Telemarketers are like cockroaches, there is an abundance of them and all you want to do is get rid of them. But as an employed person, I have to take a step back and remember that telemarketers are not cockroaches. They are people who are trying to earn a living so they can put food on the table and clothes on their backs. With that in mind I try not to be outright hostile when the phone rings just as my fork attempts to deliver my tasty dinner to my open mouth.
Ok, I will admit that my first job was in the telemarketing industry. I was sixteen years old and my parents were going to buy me a car. I don't think I can even express the excitement that consumed my body and soul when I found out. Then my parents broke the news. There was a catch. My car wasn't for my driving pleasure. It was so I could get to work and back without them having to drive me. Work? Who said anything about work? I wasn't planning to work at the age of sixteen but my parents had other ideas. I needed to learn the value of earning a dollar. I had to get used to working because it was an activity I was sure to be participating in for the next fifty years. If I wanted that car, I had better find a job.
What kind of place would hire a teenager? My search was half-hearted because we had just picked up the car from the lot. I didn't realize that I wasn't allowed to drive the machine until I had said job. I began the search anew and found that several other girls from my high school were employed as telemarketers by a photo studio. If they could do it, I could do it. I marched right over to get an application and was hired on the spot. There was no interview, no promise of a call to discuss employment. It was pretty much a when can you start conversation.
I had my job and now I could have my car. I went the following day to my office in my new (well, pre-owned) vehicle and reported for duty. The first day would be training. I expected to be taken into a training room where I would be given a manual and learn the products. In fact, I was taken into a large room that was crammed with desks and people. Each desk was outfitted with a phone, a phone book, a laminated script and a call list. My "training" was sitting next to one of the worker bees and listen to them call people.
Prior to that evening, I had no idea what I would be selling. Turns out that I was selling portrait packages to random people. It was literally opening a phone book, pointing to name and dialing the number hoping that someone would take the bait. Eventually, I was shown to my very own desk. I was asked to read through the script a few times to learn it. I practiced my speech and tried to make it sound like I wasn't reading word for word without much luck. Then I was told to call my first prospective customer. Heart pounding in my chest, I dialed a number and attempted my first call. The woman hung up on me before I could even get the first sentence out. Discouraged and embarrassed, I hung up the phone just as the man next to me added his millionth sale to the leader board.
I tried again, still trembling. This time the person was nice enough to hear me out but declined nonetheless. I thanked her and hung up. Being my first day on the job, I wasn't exactly reprimanded but was told that if someone wasn't interested I needed to probe further to try to get the name and phone number of someone they thought might be interested. This included relatives, friends and even neighbors. I couldn't believe it. I wasn't comfortable asking the person on the other end of the phone to buy what I was selling and now I had to ask them for their neighbor's contact info? Not only that but I was calling from the five o'clock to nine o'clock evening hours. You know, the time when people eat, help their kids with their homework, watch a little television and relax before going to bed. I felt awful because I knew I was causing an annoyance to my would-be customers. I would have thrown in the towel right then and there but I could see my little red car waiting patiently for me in the parking lot.
I went back for the rest of that week, hating every second. I had no aptitude for this line of work. I didn't have confidence in my voice, I had no experience, and I was unable to push after initially being told No. On the other hand, I was working side by side with career telemarketers. They were in a zone and could pound out sales like it was there job. Well, it was their job and they were good at it. If they were told no, they were convincing enough to get the person to reconsider and they also had no qualms about asking someone to go check if their neighbor was home right now so they could call right away.
After my first week at the job, I was preparing myself for my first working Saturday. That's right. After all that, I had to work Saturday too. But I got a phone call from my employer telling me it wasn't working out. It was almost posed as a question so I wasn't sure if I was being asked if it was working our or being told. I couldn't do anything but agree. It wasn't working out. I hadn't had a single sale and I was miserable. So my first job ended with me being fired / quitting.
Ah, relief. I did eventually find a new job that I could live with but it didn't involve calling people on the phone to sell them something they didn't want. After that experience, I gained a newfound respect for telemarketers. I still may hang up when I answer my phone to a telemarketer but I understand that they are just doing their job.