As I may have perhaps mentioned in my first post on the blog, one of my jobs is as a phone interviewer for a political research company in Sacramento, CA. My job is to call people during the early evening and ask them if they would be willing to spend some time, usually from 10-15 minutes to do a survey about some topic, usually political in nature. All in all, I love this job, the only problem is that work isn't all that steady. It tends to come and go peaking with the coming election and than slowing when it is over. Take last month for and instance, I was working nearly every day and than once November 2nd came around, BANG, it all dried up and now I and am sitting by my phone calling at 2:30 hoping for work. Well to be fair last week was Thanksgiving and we did have work the week before, but still.
The one other thing I don't like about this job is that some of the people I call can be, for lack of a better word, jerks. The seem to think that fact that you are taking them away of from their dinner/TV Program/Movie/ whatever constitutes some capital offense that is worth treating you like some they stepped in. Really, does it ever occur to these people that I am only doing my job. Yes, I know that you would rather be doing whatever it was your were doing before I called but come on. A simple "I'm not interested" would suffice. Is making you walk up and answer the phone really worth shouting obscenities over. If you don't want to talk to me, let the machine get it or pay a little extra for caller ID Block. They only thing I can think of is that most of these people just want to be nasty to others and this is their excuse. Are these people proud of themselves?
"O Yes, I told the one person that called last night to ear sh*t and die and a I dropped the F bomb into the other's ear I hope that it hurts."
The last one actually happened to me. I politely explained to him the Do Not Call Registry act did not apply to surveyors his response was "You are not exempt from my law so F*CK YOU" and he screamed the last one so loud that my ears hurt for three days. I hope that really made your day sir.
Honestly I have come to the conclusion the civility and respect for others is more or less out of style. We are so absorbed when ourselves and ours that we barely acknowledge the humanity of anyone outside of our circle. Some calling you on the phone to take you away from you lasagna for 10-15 minutes is some sort of vermin, not a human being but be shouted at, mocked and toyed with. Heck since some of the people I call are rather elderly anyway, I probably constitute their only entertainment anyway. Screw Politeness, I'm a Senior I guess. Being old is practically an excuse to get away with murder.
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