Written by Bob Maschi   

It must suck to be a telemarketer. People screaming at you all day. A stuffy nose or a sore throat can cost you a week’s pay. Never being able to admit to your family and friends what your real job is (I clean sewers or I’m CEO of a major bank are more acceptable professions).

The Do Not Call list, which we’ve been on since, oh, about 15 minutes after it was created, doesn’t seem to help much. Probably because there’s no real penalty for ignoring it. I even had one telemarketer admit that the Do Not Call list was where they got most of their sales from.

In their energetic efforts to become even more annoying the telemarketing companies are employing interesting new tactics. My caller ID shows them originating from all kinds of wacky locations. And some of them can even make the phone ring in weird and extremely disturbing ways (because it seems like a great marketing idea to get people angry even before they pick up the phone!). And then, even when you get beyond the annoying ring and the bizarre caller ID, oftentimes…

Wait for it….

It’s coming…

Almost…

…Oftentimes they won’t even respond to your ‘Hello.’ They put you on some kind of waiting list so as not to waste their employees’ valuable time (with no consideration at all for your own time wasted). About the third time you say “Hello,” they hang up if a telemarketer isn’t available.

It is the height of capitalist greed for a potential customer to be called illegally and then be expected to wait patiently for a sales speech (most of which rely on some sort of deception). No one likes being on hold – even when they’re calling someone they want to talk to.

When I get these spam phone calls my anger level usually depends on what they interrupted. Dinner? I’m unsettled. Bathroom break? Pretty miffed. Episode of GoT or Walking Dead? Damn furious! And I’ve been known to be abusive to telemarketers. Which isn’t the right thing to do. I mean, they’re working people. Probably forced to take the job or to go homeless. Low pay. Crappy hours. Lousy working condition. Yeah, just like the rest of us.

We shouldn’t be angry so much at the telemarketer as we should be at their employer. So here’s how I now handle these calls. As I’m getting the opening lecture, I’ll politely interrupt (being polite will throw them off. They aren’t used to it). I’ll say “Excuse me, but since I’m on the Do Not Call list your boss is telling you to break the law by calling me.”

This gets them to trip over their script so I can continue. “Since you’re being told to break the law, why don’t you give me your boss’s phone number? His home phone number would be best.”

I’ll go on. “Give me his phone number and I promise I’ll make his life miserable.”

And I intend to do just that. I’ll call him constantly, day and night. If his wife answers I’ll tell her he’s having an affair. If his maid answers I’ll tell her he hides his cash in an otherwise empty Viagra bottle in the main bathroom. If it’s his kids, I’ll tell them they’re getting a herd of real ponies for Christmas. If he, himself, answers and starts screaming at me for interrupting his very expensive 900 call? I’ll innocently ask if he’s on the Do-Not-Call list and then try to sell him bed-bug eradicating gel.

At about this point the telemarketer will say something like: “I can’t do that.”

“C’mon.” I implore. “We all hate our bosses. Keep my number. The next time he screws you out of overtime or demands that you work on New Year’s Eve or denies your worker’s comp carpel tunnel claim, call me.”

Ever hear a telemarketer stutter? This is your chance.

This tactic accomplishes a few things. First, it focuses on the real enemy – the boss or owner. The one who actually makes all the criminal decisions and not just on some poor slob who needs a paycheck. Second, it’s fun! It turns the tables on the greedy bastards who pay people to interrupt your dinner and bathroom breaks and it builds a little comradery between you and the working-poor person on the other end of the line. An added bonus, if enough of us start doing this the bosses are bound to hear about it. Maybe the threat will force them to adopt more civilized, and legal, contact methods. Or even find a less despicable manner of profit-making, like repossessing wheelchairs.

But the best benefit? I’m sure it’s only a matter of time before I get an anonymous phone call where a nervous voice whispers, “Hey, dude. I have a phone number for you.”