Robert Harris - Fun with Phone Solicitors: 50 Ways to Get Even

Copyright 2001 by Robert Harris All rights reserved. Warner Books, Inc.
Hachette Book Group
237 Park Avenue
New York NY 10017 Visit our Web site at www.HachetteBookGroup.com First eBook Edition: May 2008 ISBN: 978-0-446-54375-0 Id like to thank the following people: my agent, Jacques de Spoelberch, for finding the right publisher; Amy Einhorn and her colleagues at Warner for moving the book through the system quickly; H. Roberts Design and Dan Pelavin for the book design and clever illustrations; and Liz Petersen for her support and encouragement, and for suggesting the premise for The Surrealism Subterfuge. Its a typical situation: Youre enjoying dinner after a hard days work when the phone rings. You answer, assuming it will be a friend. Theres a pause, then a click, and then those dreaded words: Good evening, may I speak to, uh, Mr. [name pronounced incorrectly]? A solicitor! Yuk! What to do, what to do? Be polite? Get angry? Meekly hang up? No, no, no! Be creative and enjoy yourself! All you need is Fun with Phone Solicitors to help you through such anxious moments. [name pronounced incorrectly]? A solicitor! Yuk! What to do, what to do? Be polite? Get angry? Meekly hang up? No, no, no! Be creative and enjoy yourself! All you need is Fun with Phone Solicitors to help you through such anxious moments.

Within these pages are fifty doctor-approved, environmentally friendly techniques that can help you deal effectively with those who annoy you the most. Techniques like The Moron Maneuver, The Inattention Interlude, and The Just-the-Facts Jive will leave pesky phone solicitors speechless, frustrated, and disoriented. Each technique includes an example and some helpful tips. And each is rated with a degree of difficulty, from (the easiest) to (the most challenging), so Funsters of all skill levels can play! Whats the key to success? Never get angry and never get frustrated (leave that to the solicitors). Oh, and never feel guilty. For too long, phone solicitors have had the upper hand.

Now its time for us to stop being victims and fight back. I hope that the techniques in this book will inspire you to confront the problem of unwanted phone calls head-on. Remember: Its us against them. They barge into our homes uninvited, so forget the conventional rules of polite conversation and have some fun. And in case you want to share one of your favorite techniques, youll find a form in the back of the book for that purpose. Who knowsmaybe your technique will be featured in the next edition of Fun with Phone Solicitors! On the afternoon of March 12, 1876, Alexander Graham Bell, who bore a striking resemblance to actor Don Ameche, invented the telephone.

At approximately 7:12 that evening, while eating dinner, he received a courtesy call from a local dry-cleaning establishment. Thus began the contentious relationship between telephone owner and telephone solicitor. Since that fateful day, solicitors have attempted to sell anything and everything over the phone. But for many decades, their efforts were hampered by limitations in the available equipment. Even at the midpoint of the twentieth century, numbers still had to be dialed by hand on rotary phones, thus making it difficult to victimize more than a small segment of the population. So as the halcyon Eisenhower years drew to a close, most polite citizens were unaware of the potential threat to their peace of mind.

The 1960s brought unrest, rebellion, and questionable fashion to our nation. One constant, however, was the persistence of phone solicitors. But the number of solicitors actually declined, according to experts. However, because of extensive use of recreational drugs during that decade, theres just no way to be sure exactly what was going on. In the 1970s, at the dawn of the computer age, phone solicitors got a real boost. Computerized phone directories and automatic-dialing machines made it possible to annoy the maximum number of people with minimum effort.

Phone solicitors became giddy with power, and their telemarketing strategies took on a new aggressiveness. Mr. and Mrs. Suburbia were starting to get annoyed. Even with the advantages of the new technology, phone solicitors still had trouble convincing average folks to part with their hard-earned money. In fact, from 1979 to 1999, only seven cold calls actually resulted in some kind of sale.

Nevertheless, phone solicitors persist. This tendency to ignore reality and press ahead toward an unreachable goal in the face of extreme opposition is known as Solicitor Syndrome. The details of the malady are well understood in the psychiatric community, but, unfortunately, space does not permit us to explore that topic in the present work. Over the years, average citizens have tried to resist pesky phone solicitors with a variety of responses. During the 1970s, it was No thank you. During the 1980s, the preferred phrase was Im not interested at this time.

The 1990s saw nearly equal use of two responses: Please dont call again and Git, not another f solicitor! And around the turn of the century, the most common response to uninvited callers became You lousy jerk, Im trying to watch Who Wants to Be a Millionaire! Today we are amused by these clumsy attempts to deter phone solicitors. We now know that modern Fun techniques are the only effective tools for fending off annoying sales pitches. Although not 100 percent reliable, they are humanitys best hope for combating obnoxious phone solicitors. The power of the Fun method lies in its simplicity: It shifts the irritation from the callee to the caller, and also provides an outlet for creative expression. So instead of responding to the phones ring with apprehension, Funsters actually welcome calls, seeing them as opportunities to waste a solicitors time and energy. Perhaps there will come a day when phone calls are made only by friends, family members, and business associates.

But until that day comes, we must remain vigilant. An unwanted call could come at any time on any day, so we must be ready to act. If each person tried to have just a little Fun with phone solicitors, imagine what a difference it would make. To paraphrase Lincoln: The world will little note, nor long remember, what phone solicitors say here, but it can never forget what Funsters did here. TECHNIQUE: Elude the solicitors pitch by transferring him via an imaginary inter-office telephone system. Beale. FUNSTER: One moment pleaseIll connect you. [Press two buttons in sequence on your phone.] After about five seconds, expect the solicitor to say something like Hellois anyone there? Ask for whom hes holding, then press the phone buttons again. [Press two buttons in sequence on your phone.] After about five seconds, expect the solicitor to say something like Hellois anyone there? Ask for whom hes holding, then press the phone buttons again.

At this point the game will probably be over. Its highly unlikely that it will go to a third roundbut one can dream, cant one?