Monday, March 24, 2014

Window Of Opportunity

Telemarketers can be annoying – to say the least. They call at the most inopportune times. All right, I’ll admit it; any time they call would be an inopportune time for me!

Thanks to the Do Not Call list, these days, I don’t get a lot of these calls. But before that welcomed list came about, telemarketing calls at my house were frequent – sometimes two or three a day. I’m not sure why they thought I’d be such an easy mark; I have never and will never buy anything from a telemarketer.

As I said before, telemarketers are annoying and simply hanging up on them wasn’t nearly satisfying enough. So, I usually tried to find ways to have fun. There are many ways to do this. Since a telemarketer is also a salesman, who drive me insane, they generally won’t shut up long enough to realize no one is listening. I’d lay the phone down and go do something else – just to see how long they would ramble on. I think the longest one went somewhere around twenty minutes! Or, I would engage them in conversation as if I were interested, let them tell me everything about their product – and then hang up. I had a few other methods of dealing with them too and what I tried to do was get them to hang up instead of me. That’s easier said than done.

One day, shortly after my wife and I bought our first house, a call came in from someone selling windows. I told the guy he’d called just a few days too late and that I’d just recently purchased fourteen windows. (I didn’t tell him they came with the house). I thought that would get rid of the guy but no such luck. He wanted to know what company I’d purchased my windows from and if I was happy with them because, he said, his company’s windows were far superior to any other. He added that I would still save money on heating and cooling if I were to purchase fourteen more new windows from him!

“So, you want me to just throw away the other windows I bought?” I asked.

Oddly enough, that’s exactly what he suggested! I hung up.

A few months ago, even though my number is on the Do Not Call list, I got a call from... yep, someone wanting to sell me windows for my house. I thought I’d try the same routine. This guy had a new solution for me. “We will buy your old windows if you purchase new ones from our company and have us install them.”

Really? I perked up!

The guy had already quoted me a price for my new windows so, I told him I’d be willing to make such a deal – and gave him the price I would be charging for my windows. Of course, my price was higher than his – by a lot. Hey, I’m entitled to make a profit aren’t I?

The guy on the phone said that wasn’t the way it worked, that the seller doesn’t get to set the price. Since when? I’m pretty sure that’s the way the free market system works. And hadn’t he, the seller, set the price for the windows he wanted me to buy? I said as much, to which he again replied that wasn’t the way it worked.

“So, you’re telling me you get to set both prices? Hardly seems fair.”

This time, I won. The guy hung up. But not before mumbling something about me being impossible to reason with. Hmm. Maybe I’ve found a new calling. My window of opportunity. I could become a telemarketer!


Current Read
Connor
by Dormaine G


SPOTLIGHT Author
Bette A. Stevens
Pure Trash

Bruce A. Borders is the author of more than a dozen books, including: Inside Room 913, Over My Dead Body, The Journey, Miscarriage Of Justice, and The Wynn Garrett Series. Available in ebook and paperback on Apple®, Amazon®, Barnes & Noble, Kobo®, Diesel Books®, and Smashwords®, or at www.bruceabordersbooks.weebly.com. Bruce A. Borders also serves as the Vice President of Rave Reviews Book Club http://ravereviewsbynonniejules.wordpress.com




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