Monday, February 16, 2009

How to Get Rid of a Telemarketer... & Work Musings

I worked as a telemarketer from 9/1/92 until 12/1/92. In that time, I learned some things about the industry. I learned that it is nice for a telemarketer to actually talk to someone who is interested in talking.

Poor guy that got my number tonight. I wasn't that nice guy.

It's between 8 and 9. I'm watching "24." Phone rings. "Hello?" Silence. "Hello?"

In broken English, a male says, "Hello, may I please speak with ..."

I don't think I let him finish his sentence. "Dude," I said, "24 is on. I'm not talking to you" and I hung up the phone. Normally, I will talk to whomever wants to talk to me. I've taken surveys and such and I always reserve the right to not disclose information over the phone, like who I do business with. That is no one's business but mine.

We had Cable Company A. We had dial-up. I wanted to get away from dial-up and go with someone who could offer cable & DSL on the same bill. I talked to Cable Company A. They insisted that they had to drill from the outside into my house and they would not run any wiring within the house. That just didn't make sense to have 3 separate holes in my house because we wanted cable TV in the basement, in our bedroom, and in the living room. I called Cable Company B, who we already had our local phone service with and inquired about getting cable and DSL. I asked that they come to my house before the day of the install so they could look at my house, look where I wanted to have the wiring done, look at my drop ceiling in the basement, look at where they would have to come up through the floor to the bedroom, and to look the whole situation over. An installer and an assistant came out, spent about 10 minutes looking at every thing. When they felt confident they knew what they were getting into, they left. A week later, they came back, installed my DSL and cable and every thing has been fine since. However, Cable Company A must have me on their "try to get this customer back" list. They have called several times to ask me about going back to them. I have very pointedly said, "No. They were uncooperative when I wanted new service and they lost my business. I don't foresee ever going back. I know how to get in touch with them, if I ever need to."

Meanwhile, no status change regarding my online bank account. I cannot remember how to get into my bank's online banking system. I can remember many things but that tidbit of info has escaped me. I will contact my bank tomorrow, have them reset my login ID/password and be on my merry way.

At work today, I knocked a couple things off my project list. Specifically, #89 and #114 are done except for some brief loose ends. I realize #89 and #114 mean nothing to anyone but me.

I am making progress on the tables to tableless conversion. Less than 50 to go for my end-user project and only 800 for the internal doc. I hope to finish end-user by March 1 and internal by April 1. Those are aggressive goals.


No Way Out PPV last night. Just now caught the results:

Dark Melina (c) defeated Beth Phoenix Singles match for the WWE Women's Championship
1 Triple H defeated Edge (c), The Undertaker, The Big Show, Jeff Hardy, and Vladimir Kozlov Elimination Chamber match for the WWE Championship
2 Randy Orton defeated Shane McMahon No Holds Barred match
3 Jack Swagger (c) defeated Finlay Singles match for the ECW Championship
4 Shawn Michaels defeated John "Bradshaw" Layfield Singles match; If JBL had won, he would have became the owner of Michaels' name and likeness.
5 Edge defeated John Cena (c), Rey Mysterio, Chris Jericho, Mike Knox, and Kane
Elimination Chamber match for the World Heavyweight Championship.

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