Telesales- is it any cop (when required)

Telesales is Satan's own career path.

That is all.

My mom once put down the phone because the woman would not stop talking despite the fact my mom told her numerous times she wasn't interested. The woman called back asking "Are you always this friendly?" My mom "Yes, especially when people don't get the message."

I assure you im on the side of the sinic. Wanting peace in the home and all, if i embark on this more the small time i need to, i will maintain an okay, i agree with you, nice person on the end of the phone attitude, but is it tolerable employment?

Don't do it. It's the most soul destroying thing ever. I did it for three months after I graduated. You end up phoning people and getting their spouse because the person on the call sheet has recently died. Old ladies who just want to chat to you because they're lonely, but don't want any more books because they've gone blind (and God forbid you take time to talk to someone, you have call targets to hit). My 'supervisor' was about 16/17 and had such an attitude. He'd come round all the desks chanting the inane slogans they had on posters on the walls. "Oh you're not smiling as you're dialing are you Anna?" No, that's because I'm being patronised by you, you spotty brain dead fuckwit.

It was one of the sweetest moments of my life when I got to hand my notice in having got my current job.

Me: I'm handing my notice in.

Spotty brain dead fuckwit: Are you sure?

Me: Yes, very sure. I'm moving to London to be a journalist.

Spotty brain dead fuckwit: Because there are a lot of oppertunities in this company. You could be doing my job in a year.

Me [cracks at well-meant comment after months of being talked down to] I don't fucking think so. [exits abandoning rest of shift and totally fucking up his precious 'team call targets']

Sorry rant over.

I'm never normally that rude. But if you want to sap your self-esteem, develop and crick in your neck, multiple paper cuts and generally drive out any kind of trait a functioning human might want, go work in a call centre. Evil, despicable people. Be a cleaner, work in a bar, hand out flyers, collect the rubbish. In no other line of work are people treated so badly by both employers and customers. I cried all the time I was stuck in that job. I would just be sitting on a bench somewhere sobbing into my lunch. My heart goes out to anyone who is doing that now.

DON'T DO IT.

Name and google shame: I was working for Ant Marketing in Sheffield. I would start swearing now, but my above comments have the justification of fair comment. Calling them evil cockfarmers does not.

Well it does.

A friend of mine managed a team of telesales callers (haha not yours Anna, I'm glad to say) for Film Four (unless I'm forgetting). I can't imagine him getting tough with anyone or mouthing stupid slogans in an unironic way. And anyway they ring you up and offer you a free month's trial on the channel, which seems okay to me.

I am with Anna: I did it for a summer, and even with the slight improvement that we were doing charity calling and not sales, it was very nearly the worst position I've ever held. The problem is that with a normal job, no matter how regulated or soul-crushing the workplace, there is a certain amount of job-doing that doesn't require you to obliterate your personality: even with service work there are blissful little moments of shelf-stocking or change-making where you are simply performing a task and your mind is relatively at liberty. With telemarketing there is no such thing: at any given point you're dealing with either the management or the people's your calling, and for most of the time basically both, as the management does listen in on your calls and will drop in to give you notes. After a time I realized that I was actually mentally incapable of doing the job: I was reprimanded for using the words "opportunity" and "dignity" in the same sentence (in reference to a wheelchair basketball program), which management felt was somehow too highbrow for the Wisconsinites we were calling, and it all collapsed -- I realized I was sitting there telling people my name was "Steve" (they assigned me this name) and trying my best to underestimate people's intelligence and it still wasn't enough for them, "them" being both the management and the people being called, because the other lovely thing about telemarketing is that everyone you deal with hates you, the management for not being efficient enough (and there is no winning this one, in a room of 50 telemarketers not a one was "successful" or liked by the uppers) and the call-recipients for obvious reasons.

(Also you know all those supposedly-clever things people say to telemarketers? STOP IT. The telemarketers have heard the "what's your home number, I'll call you back" retort fifteen times already in the last hour and they are not impressed.)

The other worst thing about it was that it basically reinforced my shyness-instinct that interactions with strangers are basically fraught with danger and endless opportunities for gut-wrenching guilt and awkwardness. If you can find anything else to do with yourself -- like, say, septic-tank cleaning or rainy-day ditch-digging -- go for it.

Now I'm all worked up: the whole thing was seriously very much like a more dystopian version of a Frederick Barthelme story, lots of John- Deere-mesh-cap types coming in from the pool hall and realizing their well-developed used-car-salesman manipulation skills, lots of clipped suburban hang-ups, lots of cold-calling into the Milwaukee ghettos to get people whose money you'd feel terrible taking even if they offered it, lots of getting a donation then seeing it wiped off the board after the part where they send the caller off to someone else to confirm it, even though you didn't lie (!), you explained the deal in very clear and explicit terms, and Christ they're donating money anyway, what possible "catch" could they have cottoned onto while reviewing their obligations that made them change their minds after you spent ten minutes holding their hand and convincing them that sure, I suppose a $10 donation is just fine, even though it's not going to put me in the top three callers for the evening and let me go home a whole ten minutes early, woo-hoo?

Oh no, telesales memories. I did two weeks work for this company flogging charity calendars and it was potentially the most soul destroying experience ever. Only highlights came from freaking out my supervisor by phoning people up and announcing in a bright and cheery voice that I was a liar and had come for their souls. Once spent two hours listening to the speaking clock. Fellow drones would go in on half a pill, I tended to hit the bongs at seven in the morning instead. Massive highlight was the day I walked out, when my farewell speech to my piece of shit supervisor took the form of the company's own script: "And it just remains for me to wish you and your business every success for the future, Robbie...I am, of course, lying." then walking out safe in the knowledge that it was last thing on a Friday and the phone that I'd left off the hook having dialled a premium rate porn-line wouldn't be discovered til Monday.

If this seems a little over the top bear in mind that the company I worked for was run by a man who routinely referred to all his female secretaries as "that bit of cunt" and paid his trainees £100 a week "training wage" plus a whopping 5% commission once you'd clocked up over £1500 worth of sales (I managed one sale, and instantly phoned them back begging them to reconsider). Everyone was self-employed so he didn't have to pay NI contributions. Plus the calendars were a scam. the charity was genuine enough, but only enough calendars to send out the complimentary free ones to contributors were made. It was an evil place to work, if you manage to make any money out of that you are, by definition, worthy of a painful death. If this isn't enough let me also tell you that the script included the line "so seeing as how it's purely for the children...." and that I once heard my supervisor finish a call with the "Yeah, thanks very much, we'll call again to confirm same time next year, Mother Superior."

(Also you know all those supposedly-clever things people say to telemarketers? STOP IT. The telemarketers have heard the "what's your home number, I'll call you back" retort fifteen times already in the last hour and they are not impressed.)

And while you're at it, stop saying all of those supposedly-clever things people say to cashiers, too.

*something doesn't scan*

"Must be free then, hee-hee-hee!"

No, shithead. It just means I get to add one dollar to the bill for every time I've heard that today. Your total is $6666.66. Will that be cash, check, or charge?

Am I a freak for not imagining anyone would way that? Obviously this is my insecurity in that the only thing I think about when something doesn't scan is the people in the queue behind wanting to skewer me for trying to buy something with a wonky barcode.

On re-reading this thread I have become very, very angry about telesales all over again.

Upon waking everyday I thank all that is good and just for the fact that I am not required to wear a headset and attempt genuine rapport with strangers to convince them to discuss advertising white noise at length and in depth. I have a different crap job but at least im not Sucking Sataaaans cock, feeling the warm reptilian jism in your belly. aaargghhhhhh.

if reptilian, jism cold surely?

Mark S challenges Dan P in the Very Bad Mang stakes! THERE CAN BE ONLY ONE!

In Anna's world "But if you want to sap your self-esteem, develop and crick in your neck, multiple paper cuts and generally drive out any kind of trait a functioning human might want, go work in a call centre" doesn't count as "very, very angry". Ph34r her.

Bwahh ha ha ha ha

Paper cuts? We didn't even get paper. Just a phone-booth-sized cubicle with a little ledge where you could set your drink*, and a terminal displaying the name you were about to get yelled at for mispronouncing (as if they'd do any better with your name).

* (But only a big enough drink to keep your mouth from drying out; a bigger one and you might God Forbid have to go to the bathroom.)

What about door-to-door canvasser selling windows, eh? Would that be worse?

Ah good, this has confirmed for me that I would never, no matter how desperate, do a telesales job. How reassuring.

I got a telemarketing job once. I got fired in 15 minutes (personal record). I was sitting there trying my damndest to look like I wasn't totally miserable and the training chick was like, "I don't think you really want this job." I thought about it for a second and said "You're right" and walked out. It was really satisfying.

my friend did telemarketing for one day to buy heroin. He got paid that night and never returned. Best telemarketing story, ever.

Well...after reading through the hearty entries to this post, its fair to say; I get the feeling telesales is pretty curb crawly' and wackass. Whats more they havent got back to me, which i take as an ultimatly good thing. Being seen as not telesales material has done me the world of good (tongue in cheek). Ive raised my sights and have got another interview tommorow. The novelty of working nights in a dull danky town for the summer beckons. Twit twoooo, twit twoooo!

I haven't done telesales for commercial products but I've been doing telephone fundraising and telephone surveys for - gack - the better part of the past 3 years. I like it OK. Your hours are usually very flexible. It usually pays well. (Don't do it if it doesn't.) If it's a computerized system you can usually surf the net while waiting for someone to pick up the phone. Otherwise you can get some reading done. The work is easy. (I find it easier to let your mind shut off than at any clerk/sales type job). Depending on how you approach it and how you use your voice and your phrasing you can do well at it. If you're on a good commission system this translates into a lot of money. It's fun to try different voices, different names, different approaches, etc on the phone. (The 'faker' you are the less the rejection means anything to you personally. It shouldn't really mean that much anyway. You're just doing a stupid job. Not like you believe in anything you're pushing.) So long as you're not really overtly aggressive about it, like you do it with some subtelty, you can talk back to assholes. It's fun. You talk to lots of funny people. You get to meet lots of other students and artists who are doing the same job. You just need to sort of forget that, unless you're working for some sort of public or charitable organization, you are basically selling people into being manipulated for the ends of large political or commercial institutions. Grocery store cashier, doughnut store employee, waiting tables, I don't know how anyone does that stuff. If I'm not doing something in my field I want to do something where I sit on my ass. Another time I'll tell you about traffic counting, the greatest summer job ever.

Reading Anna's account of her experiences in telesales brought it all back rather too vividly for my liking. I sold advertising space on a newspaper one summer when I was a poor impoverished student. It wasn't even a real newspaper - it was one of those free newspapers. God, it was awful. "Soul-destroying" doesn't even cover it.

I can remember having to sell space for a "holiday feature" which meant phoning around all the caravan sites in the south of England and try and get them to advertise. It was bloody hard work, as no- one had even heard of the paper. We were openly encouraged to lie and say we were from The Times instead.

I remember the immense joy and relief when you knew you had reached your minimum target for the week - that meant you could hide the paperwork for anything else you sold, and use it for the following week, just to take the pressure off. The place was always full of people in tears. It was ghastly.

The supervisor there was the same 17 year old fuckwit that you had, Anna. When I had paid off my overdraft at the end of the summer, I handed in my notice. The Fuckwit was quite appalled that anyone should want to leave such a marvellous job - "But, CJ, you have such a flair for this.......the company rewards people like you very well. In a year or two, you could be doing my job......." just like Anna said. I told him I was off to live and work in Melbourne - and he stared blankly at me. He thought it was in Surrey.

To the original poster - don't do it. Do anything else, but don't even contemplate Telesales.

I still shudder at the memory.

I did it once, for one week (during which I sold nothing). When I told the supervisor that I didn't think I was cut out for the job, he told me 'well if you change your mind we'll always have a desk for you here...'

Ah, meat for the grinder.