was sorting through some papers and came across this short, quasi-fictional, piece about telemarketers and their evil genius, entitled you ridiculous people, by the one and only matthew monteleone. thought i’d share it. enjoy.
“i don’t read the paper. i have a glaucoma and i can’t even see anymore…”
“well, the thing with life is, sometimes you win and sometimes you lose. take care.”
you ridiculous people: on the whole you despise telemarketers. despite your complaints of being bothered there are so many of you who are so damned lonely and are really just looking for someone to listen to you. your children no longer care. of course, there are a good number of you who consider yourselves to be prudent and undeceivable and who will just hang up on me abruptly, unaware that i’m only going to put your name on the heavy rotation call back list to spite you. curse at me, tell me “how you don’t deal with telephone solicitation,” bitterly demand to know how i’ve acquired your telephone number… reject me all you like: you have no impact on my self-esteem, my emotional stability, nor on my identity. i know exactly who you are; you have no idea who i am. you don’t need to know who i am anyway, all you need to know is that i’m exactly like you. and i’ve heard all your excuses, each of your remotely witty telemarketer comebacks, each of your rejections. you feel satisfied when you hang up telephone… “they’re not gonna get me this time.”
my computer makes five hundred calls a day. you were forgotten before i even spoke with you. you are of absolutely no consequence to myself or my corporation unless you purchase a newspaper subscription.
“hi, do you get the newspaper delivered there?”
“i don’t have time to read anything other than my bible.”
“the bible is a great book, but does it come with a daily crossword or television listings? i’m not sure that it does.”
if you believe that you are in control of the conversation it’s only because i’ve let you feel that way. i’ve recognized that without a sense of control, you will not continue the conversation in any way. i’ve determined this within the first ten seconds of our conversation, and, consequently, i’ve adapted my intonation, my speed, and my word choice to create the illusion of your empowerment. our entire phone relationship is fabricated, based solely on the first ten seconds i speak with you. i patronize , i mislead, i purposefully emphasize words such as “just” or “only,” i buy time with irrelevant questions, i do whatever i need to do to develop some vague form of bond. my identity wanders from call to call, from the bourgeois husband and father, to the enlightened aristocrat, to the blue collar hero who’s working two jobs, to the southern neighbor, the concerned environmentalist, the highly verbose cosmopolitan… and all the way back to the original college student if necessary. i am trained to reflect your image, relate to everything, and match your vocal tones, eliminating any suspicion that i am not exactly like you in everything i do.
“hi, is this the head of the household?”
“no.”
“oh… can i speak with your mom or dad please?”
“my mom died in a car crash.”
“well, then let me have a word with your dad i guess…”
no matter how much we seem to be genuinely interested in your problem, i am always thinking several steps in advance about how to relate your dilemma back to the newspaper and why you should subscribe. “oh your wife died? sure, mine too, what i found helpful was to get the newspaper, flip to the obituaries, and put her on the fridge right next to that picture the whole family took over at the local wal-mart. you know, the paper’s filled with school information, so you might want to get to know who your kid’s kindergarten teacher is before she calls you about your kid drawing fucked-up pictures about death, car crashes and emotional pain…”
i have empathized with you before you have answered the phone, i have solved your problems before you’ve even realized them. i have even gone so far as to calculate how much money you are losing per week by not subscribing to the paper. i have taken care of absolutely everything… all you have to do is buy the paper.
“hi, do you speak english?”
“no.”
“is there a person there who does speak english?”
“no.”
“ok, then, adios amigo…”