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Despite all the stuff I read recently about how the American economy remains vibrant and vigorous, I have to express some skepticism. I can't remember a period when I've endured more telephone solicitation than since the first of the year.
My logic works like this: If companies had lots of work, they wouldn't be hiring people to pester me. Since they do have thousands of these nuisances on the payroll, the companies must need more business. Thus, the economy can't be that strong.
The latest gimmick is to refer to the intrusion as a
courtesy call.
At first, I just got them for a
daughter who's off in college:
Hello, may I please speak to Columbeena? Columbia?
Combaline?
Her name is Columbine. She's not here. Can I take a
message?
Oh, no, this just a courtesy call. I'll call back
later.
Which they do, and when you ask them to stop,
they tell you that the computer decides what number to
call, and there's nothing the humans can do about it.
That made me curious about courtesy, so last week I decided to ask. This time around, the call was for me:
Hello, Edward Quillen. This is Some Jerk with the
Cut-and-Run Windows and Siding Company, and I'm making this
courtesy call to inform you about some wonderful
opportunities.
Excuse me. How is this a courtesy call?
I'm not sure I know what you mean, sir.
I mean, how is it a 'courtesy' when some stranger
intrudes into my domestic life and interrupts my
livelihood? If that's courtesy, what's rudeness?
Sir, we're offering you a courtesy by calling to tell
you how you can improve your property.
Well, I never buy anything from strangers over the
phone.
Then he got seriously rude, informing me that I had to
catch up to modern times and realize that telemarketing was
a legitimate business method. I hung up somewhere in the
middle of his rant -- it's the first time a telephone
solicitor ever started yelling at me. So I still don't
know how that call constituted a courtesy.
But it led to a pleasant fantasy. Suppose that every American decided never to buy anything over the telephone when the call was initiated by the seller. That is, we could still call and order things, but if they called us, we'd tell where they could stick their headsets.
If that happened, then there would be no telephone sales. Telemarketing would be totally ineffective, and companies would quit using it. Without any new laws or government regulations, we could use our power as non-consumers to eliminate a scourge from American life.
At least we could choose to do that, and in theory, anyway, accomplish something. Another telephone annoyance is beyond our control.
I refer to the five interlaced rings on US West's bill
envelopes, and the Proud Sponsor
that appears
below.
The scandals in Salt Lake City are only part of what's wrong with the Olympics. They're a tarnished and sordid spectacle all the way around -- essentially a competition for air time to convert into endorsement dollars.
Presumably, a company becomes a Proud Sponsor
because it will make us like the company more and want to
do business with it. So the converse should hold, too --
if the Olympic rings disgust you, then you should avoid
that company.
Unfortunately, it's nearly impossible to avoid doing business with US West. It can come up with its scheduled $5 million to squander on the Salt Lake Winter Games, but it doesn't have money to improve service in rural areas.
So perhaps it's a blessing that US West has decided to sell the Salida exchange, along with more than a dozen others in rural Colorado, ranging from Alamosa to Meeker. With US West out of the picture, I won't have to write a check every month to a company that uses the money to pay an organization that dispenses bribes.
The likely buyer, though, is some outfit called PTI, which bought Westcliffe and Saguache from US West a few years ago. PTI began in Colorado as Eagle Telephone Co., headquartered in Eagle, Colo. Now my friends in those towns tell me that when they need service, they call an 800 number that rings in either Louisiana or La Junta -- they're not sure.
Here's an opportunity -- form a truly local telephone company that would put a priority on serving these hinterlands, rather than purchasing the right to print Olympic circles on its envelopes.
Putting that together would require some leadership in Colorado, though, and as we've seen with railroad abandonments and telecommunication mergers, the major talent among Colorado's movers and shakers is not leadership, but selling out.
Maybe that assessment is too harsh, but then again, this
is just a courtesy column.
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