Notes From My Knapsack 2-3-08
Jeff Gill

Do Not Call Me, Skip the Please

Rudeness is something we’re trying to avoid teaching the Little Guy, whether at home or away.

Away is going fine, but at home . . .

It’s hard to hide your phone etiquette from your son, especially around dinner time while you’re preparing a meal and he’s doing homework at the kitchen table.

The phone rings, and the mental algebra begins: what are the odds? Where is the Lovely Wife at currently, could it be her calling, is there anyone else with a pressing need for your ear today, this week, right now?

You shift into “I’ll answer it mode,” dry your hands, catch the receiver before the machine picks up at ring number four (and when nine out of ten calls click dead at the start of the message).

“Hello, Gill residence,” you say as you were trained from a pup, on a large heavy black unearthly dense plastic phone. Today’s device is smooth and light and small, but the courtesies are the same.

Your greeting gets no response, other than a crackling silence and then a very faint click, followed by a voice of robotic precision and recorded cheer. “If you are interested in a great deal that sounds too good to be true, please hold the line . . .” the disembodied lady’s voice went on in this vein a bit as I fumed and planned my next step. She concluded with “if you would like to hear more about this offer, press 1.”

Grimly, I stabbed the first key. Immediately as a voice began to ask me something, I said with great clarity and firmness “I would like to speak to a supervisor, immediately.”

You see, that’s supposed to be a law or something – you ask for a supervisor, they have to give you one. And obviously I’m not the only one to know this, because his response carried the mild weariness of someone who’s been down this route before. “I’m sorry, my supervisor does not wish to speak to you.”

Let’s just say I wasn’t surprised by this news, but thought a little persistence might help. “I am asking you, sir, officially and formally, to please connect me with a supervisor.”

With equal politeness, almost to the point of derision, he replied “Sir, my supervisor has specifically said he does not wish to speak to you. That is not going to happen. Are we done here?”

With the last idea I had, my retort was “If there is no supervisor available, I’d like a mailing address for your business, please.”

There was a brief silence, and then I think I heard a soft chuckle. “Sir, we have no address. We do not exist. And that, I believe, is the end of our conversation; good night.”

Well, if I were more committed to spending my precious free time aggravating people calling numbers on the “Do Not Call” registry, I could have played along a while and at least found out what they were selling – some kind of financial instruments, probably sheep futures or hedge trimmer funds or something like that – and maybe gotten a business name before calling on the no doubt still distant and inaccessible supervisor.

On the other hand, yelling and ranting on the phone while the Little Guy listens isn’t my best use of time, near 6:00 pm or any other time.

For all of you who have wondered, the “Do Not Call” registry at www.donotcall.gov is still working, works for mobile phones, and isn’t going to require you to call in every five years. Many of us did register our phones five years ago, but Congress has put the renewal question on hold.

If you’ve gotten one of the every January and July e-mails that float about referring to releases of cell phone numbers to telemarketers, don’t panic, and you can go to www.snopes.com and type in “Do Not Call” and “cell phone” to learn more about that internet myth (always check Snopes.com for those fwd: e-mails you get).

And if your phone isn’t on the registry, click or call 888-382-1222 and get yourself some minimal protection from the phone vultures. I can say when a local business in Licking County called at dinner time and I asked for a supervisor (they said, “I’m my supervisor, sir”), then pointed out it was illegal to call me, they immediately apologized and said they’d fix their, um, list (right, they have a list – they have an auto-dial machine is what they’ve got).

Then they offered me something free that was what I didn’t want to be called about, to make it up to me. I cheerfully observed that, from where I knew they were, it was five minutes to my house, and if they brought it, I’d feed them dinner. We both agreed that neither of us needed what the other offered, and there it ended.

For now.

Jeff Gill is in the book, perhaps foolishly; just e-mail him at knapsack77@gmail.com.