How do people who work for robocall companies (unrequested phone marketing) live with themselves?

You KNOW why they do it. And it is a mistake to assume that they either enjoy taunting you or should have fits of conscience at annoying you for the minimum wage.

They are desperate. Sad.

I still hate their guts though.

They are not harming you and they are trying to earn enough to eat. I have known disabled people for whom this job was essential. Anyone who is rude to anyone making an unsolicitated sales call needs to question their own conscience.

They live with themselves because they have to make a living. Mouths to feed, rent, medical bills, utilities, gasoline, you know, stuff like that.

“People ask me why I’m playing in this picture. The answer is simple: Money, dear boy.”
—Laurence Olivier

Call centers can employ the otherwise unemployable and they do.

I wish there was an effective way to strike back….

It’s a living—albeit a shitty one that doesn’t pay well.

It’s a pay cheque. There’s no upside to being angry with the people who need those jobs.

They are depressed and sad because they are just doing their job and still get yelled at by random idiots who are unable to simply say “no thanks” and close the line instead of shouting and insulting people they don’t even see.

And they are probably not even paid much for all the shit they go through.

People need to work. A guy who cuts down trees for a living probably doesn’t wake up in the morning going, hell yeah man I’m off to destroy some nature. One could ask then, why do they chose this field of work? Well you don’t always go where you want in life. I don’t know if it’s easy being a telemarketer but if it is accessible, a lot of people will take what they can get to pay the bills.
They are annoying but one would be mistaken should they assume that telemarketers do this to be pricks. I think there are things in life much worse than this.

How do they live with themselves. In a way you could ask this of so many other jobs.

Ask the telemarketers what it would take for them to give up their company/center location. Agree to the sum of money. Offer half up front and the other half upon verifying the location. Pay with paypal using your credit card (make sure you have good credit). Once the deed is done and you verified the address, request a chargeback from paypal/credit issuer within the required time frame to get all your money back. Now that you ousted their location, tell them to remove you from the list and if you want to take it further, report them to the FTC (except if it is a non-profit).

Every one of us, no matter our levels of frustration realizes that the people compelled to degrade themselves are unworthy of our hatred or contempt. The people profiting from their degradation will never receive a cussing out nor experience a phone slammed down in angry disgust.

How do they “live with themselves”? Well, they live. If they’re lucky, they’re still living in their homes and have enough to eat.

How desperate does a person need to become before taking that job? Perhaps the caller had lost his job and then exhausted his unemployment benefits. Maybe somebody’s qualified to work at a big-box store, but the local Target or Walmart either shut down or isn’t hiring.

Telemarketing is at the very bottom rung of the workplace. Everyone dislikes telemarketers, including the people who end up placing those calls. These people are low-wage workers, with miserable jobs, who don’t own or control their employers. But, they’re people, indeed, each with a conscience and a wish for self-esteem.

Some years ago, my husband got laid-off with no warning or severance pay. His employer sent everyone home and closed permanently. He took a telemarketing job the next day. Fortunately for us both, we live in an economically-viable area with plenty of employment opportunities; he didn’t need to make phone calls for very long. But, he did that dreadful job, just to earn an hourly pay and get by.

When you get a call, don’t curse at the person. Don’t play mind-games or otherwise “eff” with the caller, just because you’re feeling hateful. Above all, don’t feel smug and superior; you’re no better, and your own day might someday come. Just politely say “no, thank you” and hang up.

Hey, my daughter worked in a call center and made $15.00 an hour for taking political surveys commissioned by the state of CA. from her teens until her early 20’s. It was a reliable part time evening job that worked for her. For every asshole person she also spoke with many nice people and many lonely people, especially the elderly that enjoyed talking with her. She now has a really good job making good money working for an international medical supply co. that has been around for decades but her call center years were the cash cow to help her survive on her own as a young person.

There is NO excuse to be rude to telemarketers EVER! It’s a job and one that many young people and the elderly and disabled count on to survive.

Many years ago I lived with a ex whose roommate was dating a telemarketer. He had a roommate who was one also. The two of them came over frequently. They were both in their late 30’s, both were coke heads. Both were pretty miserable. They lived in this place that had lots of small little dwellings. Just big enough for a nasty bed and rented by the day,or week.

They seem to be the dregs of our society. I pity them mostly because the job must be SO awful.

If you want a documentary, try Workaholics on comedy central. Hilarious show…

So let me get this straight, @Coloma and others.

The phone wakes me, or interrupts a meal or a conversation, or distracts me from a book. And I’m supposed to be sweet and peachy to this person who just screwed up what I was doing? Puhleeze.

I’m sorry they have to work in such an awful job, but I am not sorry for swearing at them or hanging up on them.

What gives them the right to annoy me?

(And some of you will say “don’t pick up the phone”. But that’s after the fact. The phone rang in the first place.

But when a friend or a family member phones and interrupts sleep or a meal, do you tell them to go eat shit?

Get over it. Geez. So they annoy you. Give up your land line and have a pleasant ring tone on your cell for people you don’t know.
There. Problem solved, and you’re not required to be a flaming ass-hat to people less fortunate than you who are trying to make a living.

@elbanditoroso “So let me get this straight, @Coloma and others.

The phone wakes me, or interrupts a meal or a conversation, or distracts me from a book. And I’m supposed to be sweet and peachy to this person who just screwed up what I was doing? Puhleeze.

I’m supposed to be a decent human being to someone who calls me if I forget or choose not to turn off my phone or put it on silent mode despite living in an age where both options are available to me? Puhleeze.

I’m sorry they have to work in such an awful job, but I am not sorry for swearing at them or hanging up on them.

I’m sorry they have to work in such an awful job, but I am not going to alter my own behavior in any way as a result of it or take my anger out on any of the people who are actually responsible for the situation that annoyed me.

What gives them the right to annoy me?

What gives them the right to use their phone to call my phone?

(And some of you will say “don’t pick up the phone”. But that’s after the fact. The phone rang in the first place.

(And some of you will say “don’t pick up the phone”. But that requires foresight and proactivity. The phone range in the first place because I expect the world to cater to my needs instead of doing what I can to prevent annoyances in the first place.)

Fixed that for you.

@elbanditoroso Man, you have an ego the size of Rhode Island. Do you really think these telemarketers are deliberately interrupting you Mr. oh, so special Snowflake?
Yes, get the fuck over it.

There are apps that can help with unwanted calls.

If it’s a land line ask them to remove you from their list. Ask to speak to their supervisor, and tell them you will report them to the BBB. That used to work for me when I had a landline.

Most importantly, I almost never give my cell number to anyone. Lots of places will sell your information.

I use True Caller. I can block any number. Blocked my ex,blocked my bill collectors ,and I block numbers I don’t know.

You would be shocked at how effective this stuff is.. One word, elderly. It is in the playbook. Hang up on young people as fast as possible. Wait for grandma that is lonely and is desperate for someone to talk to. Chat her up for a hour about her grand-kids and her favorite Christmas cookies. Then she thinks you are her her friend and you sell her a water filter she doesn’t need.

I am not joking. This is the playbook.

^^This is exactly what they are up to and it’s soo hard to get the elderly to give up landlines.

My mom is hitting the point where she bought land in Arizona on Ebay. And she has been paying 75 a month for it for over two years. No paperwork or anything, but she thinks she owns land in Arizona.

When I question her she says the seller has 99% positives. She pays into this scam every month but is always sick because she can’t afford her insulin.

@johnpowell That is awful!

@most others on this thread Let’s take it easy on @elbanditoroso. He is annoyed at being preyed on by telemarketers? Who is not?

I’m not, I have had some really nice conversations with telemarketers.
@marinelife I think saying he is being “preyed” on, once again denotes some sort of highly personal intrusion. There is nothing personal about it and people shouldn’t take it personally.
I stand by my sentiments of there is no excuse for rude behavior, a polite ” thank you but I’m not interested ” will suffice.

@marinelife I hate telemarketing scams (and predatory business models in general). If the question had been about them, I would have responded differently. But that’s not what @elbanditoroso is whining about. He’s upset about his phone ringing when he doesn’t want it to, and he’s trying to justify being shitty to people for choosing a bad job over starvation. That attitude deserves exactly the sort of responses it has received.

My perspective is that they don’t have the right to call me with solicitation unless I have opted for it. I’m not rude, I either don’t answer or just hang up instantly.

It’s a shitty job,that someone has to do.

But I also understand that it IS a violation of privacy. If the government would step in and make it illegal, I’d be pleased.

I don’t treat door to door salesmen good on purpose. How do I know if they’re really a sales rep, or thief casing my place?

I don’t like uninvited guests, or phone calls. Unless it’s pretty important. I’ve lived in places where I answered the door with a shotgun.

Each to their own….

So I understand that the OP’s side about privacy.

My home is my home.

I NEED a secure place, where I won’t be bothered.

^^People have been posing as salesman here and when people answer they barge in, subdue the occupant and rob the place.

But really, @MrGrimm888 and other annoyed ones, there are options, like one I mentioned above. And unless you live waaaaaaay out in the boonies like @LuckyGuy, there are so many potential annoyances that plague modern life that ignoring them is your best bet. I live in the ‘burbs, and people run lawn mowers and leaf blowers and snow blowers and children play loudly and car alarms go off etc etc etc. I don’t treat my neighbor’s rudely or yell at their kids or key their cars. This is life, take steps to deal with it.
Your privacy is more invaded with junk mail than calls you can ignore. You can’t unsee the flyers.

@SavoirFaire you say that I am trying to “justify being shitty”...

Why shouldn’t I be shitty? OK, I appreciate that they have a lousy job that they are lucky to have. How does that place an obligation on me when they have broken in on my solitude?

I see a linkage to Atlas Shrugged here – where Galt (I’m paraphrasing here) says that one has no right to place an obligation on someone else, unless that person agrees. So where is my obligation to be civil? “Society” says I should be civil. Flutheropia says I should be civil. Why?

Why should I be more polite than the person who phoned me?

@Berserker asks if I act the same when a friend or family member calls. Silly question. Of course not. That’s someone I know and have an existing relationship with. @Berserker, that should have been obvious. You threw in a red herring.

And to the people who suggested “drop the house phone” – No – I use it for business and other reasons, so I can’t do that. But even if I could, why should I be forced to do that by some telephonic hooligans?

Finally, I get robocalls and spam calls on my cell phone as well, so that’s not a solution.

@elbanditoroso: “Why” you ask?
Basic human decency. That’s why.

@elbanditoroso You’re missing the point entirely and still assigning this egoic personalization to these callers. There is no YOU!
“You” are just a name and a number, you and every other person they are calling. You should be polite because someone is just doing their job and tough shit if answering, which you have the option to decline, is an inconvenience.

You have been given numerous suggestions and still you insist on your right to be a jackass , sooo, clearly, you enjoy being a jackass so jackass on.

@Coloma – does the fact that I am just a name and number excuse what they are doing?

If anything, it makes it worse.

Didn’t we just have this discussion?

@elbanditoroso Telemarketing is legal.
Telemarketing is a viable marketing tool.
Telemarketers are usually high school, college age kids, disabled and retirees a lot of the time trying to make ends meet.
Maybe try to see the person through the forest of your curmudgeonly, crotchety, old geezer irritation.

What if it was your kid, great aunt Molly or your disabled neighbor trying to earn some extra money? These are people working in a perfectly legal industry and you have a choice to simply not answer. You CHOOSE to answer. Don’t you have voicemail?

Why not just screen your calls and call back the non-telemarketers, that’s what I’ve done for years now. Nobody is a slave to their damn hones, you’re in charge. Is it really worth elevating your blood pressure to stroke levels just because your phone rings randomly and it’s a telemarketer? Dude…save yourself all the grief, screen your calls, done.

@elbanditoroso “Why shouldn’t I be shitty?”

As @canidmajor already said, “human decency.” If that’s not a good enough reason for you, then you should reconsider your opposition to Trump.

“OK, I appreciate that they have a lousy job that they are lucky to have. How does that place an obligation on me when they have broken in on my solitude?”

First of all, they have not “broken in on” your solitude. You have allowed them into your solitude by leaving your ringer on. Second, someone else—in this case, @Berserker—has once again already said it best: “when a friend or a family member phones and interrupts sleep or a meal, do you tell them to go eat shit?” If your objection really is just to the interruption, it shouldn’t matter who is doing the interrupting.

“I see a linkage to Atlas Shrugged here – where Galt (I’m paraphrasing here) says that one has no right to place an obligation on someone else, unless that person agrees.”

Galt was a mouthpiece for an idiot. According to that logic, it’s perfectly fine for me to murder you so long as I haven’t promised not to. It would also leave you with no grounds for objecting to robocalls since the people behind them never agreed not to dial your number.

“So where is my obligation to be civil? ‘Society’ says I should be civil. Flutheropia says I should be civil. Why?”

It seems to me the more forceful question here is “why not?” Surely one needs a reason to be a bad person more than they need a reason to be a good person. But since “human decency” doesn’t seem to be something you consider valuable, then you might consider the fact that the human virtues are good for the virtuous agents themselves, and not just for the external beneficiaries of their virtue.

“Why should I be more polite than the person who phoned me?”

First, let’s point out that you are begging the question that the other person is not being polite. Second, even if we grant the claim that they are not being polite, you have no grounds for complaining about someone if you are unwilling to act better than they do.

”@Berserker, that should have been obvious. You threw in a red herring.”

As the only professor of informal logic on this thread, I suppose it falls to me to point out that @Berserker‘s question is not, in fact, a red herring. Once again: you have framed the problem as being the interruption itself, which is why you’ve been getting so much push back. The question is therefore extremely relevant.

“And to the people who suggested “drop the house phone” – No – I use it for business and other reasons, so I can’t do that.”

Then turn off the ringer when you don’t want to be interrupted (which, you’ll notice, was my original suggestion).

“Finally, I get robocalls and spam calls on my cell phone as well, so that’s not a solution.”

Cellphones also have ringers that can be turned off.

You’re working very hard to justify something that is a matter of opinion. Yes robocallers and aggressive telemarketing is a legit job/career. People who work those jobs are not always shitty people but the practice is itself quite deplorable. If I happen to leave the ringer on and get called during dinner with my family a stern “FUCK YOU” and prompt hang up is not entirely inappropriate. Depends on how blatantly intrusive it is and what they are calling about. There are plenty of call center jobs to go work at that do not involve this aggressive approach.

@ARE_you_kidding_me I don’t know if you’re talking to me or to @elbanditoroso. If that was supposed to be a response to me, then I’ll just point out that (a) responding to poorly reasoned answers like the ones posted by @elbanditoroso is not even remotely hard work for me, and (b) you haven’t really said anything that I disagree with. If you think otherwise, then you haven’t understood the crux of my answers here.

Responding to @Coloma

@ARE_you_kidding_me Well..we just have to agree to disagree on this one. No need to say “FUCK YOU” when a simple, ” not interested, thanks, have a nice day” is not only polite but doesn’t attack someone on a level of self dignity just because they have a shitty job. I don’t want to flip burgers at McDonalds but I’m not going tell a McDonalds worker to fuck off just because I think they have a shitty job.

Mc’Ds employees don’t call me at home asking to vote for a candidate or sell me snake oil when I’m trying to spend time with my family. Dropping an F-bomb is reserved for the most egregious abuses and send the message that this is not something that will be tolerated. I hate to say it but the asshole response is at times the correct one. I’m frequently on call so I can’t just shut my phone off. I can screen or just hang up. Calls after 5:00 are met pretty harshly by me though.

@ARE_you_kidding_me Ah, that makes more sense. My mistake.

Sorry, did not preface my response

@ARE_you_kidding_me Well…if you’re going to launch an all attack attack you should direct it to the source, the company owner and let loose your fury on them, demand to be removed form their call list, not the poor worker. Hey, you’re free to behave however you want but I don’t think anyone deserves to be verbally abused just because they work in a call center.