  • Ben Yogman (unregistered) in reply to Flash

    If I do have the time, I still tend to prefer not to waste it like that. Once I tell someone politely for the 2nd time I am not interested and they start going again, if I am home, I hand the phone to my daughter (she just turned two). I have heard them actually trying to coax her to give the phone to daddy, as if it were not perfectly clear by that point that I was done. At work, no, I just say, goodbye and hang up.

  • ChrisH (unregistered)

    I see more and more of these people, but strangely they're prospective clients. Suddenly their "professional approach" becomes less of an issue.

  • kiwi (unregistered) in reply to SuzieQ
    SuzieQ:
    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?

    No he was too chicken for that :)

    Being a cold caller is quite possibly the most thankless job ive ever done, thank gawd Im a developer now ....

  • JGM (unregistered) 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... :-(

    I Have driven from NYC to my home in Massena, NY which is about as far as you can drive in NY state South to North, and it is about an 8 hour drive. So yes, unless you are driving 30 miles an hour the whole 16 hour thing is a bit off.

  • (cs) in reply to Mr. Nice Guy
    Mr. Nice Guy:
    Of course, I don't head up toward Plattsburgh, but there's no way it takes 10 hours to get from Albany to Plattsburgh.

    Couldn't agree more. I now live in Albany, but used to live in Plattsburgh. Back when the speed limit was 55 on both the Adirondack Northway and the Thruway, it used to take 8 hours to travel from Plattsburgh to Buffalo (I used to do it once a month or so).

    Glad I wasn't the only one to spot this. :-)

  • BIG tex (unregistered) in reply to kiwi
    kiwi:
    Being a cold caller is quite possibly the most thankless job ive ever done, thank gawd Im a developer now ....

    That's quite a step up!

    Food Chain:

    (worst) -> cold caller -> CEO from McAfee/Network Associates (pick one) -> project manager -> bacteria -> accountant -> HP's Board of Directors (pick any three) -> politician -> developer -> garbage collection professional -> software architect -> lawn care professional -> catholic bishop -> bean bag girl -> slobby lottery winner that survives on pizza and beer and doesn't have to change their underwear for months on end (just turn 'em inside out every other week)

    Ah, nirvana.

  • BradleyS (unregistered) in reply to Flash

    I do the same thing with the door-to-door salesmen and/or religion pushers. Had a great conversation about Japanese animation with a couple of Mormons last week. Took about 20 minutes, and I'm not sure if they even realized they never got their "come to our church" spiel out.

    It can be such great fun if you've got the time free for killing.

  • BradleyS (unregistered) in reply to Flash
    Flash:
    snoofle:
    ...I'll lead them on and see how long I can keep them going, just to give them a taste of what it feels like to have your time intruded upon and wasted.

    IIRC, my personal best is 47 minutes!

    I concur. If you don't have the time, end the call immediately. But when you have the time, keep 'em on the phone. I don't fake interest: I continue to respond "no". However, I let them continue their spiel as long as they want. If we all do this, we might increase the cost of cold calling. The quicker you hang up, the quicker they can bother the next person.

    My previous post was supposed to be replying to this one.

    I swear, I will someday figure out this forum software. I hope.

  • (cs) in reply to diaphanein
    diaphanein:
    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.

    Sigh. This and all of the other posts so far regarding geography are, for those of you who don't live in the U.S., a clear indication of a) the provincialism of many Americans, and b) the failure of American schools to provide any sort of geographic education whatsoever.

    I myself live in Colorado, which is 2000 miles from New York City and about 1000 from Los Angeles.

    A bit OT here, but a sample of the problem:

    When I was applying for college in the mid-1980s, I heard a story (maybe true, maybe not) of some flunky in the admissions office of an East-Coast college (not mine, thank the FSM) who, when encountering the application of a student from New Mexico, asked him to provide current visa information and the scores from his Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL), which is required of all non-native-English-speaking foreign students who apply to American colleges. The kicker, of course, is that New Mexico is a state and the student in question was not only a citizen by birth but a native English-speaker.

  • Anonymizer (unregistered) in reply to Harrow
    Harrow:
    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.

    That's very close. Without wishing to get too close to destroying the anonymity, the sender is an H&S coordinator at a particular site used by operators who are owner-drivers of their own industrial vehicles. He is (as far as one can tell) advocating a sort of certification scheme for such operators. Unfortunately, this is his usual style of communication, which is, erm, less than effective...
  • (cs)

    My new pricing model is unstoppable!

  • (cs) 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, 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.

    My mother is pretty sympathetic that way, especially to callers with accents. She tries to turn them down, but she can't bring herself to hang up on them until they give up. After a while my Dad will usually take over (he has no such problem). Then he'll ask her why she puts up with them, and she'll say "I felt sorry for him. He probably used to be a doctor in his old country".

  • (cs) in reply to BrownHornet
    BrownHornet:
    ...she can't bring herself to hang up on them until they give up.

    I don't have a problem hanging up while they're talking, because I know they're going to keep on pushing and pushing no matter what I say. No use arguing, no use reasoning, no use waiting for them to finish. I just say, "I'm going to hang up now," and do it. But I don't try to fk with their minds. They're just trying to bring home some groceries. I'm sure they'd rather be writing software and earning the medium-sized bucks too, but there it is.

  • KungFu Jim (unregistered)

    I love the * Account Executive * title combined with the "dialing for dollars" approach. It

  • operagost (unregistered) in reply to diaphanein
    diaphanein:
    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.

    This is already a WTF because only a morally bankrupt company would demand that their employee report immediately for a drug test-- in total disregard for whatever urgent issue they may be facing at the moment-- on pain of FIRING.

    I guess we're all just common manure-shovelers, and easily replaced.

  • Tracy McKibben (unregistered) in reply to Anonymizer

    Wow, that looks just like the specs I received this morning, asking for (I think??) a new stored procedure to be written.

  • Tracy McKibben (unregistered) in reply to Tracy McKibben
    Tracy McKibben:
    Wow, that looks just like the specs I received this morning, asking for (I think??) a new stored procedure to be written.

    That made NO sense because I forgot to hit the damned QUOTE button :-(

    I was referring to this:

    On regard's to a owner driver on a tipper being ask leave his job!!!
Due to bad practice of safety??????
It seem's to me there was a comuinication problem at that plant to say the least...Because should be working together at all time's and why did'nt the driver feel comfortable in talking to the managerment??
I have been thinking and would like to know what you think????
On all new owner driver's before they come on a company going threw a basic health and safety plan??
I.e watching film's on safety issue's that will concern in there everyday working's.[Company] could give them a basic understanding of there way's of work.
Maybe also try involve them in our company way's,the older driver's could also have to go threw a every two year plan refreshment on health and safety driving and in the plant...
Plus and pratical job's in which they do different taks.If we as a company could give them tickets to show they know what there doing at good level maybe safety would improve less accident's and driver's with approved [company] ticket's for job's like tipper propping.mixer gun out,greasing,tire or wheel change,,,and so on the driver's could build up a file of them self's and [company] staff would know what they can and carn't do plus some people might even get to train them at good standard of work making this company better...
If this is already in place well there you go.....!
[signed on original]
  • Razputant (unregistered)

    If you can speak the language properly, you can't earn the business respectfully. People buy from people, if you can only make someone buy from you through pity, do to your lack of sale skills, how can you ever be successful? You can’t… eventually you drag along, scratching for sales until your company has a long enough paper trail to get rid of you.

  • Calli Arcale (unregistered) in reply to SuzieQ
    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.

    I was once hired to work customer service at a now-defunct finance company specializing in mobile home financing. That was depressing enough, because I got to hear some real sob stories from people trying to reach their collectors (who kept bankers hours and weren't very good about returning voice mail). Then the company expanded into traditional mortgages and got some of the customer service reps to start making cold calls enticing people to refinance their house. Oh, but we were to tell people we weren't selling anything -- we were just collecting information for a "survey". (Survey schmurvey -- it was a mortgage application, which would result in a credit check and a callback from an actual loan officer.) It sucked -- calling people up during dinner to ask if they'd like to refinance their house, claiming that it's technically not telemarketing. Phenomenally rude, IMHO. I didn't get really mad about the job until the day they were pulling reps over to work telemarketing even though the customer service phone queue was actually full (meaning that our customer service line was giving out a busy signal). The company had messed up priorities throughout the business, though. That was just the day I realized it personally.

  • N Morrison (unregistered)

    At least the guy is trying. I tried to buy anti virus software for our new server from two companies and ran into road blocks with both. WTF do you have to do to spend money these days?

  • Anonymous (unregistered) in reply to ptomblin
    ptomblin:
    I had a guy from NYC asking questions about the flying club I run the website for in Rochester NY. He had real problems understanding that there were parts of New York State that were more than an 8 hour train ride away.

    Not that far away, if you compare with Washington, DC vs. Washington state.

  • Anonymous (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.

    Should be "worse" and "than". (I'm not a native speaker, either.)

  • Anonymous (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, 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.

    By the same token, you should sympathise thieves and burglars, too. They may also hate to steal or break into others' houses, too. And they may have a family to support, too.

    Come on. It's just not right to earn money by making others' unhappy, annoyed, bothered, etc. Whatever the underlying reason. Doing so is selfish and inconsiderate and unjust.

  • Anonymous (unregistered) in reply to slavdude
    slavdude:
    The kicker, of course, is that New Mexico is a state and the student in question was not only a citizen by birth but a native English-speaker.

    Be reminded that New Mexico used to belong to Mexico! :)

  • (cs) in reply to Anonymous
    Anonymous:
    By the same token, you should sympathise thieves and burglars, too.

    Sure, I agree. And just like I let the caller know before I hang up in his mid-sentence, I'll tell the burglar, "It's just business, man... don't take it personally" as I pop a cap in his ass.

  • JDS (unregistered)

    When a friend of mine moved to a new apartment he was surprised to find out that he got no electricity bills. This was because of some kind of error, so they did eventually arrive, but this was after several months.

    During the time when he got no bills, he got a call from an electricity company that offered him cheaper electricity than he currently had.

    Suprisingly, they had a hard time beating his current deal of paying absolutely nothing. ;)

    Captch: scooter (I hate that band)

  • RevMike (unregistered) in reply to snoofle
    snoofle:
    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... :-(

    I've lived in various parts of NY (state) for most of my life. If takes about 90 minutes to get from the eastern tip of Long Island to NYC, 3 hours from NYC to Albany (depending on where in NYC you start), about 5-6 hours from Albany to Buffalo and about 5 hours from Albany to Canada.

    I happen to live about 35 miles from where I work in Manhattan, and the commute is about an hour in and 90 minutes out at the end of the day. Given MapQuest, it's amazing that head hunters don't understand why I won't commute further than this!

    90 minutes Montauk to Manhattan? That is damn optimistic.

    90 minutes will get you to Riverhead in most circumstances, excepting summer time rush hours. Montauk is another hour from Riverhead, and in the summer midweek it has taken me in excess of two hours. I've done the trip to "Lunch" often enough that I know this well.

    Making reasonable but conservative estimates, that means 3 hours Montauk to NYC, 3 hours up to Albany, and about 6 hours out to Buffalo. That totals 12 hours across the state.

  • afda (unregistered) in reply to craaazy

    dfadfa

  • Slaughtered (unregistered)

    Thanks for the laugh. As a recently slaughtered PC Mall employee, I love reading about how the company fs up.

  • Michael (unregistered) in reply to Jethris
    Jethris:
    The amazing thing is that most people read/write in a second language (that has a familiar character set) with better fluency than speaking. The concept that amazes me is the use of "U" for "you." That is a mistake that would be corrected in first year students.

    I have received similar emails from "professionals" who grew up in the USA with English (or American) as their native tongue.

    When will people realize that the writing style that exists on the internet, in chat rooms, and SMS is not suitable for business uses?

    This is hardly new. I kid you not, the first paper we handed in for English, some girl actually wrote the whole thing in the text message shortcuts. The WHOLE DAMN THING. I didn't believe the teacher at first, but I looked, and sure enough, the whole thing.

    Needless to say, she didn't get a good grade.

  • Sympathetic (unregistered)

    I actually work with this guy, lol. This is slowly making its way around the sales floor.

    We don't actually use a script, templates or a dialer, so every now and then we get a few gems like this.

    I'd like to personally apologize if we've offended anyone with out cold calls. Please keep in mind its just business, and we often develop strong relationships with many of our clients. All of which start with a cold call.

  • Sympathetic (unregistered) in reply to Sympathetic

    And a final update on this saga, this gentleman no longer works for us.

  • Anonymous Coward (unregistered) in reply to Sympathetic

    A friend of mine had a couple of Jehovah's Witnesses, young ladies, knock on his door to attempt to spread their particular (peculiar?) brand of religion. Since he had just gotten out of the shower, he dropped his towel before opening the door. I don't know anything about the size of his "dongle", but needless to say, no other Jehovah's Witenesses have ever disturbed him in the intervening 20 years since this occurred..

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