Something is seriously wrong with the telephone world.
Here is why:
There is something known as telephone etiquette:
The recieving person says hello,
the caller says hello
then the caller asks for someone
and the recieving person asks who is speaking..etc
WHY is it that there are so many people who don't understand this? I pick up the phone when someone calls, and no hello, nothing, THEY ask ME who I am! It infuriates me. Why is some random person asking me who I am? Being that I am a reasonably polite person, I try getting through this by asking "Who is speaking?" or "Who do you want to speak to?", but they insist knowing who I am. This is the point where I hang up. Later on I find out that it was one of my sisters friends. "Babar, why do you hang up on my friends! Your sooo meean!". Baaah.
But that is not all. There have been many other weird happenings. Recently the electricity in my town went out. I called the local Electricity complaint office, and had got to "Hello, there is no electricity here..". when the guy answered "Yeah, yeah, I understand you have a problem, why don't you go to Chuck (the name of a nearby town) and have your operation done there?". With that they hung up. I sat staring at the phone for half a minute after that. I did not wish to call them again.
Another recent weirdness when the phone rang:
Hello?
Hello! Is it raining?
What?
Is it raining there?
Ummmm....no.....
Thanks <CLICK>
I mean c'mon! WTF?
Other than that, there is the common occurence of picking up the phone to hear internet dial-up tones. I realise my number might be similar to ISPs, but there is a limit!
Anyone else have such problems? Sorry for such a moaning topic, I wouldn't have considered it all that odd, but it all happened within the space of last week (except the first bit, which happens VERY often).
Oh, I SERIOUSLY hate the no "hello" but "Who is this?" caller. Get fucked! This is MY phone, and I'M in charge of this conversation! I want to know who YOU are, and if you're not friendly enough to say hello at the start of your conversation, then you can go to hell!
ARGH!
But yes, I do get annoyed by that. ^_^
I get that who are you thing all the time, and I respond to it with asking who they are....the process takes a few minutes, but I normally find out who they are...or hang up....
My phone line sucks though, it's always getting interference and it can be hard as hell to hear on. (I need a pretty loud phone, I had bad ears from childhood and then played in loud bands for too long). That is far annoying than anything though....Oh wait, telemarketers. The recording ones that ask you to stay on the line for a rep and then they trie to sell you some cheesy crap, thats probably the worst.....
I solved this problem a few years ago ...
I completely quit using a land-line telephone. I only use my cellphone as my primary telephone. I have only 1 time in about 6 years gotten a telemarketer call. I played interested and got her name, and her company's name, and then I said, "Okay here's the deal ... I don't know how you got this number but I want you to erase it from whatever list you got it from and you better hope I don't start getting more calls like this." That was 4 years ago ... haven't had one since.
We do have a land-line telephone here. We need it for the internet (DSL) connection. It gets about 4-5 calls a day from telemarkers. But we have a phone that has Caller ID on it ... so I can see who it is. If it says "Private Call" or "Unknown Number" I just don't answer it.
Though sometimes it can be fun. My favorite thing to do is when you get that, "Please hold, we have an important message for you" call. Here's what I do ...
When I get that message I patiently wait. Then, "Hello?" they say,
"Yes?" I reply.
"How are you today sir?"
"I'm fine ... hang on one second, I really want to hear what you have to say ..."
Then I put the phone down and continue to have a conversation with whoever is in the room. Preferably a perverted conversation. And we just keep talking, blatently ignoring the phone, and keep talking and keep talking.
One time I had a telemarker stay on the line for over a half hour!!
Ughhhh, I hate these calls that ask you "Do you have a subscription of our magazine?". They piss me off. Really piss me off. Though, i don't want to get mad on the woman/guy who called me because they're just doing their work and stuff. It would be like shooting the messenger ::)
a while ago we kept getting calls from automated board thingymajigs, you'd pick up the phone and say hello and then some recorded message would play, or you'd hear "please hold" and then there'd be a ringing sound and then some other recorded message would play, it got on my nerves so much i actually had a go at a person that was making a genuine call about something getting delivered, i think the new thing this year is going to be Phone Rage as more of these call centres are setup, those people need to realise that if you wanted to save money on your bills or subscribe to some place you would do it yourself... however, it is fun messing with them when there is an actual person at the end of the line :D
I am gonna be so rich when I invent a machine that stabs the other caller in the face.
I only use my cell phone as my means of contact. I get an occasional wrong number, from time to time. What pisses me off, is the people who call, and it's the wrong number, and then they call again. But other than that, I'm quite happy phone wise.
-MillsJROSS
Quote from: HillBilly on Wed 09/03/2005 17:13:21
I am gonna be so rich when I invent a machine that stabs the other caller in the face.
Haha.
I too will only go to my cell phone when I move out of my house. And although, I agree with you all on your griefs, my biggest phone pet-peeve is the not saying good bye. That to me is a great fall out of polite service. You say your buisness, talk and whatnot, and then when you're done, you say good bye. I hate getting just dropped on a phone call. It's mostly telemarketers that are rushing to get to their next possible sale, but I have friends that do it too.
What's the rush? Is it that much harder to be concious of the other person as you are getting off the phone?
Example:
Me: Hello?
Dave: Hey man, did you buy Strangers Wrath yet?
Me: Yeah.
Dave: Any good?
Me: Oh yeah, its a blast. I love Oddworld.
Dave: Kay.
<click>
ok, so thats exaggerated, but the point is there.
I hate it when people call me so I can be their personal downloader or their personal walkthrough. Or their personal technician. I guess I should start charging for services
Right. The telephone.
At my full-time job, one of my assignments is to pick up the phone and hold it until person at the other side of line finally reaches the conclusion that it was a very, very stupid idea to call here, and not where they actually supposed to call with their problem.
The sales department!
I work as a scales operator/accountant/data entry.
They always call and ask some crap that I have no idea about and don't have to - since it's not my profession and I should be alot higher in career ladder to know that.
Like logistics, currency exchange rates, and all kind of corporate crap I don't either know or have to know about. All I can do is tell them where they really have to call (though they know it perfectly by themselves) and hear swearing and whining about "why don't you never know anything? what kind of fools work there?" and so on.
They are too lazy to move their own butts, so the telephone gets it all the time.
Well, I have invented some tricks to keep some phone-peace at the sales department...
1) A matrix printer!
They call, I promise to find the person in charge so it can solve their stupid problems. Then just put the phone onto this 1000 years old Epson FX-890 matrix printer. Andkeep on typing and printing the bills. the door to sales dept. is made of glass and 20 meters away from me. It's quite cool to watch the sales agent jump up from the chair and tear the headset-phone off her/his head along with some hair. This keeps them off the phone for a while. :D
2) Misunderstanding/ear problems
Me: "Yes?"
Agent: "Hey, go see if this truck driver arrived at the other side of the warehouse"
Me: "what?"
Agent: "I said, go see if-"
Me: "WHAT?"
Agent: "THE DRIVER! GO SEE--"
Me: "WHO? DRIVE WHERE?"
Agent: -click-
This works too.
Fortunately, our phone number is ex-directory, so the only telemarketing calls we get are from BT. They never learn...
The amusing thing is though, our number is a digit off from the local mental hospital... Amazingly we haven't had any weird calls for someone looking to call there.
And even more amusing; our neighbour's phone number is quite close to the council's number, and frequently gets calls from people needing a new bin. The funniest part is that they get answering machine messages to this effect, despite changing it to say: 'This is not the council, we cannot provide you with a new bin...' Suppose, it just proves that no one listens to answering mahcines.
It actually annoys me if someone DOESN'T ask who they're speaking to. I sound a bit like my mum on the phone, and I've had her boss, and even her sister start talking to me as if I was my mum.Ã, ::) All they have to do is say who they are, and who they're looking for - is that so hard?
I do the same to telemarketers. There is usually a long pause after you pick up. I usually start with a "Didn't you call here before? Oh yeah, you're that asshole that killed my cat! How could you do that! I loved that cat! Why do you get your jollies on killing poor children's pets? I REFUSE TO TALK TO YOU! NEVER CALL ME AGAIN!"
Quote from: Darth Mandarb on Wed 09/03/2005 15:06:36
One time I had a telemarker stay on the line for over a half hour!!
I actually get quite annoyed at people who do their best to torment telemarketers. Your little games have no effect whatsoever on the company that had you called up. The only person you're screwing over is someone like Kinoko (or me, a few years ago), someone who needed a job and had limited options at the time. Maybe an aspiring actor or artist. Most likely, the seller at the other end of the phone is working on commission, and not making very much. How hard is it to say "Thanks, but I'm not interested. Have a nice day!" and hang up?
The people who try to fax stuff to my phoneline at 4 am, on the other hand... >:(
Quote from: Snarky on Thu 10/03/2005 01:39:46
How hard is it to say "Thanks, but I'm not interested. Have a nice day!" and hang up?
it's quite easy to first few times, but after about the twenteenth time you tend to just either hang up straight away or shout obscenities down the phone.
it's not polite to keep phoning people and trying to force your wares upon them all day, so why should people be expected to be polite?
telemarketing is a stupid idea run and operated by stupid people that just annoys everyone, same as door to door salesmen, get a proper job!
I have to agree. I really hate the telemarketing industry as a whole, and telemarketers calling gets on my nerves, but I'm always polite to them because I know the people calling are just doing a job they no doubt hate and took out of necessity. Noone WANTS these jobs, and I've never met anyone who likes calling up and annoying people at home.
I always used to get annoyed at my boyfriend for listening to them for so long. He didn't want to be on the phone with them, but he didn't like to butt in on them so he'd get stuck on the phone for ages. Although I'd admire his politeness, it was a waste of everyone's time. I just tell them I'm not interested as plainly as I can and if they keep on starting up over and over, I just say it one last time, goodbye and hang up. Or I tell them they've caught me going out the door and act like I'm in a hurry. I always liked that one...
Just tell them they caught you while you were having sex. They'll let you go.
...but they'll probably just call back again in a week.
Quote from: MillsJROSS on Wed 09/03/2005 18:10:08
I only use my cell phone as my means of contact. I get an occasional wrong number, from time to time. What pisses me off, is the people who call, and it's the wrong number, and then they call again. But other than that, I'm quite happy phone wise.
-MillsJROSS
Me too, but once the same girl called "the wrong number" four times over the course of a few days. Apparently she was trying to reach her boyfriend, so the fourth time I thought it was pretty absurd that she hadn't corrected the issue yet.
Me: Hello
Girl: Hey baby.
Me: Hey, what's up?
Girl: Nothing, what about you?
Me: I think we should see other people.
Girl:
What?
Me: Yeah, I'm getting kind of tired of this, "only one girl, all of the time," thing. Bye.
Girl: No, wait, you as..
*click*
I don't know why she didn't call me back. She probably dialed the right number that time, I guess. :D
I think it's hilarious that she didn't recognize that my voice wasn't her boyfriend.
Hehehe, that's fantastic ^_^
Hehe, I used to get wrong numbers when I lived with my parents all the time. If they were polite I was too, even though it was annoying. This one time some chick called up and asked for Bob, who I suppose was her boyfriend. When I told her that Bob wasn't there she argued with me about it. The conversation ended up sounding like that old Cheech and Chong routine (Chong: "Who's there?", Cheech: "It's me Dave.", Chong: "Dave's not here." ....). Finally she got really pissed and almost in tears said "Humph, you just don't wantr me to talk to Bob.".
A car insurance telemarketer called my brother-in-law asked him to listen before he said anything. My brother-in-law tried to break into the sales pitch several times but wasn't abl;e to get a word in. At the end of the pitch the salesman asked "Well what do you think?". My brother-in-law said "Sounds like a great deal. When I get a car I'll be sure and look you up.".
Quote
I actually get quite annoyed at people who do their best to torment telemarketers. ... Most likely, the seller at the other end of the phone is working on commission, and not making very much. How hard is it to say "Thanks, but I'm not interested. Have a nice day!" and hang up?
I'm sorry Snarky, but , I think telemarketers deserve whatever they get. Telemarketers aren't the only people who have jobs and/or other responsibilities. How would you like to get 20 calls at 3:00 AM everyday? Can you honestly say that you would wake-up for each call and politely say "Thanks, but I'm not interested. Have a nice day!" and hang up?".
We have a simple rule in our house, if a caller won't identify himself, the company he works for, the company who he is representing, and phone numbers where he , his company, can his client company can be reached, then he has no business intruding in my home.
The next time you get a telemarketer, try asking him/her their name and number, the name of their company, where the company is incorporated, the names of the company's principles, and an address where they can take service, to see what happens. This is all information you would need to file a lawsuit. It identifies who is accountable for any bussiness you may conduct with telemarketer. I have yet to find a telemarketer who will give up such information. Why would anyone conduct business with an annomous party? "Hey man send me $100 and I'll send you a brand new Porsch!".
When this one guy finally told me he didn't know anything, I asked to talk to his manager. He told me he didn't know who that was. Do you think it was polite of him to lie to me like that?
I'll leave you all with some of my father's philosophy on phone etiquitte: "I'm not going to break my neck to answer that phone! If it's important they'll call again...". Hehe, and it drives my wife nuts when I am too busy to answer the phone, which is usually.
Cheers
Sara gets so mad at me 'cause I just ignore the house phone when it rings. I know anybody that wants to talk to me is going to call my cellphone, not the housephone. So I just ignore it. She still has the 'reflex' to answer it just 'cause it's ringing.
Like RickJ said, if it's important, they'll call back. If the phone rings, and then stops, and then rings again I'll check the caller ID at that point.
As far as being rude to telemarketers ... here's my take. If you DO answer a telemarket call and it's a person right way (not a recording) you should say, "I'm not interested, thanks" and hang up. Quick and polite. However, if a telemarketing company has the NERVE to make you wait through a recording to talk to somebody?? Forget about it, they get what they deserve after that. Not only do you have to be bothered with the call, now they want you to wait on them?? No frickin' way.
As far as I'm concerened; telemarketers and SPAMMERS are the same thing. It should be made illegal. Nobody wants it yet we ALL have to put up with it? Rediculous.
I screen the calls when I'm at my parents. If I don't recognize the caller id, then if it's someone important they can leave a message or call sometime when my parents are home. I never have understood telemarketers calling at 11 in the morning on weekdays. Perhaps they assume there to be one working parent or some such. In any such event, I either hang up if I hear that little pause, or I politely tell them that I'm not the person to talk to.
I don't hate Telemarketers. I just don't like getting phone calls interupting my day. The people I'm mad at, are the people who keep Telemarketing going. Namely, those who actually by the product that the Telemarketer is selling. Because, obviously, there must be enough people buying from Telemarketers to support it.
-MillsJROSS
Heh, I remember a telemarketer called us recently, and my mom wasn't home, so I said so, and she asked when she'll be home, except she was gone for 3 days, so I said I didnt know and that they can call us back in a few days. Thankfully, they never did ;). Otherwise, we usually get a lot of surveys calling. Sometimes we answer, if its some important topic, but it's usually about our choice of dairy product or some such thing.
That last telemarketer was terribly annoying:
Me: Hello
Her: Hello, can I ask you just 2 simple questions?
Me: Umm.. ok..?
Her: Do you like resting?
Me: Uh, yeah?
Her: Do you like making money?
Me: That's a bit irrelevant to me.. I guess.
Her: Even if you just like one of those things, you'll like this new supermarket program we have for you. -bla bla bla bla bla bla-
Me: Well, I'm not interested. Goodbye.
I sat and stared at the phone for a few moments after, thinking "wtf? Do you like resting? Do you like making money? Do you like resting AND making money at the same time?" Jeez, what a terrible sales pitch.
The worst part was she was speaking in such a perky voice, sounding as if she really likes this job and is very excited about calling ME and about this wonderful super market program.
That car insurance example is hilarious. I think that happened to us once too, only we didn't endure a long pitch.
Quote from: MillsJROSS on Thu 10/03/2005 18:31:57
I don't hate Telemarketers. I just don't like getting phone calls interupting my day. The people I'm mad at, are the people who keep Telemarketing going. Namely, those who actually by the product that the Telemarketer is selling. Because, obviously, there must be enough people buying from Telemarketers to support it.
It's true, who the hell ARE these people? Not buying from charities, but just buying a holiday voucher over the phone, or some product... WHY?