A timeshare telemarketer called to inquire about my vacation plans. I told him I didn't have any and that, when I start formulating some, I will do so with The Partner, who is not available at this moment.
The telemarketer told me he could not wait. His offer for two days, two nights in LAS VEGAS! TUSCON! CORAL GABLES! was time sensitive.
"I am not an idiot," I informed him.
"Did you know that vacationing together is one of the most important things you can do as a family?"
"You can stop with the spiel because I am not going to make any decisions without The Partner."
"I'll tell you what. I can give you all the information about our premier resorts in LAS VEGAS! TUSCON! CORAL GABLES! and you can call your husband to discuss it. Then you can get back to me right away." He spoke with a strange lack of inflection despite the exclamations.
"No," I said.
"Your husband sounds dominating; your marriage, unstable. Perhaps you need to reconnect. In CORAL GABLES!" Okay, so he didn't actually say that. But I was so livid I wasn't paying much attention to what was coming out of his mouth. All I knew is that I'd received this "one time offer" about fifty times before. I don't take kindly to being played by script-reading bastards.
"Listen to me, buddy. If you want to give any information, you're going to have to call back tonight. I am not making any decisions now. And you can just stop acting like this is a special offer and that I'm as stupid as you are."
"If you pass this up now, I'm just going to have to go on to the next person."
I've never been one of those quick-wits who can come up with extemporaneous zingers. I can't even think of them after the fact. My vocabulary at any given point just does not match the vitriol burning inside me. Instead, I huff a lot, and I foam, and sometimes I snort.
"You," I huffed. "Do," I spit. "That," I snorted. Then I slammed down the phone. On the way to the cradle, he inserted the last line from his script. His tone remained vacant and even, but his voice got softer as the distance grew between my effervescing head and the earpiece.
"Thank you. Good bye."
I stared dumbly at the phone. I snorted again. I perched with furrowed brow at the edge of my desk chair.
In my complete overreaction to having my intelligence questioned by this telemarketer, an uncomfortable possibility was brought again to the forefront.
Maybe I am an idiot.
Tuesday, January 06, 2009
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
3 comments:
You are not an idiot. Far from it.
All you need is to speak their language. Write it in a script, say the exclamation points with a stunning lack of excitement and then, at the very end of you retort, tell them to "hold their hands firmly on their buttocks," then hang up the phone.
no you are NOT the idiot in this case...I mean, in any case but not this one especially
You did much better then I ever would have. Maybe it's a cultural thing, but I think Brits have much less patience then you seem to, and would rudely put the phone down on a cold caller without even a 'thank you, good bye'. It amazes me that they ever get any business - if I wanted a holiday, I'd go out, find out about it and look for a deal, not take an offer on the spur of the moment hard sell choice decision.
(Can I interest you in a cheaper ISP/phone deal by any chance?)
Post a Comment