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Quote Some people think I am rude to telemarketers.
“I’m calling for Mr. Lucas. Is this Mr. Lucas?\"
\"Well I don\'t know. Haven\'t taken my medication yet today.\"
Pause.
\"Uh, Mr. Lucas, this is Carleena with DripStop Shake and Siding. This is a courtesy call to let you know we\'ll be in your neighborhood—\"
\"You will? Are you asking me for a date? I like deep tissue massage.\"
\"Huh. Um, no this is a courtesy call to—\"
\"I bet you\'re trying to sell me something.\"
\"No sir, it\'s not a sales call, this just a courtsey call to offer a free inspection of your home siding to provide a written estimate of—\"
\"You ARE trying to sell me something. I don\'t think that\'s a courtesy, telling me you aren\'t trying to sell me anything, and then doing just that. Can we get back to the massage?\"
\"Sir, there is no massage. We\'ll just be inspecting your home for leaks, worn siding, places where—\"
\"We? Are you the one who\'ll come to my house?\"
\"No, sir, I\'m just a phone technician, we send—\"
\"Wait a minute, you said you work for this siding company. Who do you work for?\"
Carleena usually hangs up at that point. My friends, family, and other advisors inform me that such willful contentiousness on my part is not only unnecessary, it\'s unkind and sometimes wansers into the area of misdemeanor harassment. These are just unfortunate people, who can\'t find better work, trying to make a living. All I have to do is say, No thank, and hang up.
My position is, all they have to do is not call me. I\'m on every do-not-call list there is. I have persistently informed companies that do call me to take them off their list. I frequently invoke the Washington state laws restricting phone sales. I have never bought even the merest paint chip, kitchen gismo or wool sock from a phone sales call. When I get credit card offers in the mail, I send them back, along with my other junk mail, in their pre-paid business reply envelopes. I\'m hardcore, and I plan to stay that way.
Compared to Charles Booher of Sunnyvale, California, I\'m a pussywillow.
Booher was recently charged with making threats against a Canada-based spam firm which had literally invaded his computer, overwhelming it with popups and email that rendered it unusable for about two months. Booher pleaded to be let alone; the company redoubled it\'s electronic bombardment. In response, Booher offered to mail the company anthrax, and promised he would find and emasculate the employees unless they removed his name from their list-serves. \"I sort of lost my cool,\" he told reporters.
I understand. Somebody buries your house in spam, and what can you do? In the current state of affairs, not a damn thing. It\'s pointless to hope that the hyenas who run spam companies will want to revamp the system so unwilling recipients actually can do something; that\'s like pleading with prostitutes to give their johns blow-up dolls instead. The arena where straightening out is necessary is the \"legitimate\" business community — the companies that pay spam operators, and the even-more-legitimate high-tech outfits, such as Microsoft, that don\'t want Congress to completely outlaw spam.
The latter all claim that free speech rights, but they have this right wrong. Free speech is the right to say what you want. It\'s not the right to force other people to hear it. The latter is not a right at all.
This has been adjudicated numerous times when it comes to other communication arenas. If I want to tell you why congress should end the estate tax, I may not break down the door of your house to do so — that would be breaking and entering. If I want to call you, I can\'t do so if you tell me to stop — unwanted phonecalls are harassment. Wal-Mart doesn\'t have to let Hare Krishnas beseech its shoppers for cash, and the Republican party doesn\'t have to give equal time to the Democrats at the GOP convention.
Despite these obvious corollaries, the recent federal spam-control bill is a marshmellow. It abjures decpetive sibject lines nd return IDs (big deal); it sort of requires spammers to create a way for recpients to opt out. I have a missive from Ticketmaster in my inbox right now that illustrates how nifty that is. At the end of 721 URL link-lines, hidden in a obscure graf at the bottom, is a pentultimate URL line, longer than Michael Jackson\'s nose, which I can use to \"make changes in my account.\" I don\'t have a Ticketmaster account. This \"legitimate business\" forced one down my throat because it required an email address from me in order for me to buy tickets online. Now I get \"newsletters\" I don\'t want, from a company that is the eptome high technology in the hands of nitwits.
If they were calling my house two evenings a week, and I didn\'t want them to, they\'d be breaking the law. What\'s the difference between that and email?
None. The online industry, and all its ancillary enterprises, fervently wishes for the day their product achieves universal adoption. It won\'t happen until something genuine is done about spam. Meantime, I think Charles Booher was was practicing self-defense against home invasion
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I kid you not, this was a real article written by Eric Lucas.
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Defeat Bass.EXE in the AFD2013 event!Acquired on 1 April 2013
