JUST LET ME DO ALL THE TALKING

Recently one of my customer’s complimented me on my phone manners.
And also praised me for even answering the phone. He had, it seems, tried every extension in the company he knew, and I was the only person who answered. I was his last resort. After I helped him, I told him he could call my extension any time – I would be glad to be of assistance.

I was being perfectly honest.
Most of the time, when people call me, it is because they want to give me money. As I am a bill-collector, you will understand that that is a strong incentive.
I pick up the phone, you give me money, and we’re both happy. I didn’t even have to do anything for it. How perfect is that?
It’s far better than calling up stores and reducing teenage clerks to tears.
Much more ‘cost-effective’.


BIG ASS YAM!

It’s entirely different when people call me at home.
My number is unlisted, and I do not often answer the phone; my friends know that I am not a phone-social person. Consequently the people who call me are usually selling something.
Years ago, my significant other (Savage Kitten) hollered a phrase into the receiver when someone called: “Mah gurfren’s gotta big-ass yam!”.

[For the background on that surprising utterance, go here: TUBER!]

It had the desired effect. That caller hung up pdq.

Many possible approaches can be used – sometimes I ask the solicitor what he or she is wearing, and then speculate juicily about their hair-colour. That, too, cuts the sales call short.
If you don’t answer their questions in a logical fashion, it throws them for a loop.
Whereas telling them that the person they just asked for is deceased simply gets them to shift tracks, and try to sell that San Francisco Chronicle subscription to whomever with whom they are now speaking.

“So sorry to hear that Mister Boggwhump is dead…. Did he EVER tell you how much he appreciated the up-to-the-minute news, sports, and financial analysis of the SF Chronicle? If you subscribe now for three months at our low low introductory rate, we’ll even run a free obit..…”

Telling them that they just called a crime-scene doesn’t faze them either. They’re teenagers, they live in the Bay Area, they’re working a phone bank to pay for college - their entire life so far has been a crime-scene.

One has to be careful that one doesn’t reduce them to tears with one’s off-kilter responses, however. Teenagers are very fragile. Yelling “get offa mah phone you hairy brute” is just mean. They will weep and hiccough, making you feel rotten for having so scared them.
Far better to just confuse them, and leave them feeling creeped-out.
The perverted approach, when all is said and done, works best. On the phone as well as in real life.

I really wish more teenagers would call. I’m getting so lonely, here in my dank basement apartment.
Paranoia, claustrophobia, and mildew are taking their toll.
How I long to hear those dulcet young voices.
Call me.