The moron comment was specifically intended to people who felt the best way to spend their time on the phone with me or another agent was to harass them instead of a) Asking to be removed from the calling list or b)Asking to speak to a supervisor, so they could get the information they could use to make sure they were removed. And, yes, we gladly gave both our address (we were a contracted call center) and address of the company we were working for to those who asked. I am not disputing that there are bad companies in the telemarketing industry, I have dealt with plenty on my own phones. I am simply asking that people not treat every single one like they are the absolute scum of the earth because they need a job.
That page is loaded with stuff no one in their right mind would put up on a totally public web page.
Talk about spectacularly poor judgement. I think there is something wrong with the guy.
I am well aware of the privacy implications of posting that information on my website. However, until now, the only people who seemed to visit my website were people who already knew me personally. If I was worried about people finding that information, I wouldn't have posted, and also would not constantly include the web address of the page on message boards, forums, etc. However, I have not updated the page in 3 years, and some of those things have changed. I am not planning to update it again before Yahoo pulls the plug on geocities.
I don't consider my post a flame, just a different point of view toward the subject (Telemarketing, not the warranty calls.) As for posting my e-mail address, I don't mind too much. The worst that will happen is my spam filter will be more busy than usual.
If your company was selling a legitimate product/service for a reasonable amount of money, it would not have to cold-call random people to do so.
My company did not cold-call anyone, we only called former customers to either let them know about new products they might like or to see if they needed to reorder products they had ordered in the past.
But I'll bite, anyway. Go ahead: Name the company or companies and products you were representing, and the prices you offered to them. Let us hear about this useful product or service and the fair prices you were offering.
The truth shall set you free. You say you don't work for them, anymore, so you have nothing to lose.
The companies I represented were Blue Stuff, Inc. and Time Life Music. For blue stuff, we sold a menthol-emu oil cream that could help people with various pains. I never used the product myself, but heard plenty of customers tell me how useful it was for them (I also took inbound sales calls for Blue Stuff.) On outbound calls we would offer various sizes of Blue Stuff at a discounted rate. The particular offers carried, and since it has been 4+ years since I left the company, and even longer since I worked that campaign, I can't recall the exact numbers.
For Time-Life, we called people who had previously ordered either a music or video set (We saw their order history on our first page) to see if they were interested in other sets based on the type of music/video they had purchased before. The pricing was standard for TL. ~$130 for a box set, or ~$15-20 for individual volumes. People who ordered had a choice between the set or trying the discs one by one and keeping what they wanted.
I will decline to answer about the validity of the phone number.
If that is what you think is the best use of your time, then I suppose that I can't do much to stop you. However, if such things were to become problematic I would be sure to let my phone company know the numbers to block. If this failed to work, I would contact the police.
Actually, I never worked for a company that did any cold-calling. We only called previous customers to see if, for one company They wanted to place a new order for the products they ordered before or, for another if products based on their previous purchases would be of interest to them.
But hey, you have to expect that sort of thing when you take a job you know is immoral and unethical.
What exactly makes the job immoral and unethical? I will admit that I myself have been annoyed by some in the industry who could care less about regulations, but the company I worked for did nothing to show either of these things. When I worked in QA, if I saw/heard anything even remotely questionable it was immediately reported to both my manager and the rep's supervisor. The problems rarely surfaced again after that. I really hate that people generalize an industry because of a few bad apples.
I almost miss getting telemarketing calls. It was kinda fun to have someone that you can mess with and insult in most disgusting ways without feeling the least bit bad about it.
I used to hate people like you. I worked for a telemarketing company for a while. It was bad enough when I was on the phones and had to deal with you, what was even worse is being in QA/Mgmt and having to listen to the other reps deal with it and have to give negative reports because of their inability to do their job because of morons who couldn't simply ask to be removed.
Since you referenced we in your post, I will assume you are from the US. Given that, I think it may be a good idea for you to brush up on history a little.
Remember that the Bill of Rights was written as a "sure, we'll put it in just to be safe" thing. It wasn't part of the original negotiated plan, and was likely written by a legislator who was trying to compe up with a good inclusive list one afternoon.
The Bill of Rights was a very specifically written addition to the constitution. The reason it was not in the original document is that most of the states already carried these rights in their state constitutions and the rights were considered self-evident. (i.e. they don't need to be specified) However, there were those worried that in time the government would "forget" these rights and so they were drafted by a convention to be sure that everyone remembered them.
Your scenario raises an interesting question -- what happens in a theoretical United States with 3+ strong parties? Is 270 REALLY needed to win an election by actual US LAW, or is that merely the simple mathematical result calculated by the media of a 538 vote pool where its been =assumed= all votes will be cast in an effectively 2-party system.
Yes, the law is that you must win a majority (not a plurality) of electoral votes to win the presidency. In fact, there have been a couple occasions in the past where this very thing happened. I'm too lazy to go look them all up right now, but 1800 was one of them.
As for your point about abstentions, I don't believe I have ever heard that raised, and as I don't have all the answers to constitutional law, not sure how it would be affected.
But abstaining would have been practically equivalent (Gore wins 266 to 246)
There is but one minor flaw in this statement. If neither candidate receives the necessary electoral votes to win, then the House of Representatives must choose from among the top 3 electoral finishers. See link for source.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electoral_College_(United_States)#Joint_session_of_Congress_and_the_contingent_election. As Gore would have only had 266 of the needed 270, the House would have decided the winner. How that would have gone is something only an alternate timeline knows.
If the republicans running are so unqualified, then why don't either: 1) You run for the seat, or 2) You Find someone qualified and get them to run for it?
Yet, this of course assumes that your country is one the US is friendly with, and thay the Czar does his job, and convinces your country to pass a similar law.
Slashdot Mirror
The moron comment was specifically intended to people who felt the best way to spend their time on the phone with me or another agent was to harass them instead of a) Asking to be removed from the calling list or b)Asking to speak to a supervisor, so they could get the information they could use to make sure they were removed. And, yes, we gladly gave both our address (we were a contracted call center) and address of the company we were working for to those who asked. I am not disputing that there are bad companies in the telemarketing industry, I have dealt with plenty on my own phones. I am simply asking that people not treat every single one like they are the absolute scum of the earth because they need a job.
That page is loaded with stuff no one in their right mind would put up on a totally public web page. Talk about spectacularly poor judgement. I think there is something wrong with the guy.
I am well aware of the privacy implications of posting that information on my website. However, until now, the only people who seemed to visit my website were people who already knew me personally. If I was worried about people finding that information, I wouldn't have posted, and also would not constantly include the web address of the page on message boards, forums, etc. However, I have not updated the page in 3 years, and some of those things have changed. I am not planning to update it again before Yahoo pulls the plug on geocities.
I don't consider my post a flame, just a different point of view toward the subject (Telemarketing, not the warranty calls.) As for posting my e-mail address, I don't mind too much. The worst that will happen is my spam filter will be more busy than usual.
If your company was selling a legitimate product/service for a reasonable amount of money, it would not have to cold-call random people to do so.
My company did not cold-call anyone, we only called former customers to either let them know about new products they might like or to see if they needed to reorder products they had ordered in the past.
But I'll bite, anyway. Go ahead: Name the company or companies and products you were representing, and the prices you offered to them. Let us hear about this useful product or service and the fair prices you were offering.
The truth shall set you free. You say you don't work for them, anymore, so you have nothing to lose.
The companies I represented were Blue Stuff, Inc. and Time Life Music. For blue stuff, we sold a menthol-emu oil cream that could help people with various pains. I never used the product myself, but heard plenty of customers tell me how useful it was for them (I also took inbound sales calls for Blue Stuff.) On outbound calls we would offer various sizes of Blue Stuff at a discounted rate. The particular offers carried, and since it has been 4+ years since I left the company, and even longer since I worked that campaign, I can't recall the exact numbers.
For Time-Life, we called people who had previously ordered either a music or video set (We saw their order history on our first page) to see if they were interested in other sets based on the type of music/video they had purchased before. The pricing was standard for TL. ~$130 for a box set, or ~$15-20 for individual volumes. People who ordered had a choice between the set or trying the discs one by one and keeping what they wanted.
I will decline to answer about the validity of the phone number. If that is what you think is the best use of your time, then I suppose that I can't do much to stop you. However, if such things were to become problematic I would be sure to let my phone company know the numbers to block. If this failed to work, I would contact the police.
Actually, I never worked for a company that did any cold-calling. We only called previous customers to see if, for one company They wanted to place a new order for the products they ordered before or, for another if products based on their previous purchases would be of interest to them.
But hey, you have to expect that sort of thing when you take a job you know is immoral and unethical.
What exactly makes the job immoral and unethical? I will admit that I myself have been annoyed by some in the industry who could care less about regulations, but the company I worked for did nothing to show either of these things. When I worked in QA, if I saw/heard anything even remotely questionable it was immediately reported to both my manager and the rep's supervisor. The problems rarely surfaced again after that. I really hate that people generalize an industry because of a few bad apples.
I almost miss getting telemarketing calls. It was kinda fun to have someone that you can mess with and insult in most disgusting ways without feeling the least bit bad about it.
I used to hate people like you. I worked for a telemarketing company for a while. It was bad enough when I was on the phones and had to deal with you, what was even worse is being in QA/Mgmt and having to listen to the other reps deal with it and have to give negative reports because of their inability to do their job because of morons who couldn't simply ask to be removed.
Remember that the Bill of Rights was written as a "sure, we'll put it in just to be safe" thing. It wasn't part of the original negotiated plan, and was likely written by a legislator who was trying to compe up with a good inclusive list one afternoon.
The Bill of Rights was a very specifically written addition to the constitution. The reason it was not in the original document is that most of the states already carried these rights in their state constitutions and the rights were considered self-evident. (i.e. they don't need to be specified) However, there were those worried that in time the government would "forget" these rights and so they were drafted by a convention to be sure that everyone remembered them.
Your scenario raises an interesting question -- what happens in a theoretical United States with 3+ strong parties? Is 270 REALLY needed to win an election by actual US LAW, or is that merely the simple mathematical result calculated by the media of a 538 vote pool where its been =assumed= all votes will be cast in an effectively 2-party system.
Yes, the law is that you must win a majority (not a plurality) of electoral votes to win the presidency. In fact, there have been a couple occasions in the past where this very thing happened. I'm too lazy to go look them all up right now, but 1800 was one of them. As for your point about abstentions, I don't believe I have ever heard that raised, and as I don't have all the answers to constitutional law, not sure how it would be affected.
But abstaining would have been practically equivalent (Gore wins 266 to 246)
There is but one minor flaw in this statement. If neither candidate receives the necessary electoral votes to win, then the House of Representatives must choose from among the top 3 electoral finishers. See link for source.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electoral_College_(United_States)#Joint_session_of_Congress_and_the_contingent_election. As Gore would have only had 266 of the needed 270, the House would have decided the winner. How that would have gone is something only an alternate timeline knows.
If the republicans running are so unqualified, then why don't either: 1) You run for the seat, or 2) You Find someone qualified and get them to run for it?
Yet, this of course assumes that your country is one the US is friendly with, and thay the Czar does his job, and convinces your country to pass a similar law.
Texas is the state not included, because they think that the restrictions do not go far enough.