I was sitting in my office when the phone rang.
Some bloke from a data research company.
The conversation went like this:

Me: “Hello, good afternoon, L*********** Road, how can I help?”

Him: “Good afternoon Sir. I’m calling on behalf of …..(mumbles) data research. I’d like to ask you a few questions.”

Me (suspiciously): “What are you selling?”

Him: “I am not selling anything, Sir.”

Me: “How did you get this number?”

At this point, he could have simply said “The phone book.”
I work for a big organization, and this would have been entirely possible.

Instead, he said: “I rang before and did a survey with someone else there, and this is the follow-up call.”

Me: “Really? Who did you do this survey with?”

It became blindingly obvious he was reading from a script, and my clearly stupid questions were not going to cause him to deviate from that script.
Or so he thought.

Him: “I’d like to ask you a few questions about…”

Me: “Hang on. I’ve got a few questions of my own. Who did you speak to previously? How did you get this number? What are you really selling?”

Him: “Well Sir, I’d like to talk about….”

Me: “I don’t care what you want to talk about. Answer the questions.”

All I got in return was the sound of this man hanging up on me.

I think the moral of this story is this:

He who rings up randomly to ask questions, should be prepared to answer some in return…..

Copyright © Mark A. McPherson 2011.
All rights reserved