Robo-Answer
Like most people these days, we don’t receive a lot of phone calls, and most of those we do are organizations asking for money, telemarketers, and telephone surveys seeking our opinion about current events, especially just before an election. Nothing like the amount of spam that comes in, but a tedious bother nevertheless.
So much for the do-not-call list. Every day come the solicitations, as many as ten. Thank Bell for Caller ID or I’d go postal with these people and their bots ringing me up. And thank Verizon that most of them don’t leave messages to wade through. But enough is enough.
When we got a new phone I set up the usual desultory outgoing message: “We’re not here right now, so leave a message after the beep.” After getting bored hearing it echo about the house I decided to change it to:
“Hello! We are either inconvenienced or indisposed. If you are a friend, press or say one; if you are a relative, then two—unless you are calling from prison, in which case three. If you are begging, then four. If you choose not to leave a message, please stay on the line while your call is transferred to the FBI.”
It’s amazing how well this works. A few calls end as soon as my announcement kicks in. Ten to twenty percent hang up after “friend” or “relative.” Most call it off after “begging,” but a startling number click off as soon as they hear “prison.” Only real people and the more persistant robocalls ever get past “FBI” to record a message or the tail end of their spiel (my relatives never call anyway).
One impecunious year shortly after getting my worthless PhD I worked as a telemarketer, so I’m not insensitive to the situations of blind callers. Even though our company was “progressive” and only solicited for nonprofits like cancer societies and public TV, we still regularly scrummed to be tutored in the hard sell and monitored to make sure we were selling hard. It’s not an easy way to make a buck, or should you be incarcerated, a dime. Regardless, I don’t want to encourage them because there’s more where they come from and they share lists.
So, if you are similarly beset by strangers, feel free to clone my message. I might copyright it, but for now it’s free.
