tavie.com

Look, I hate getting called by telemarketers just as much as anybody, but I think what people are forgetting here is that calling you up in the middle of dinner is someone's shitty job. It's the shittiest job I can think of. It's no one's career goal. No one is living out a dream by doing it. Someone is doing it because they are desperate to make a living. They hate their job. They hate calling people up during their dinner hour and trying to sell them something. So the idea of tormenting them is pretty cruel, pretty digusting to me. It's not that difficult to say, "I'm sorry, I'm not interested" or "Please don't call back, we're not interested" in a polite tone of voice before hanging up. Or, if you feel you can't stop yourself from making a mean or cutting remark, then simply hanging up on them is preferable.

I was raised to be polite to telemarketers, because at least one of my parents, at some point in their young adulthood, was forced to choose between a job as a telemarketer or starving. I always feel pity for the ones who get my dad on the other end of the phone, because the only thing sadder than being a telemarketer, really, is someone who looks forwards to telemarketer's calls because he relishes an audience, any audience, to the sound of his voice. I think everyone on the staff of The New York Times and every person working at the ticket office at Lincoln Center knows about my dad's diabetes and how rough supervisors at work are on him.

Of course, none of what I've said applies to those telemarketers who call you up on your cell phone. They're fair game. How dare they make me pay for the airtime it takes for them to try and sell me something I wouldn't buy in a million years? Fuckers.

Why are you in Tavie's head? 6:12 PM | shower me with attention