Grandpa Kim on the topic of duty

[dogscoff]

I hate telemarketers. I have 2 ways of dealing with them:

1> I repeatedly explain to them that I have a personal policy *never* to buy anything from telemarketers, and that I consider their call an invasion of my privacy. I then ask them to remove my details from their lists (I doubt they ever do) and hang up.

2> I put them on "hold". Since I don't actually have a hold button on my phone, this means just putting the phone by my stereo and playing funny and/ or offensive and/or bizarre music. In the past I've come back to them after 15 minutes or more and found them hanging on...

I'd like to think that on those telemarketting lists they circulate, my name has got a big black "Don't waste your time phoning this guy" warning next to it

[AS of SA]

I ask to speak with a supervisor and I get thier office number and have them send me written confirmation of removal. I also get their names.

The only companies I found that have their own telemarketers is places like Sears, Macy, Wall Street Journal, and the US Energy Dept.

When I signed up for a do not promote list by my state I found a lot of people sign themselves up for it. Like those little vacation info things at the mall or the car give-aways, and such. Some buy the information from creditors which really peeve me.

I actually met once person who said he liked his job. He also said he had a bubbly personality and was extremely rude to me. Then he started asking if my name was greek (but I said it was a wrong number and never said my name)....

btw, the Highway patrol one is a scam.

[tbontob]

What I have found to be extremely effective is to interrupt their chatter and ask "Are you selling something?"

Almost invariably, there is a pause and an affirmative answer. I then say, it is my policy never to buy anything over the phone and hang up.

I have never had a telemarketer lie to me that he was not selling something. If they did, I would probably just tell them it is my policy to never buy anything from liars and cheats.

Occasionally a telemarketer will be evasive and not answer the question. That is a tip off to me that s/he is selling something and I take the evasiveness as an affirmation that they are in fact selling something and then go into my speel about my policy to never buy anything over the phone and hang up.

I do have some difficulty when charitable organizations call. I have my favourites to support but can't support them all and some of them are a bit off the wall.

How do you guys handle charitable request?

[capnq]

I deal with telemarketers by screening all my calls through my answering machine. 9 out of 10 won't even leave a message, and the ones that do are usually computerized recordings anyway.

[Ragnarok]

I like toying with the people that call. There was this one company that kept calling us. But I forget what the name was. But anyways, they would go on their spew and I would basically repeat it and act all excited and stuff and be like "Wow! That is a great deal!" or something like that and they would continue on. Then I would find a flaw in their promotion and exploit it and do different stuff.
It is rather fun and they stutter around trying to reply to some of the stuff you come up with.

[E. Albright]

Originally posted by tbontob:

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Do not confuse "duty" with what other people expect of you; they are utterly different. Duty is a debt you owe to yourself to fulfill obligations you have assumed voluntarily. Paying that debt can entail anything from years of patient work to instant willingness to die. Difficult it may be, but the reward is self-respect.
But there is no reward at all for doing what other people expect of you, and to do so is not merely difficult, but impossible. It is easier to deal with a footpad than it is with leech who wants "just a few minutes of your time, please-- this won't take long." Time is your total capital, and the minutes of your life are painfully few. If you allow yourself to fall into the vice of agreeing to such requests, they quickly snowball to the point where these parasites will use up 100 percent of your time-- and squawk for more!
So learn to say No-- and to be rude about it when necessary.
Otherwise you will not have time to carry out your duty, or to do your own work, and certainly no time for love and happiness. The termites will nibble away your life and leave none of it for you.
(This rule does not mean that you must not do a favor for a friend, or even a stranger. But let the choice be yours. Don't do it because it is "expected" of you.)

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The fundamental issue here is "Who has the right to decide your actions".

One thing really troubles me about GK's quote. If one takes it seriously, it eliminates the possibility of the existence of ethical standards, or at least prescriptive ones. If one mustn't do what others want you to do, one cannot accept their behavioral rules (i.e., morale codes). And if you claim that the statement has nothing to do with ethics and/or ethics are a special case, you've essentialy subverted your argument, as any request can be turned into one based on morality. Or should you argue that one can accept such things, but one must freely choose to do so, well... Like I said, this kills prescriptive morality; one no longer has any basis for demanding any sort of behavior from anyone else...

Admittedly, if one refuses to accept the concept of objective ethics, the preceeding is less than meaningless.

E. Albright

[dogscoff]

E_A: If I inderstand your comment correctly...

If you are doing something becasue it is morally/ ethically right, then it makes no difference whether someone has asked you to do it or not, and a different set of rules apply.

[ January 14, 2003, 12:49: Message edited by: dogscoff ]