However, I have recently lost my patience with cold-callers.
You know the sort of thing ...
RING, RING ...
"Hello, my name is [someone] from [some charity or other]."
Let's call [someone] - err - Tracey.
Now, I have no personal animosity to anyone called Tracey, but how does she know MY name?
Tracey sounds to be a charming young lady.
In real life I suspect that she's a very nice person.
She has a trace of an engaging provincial accent - 'geordie' always gets me!
In my imagination looks she something like this ...
She arouses my ... err... attention when she seductively says, "I'm not asking you for money - now."
Not hearing that faint, closing, near-aspirated 'now', I foolishly become excited about the possibility of a freebie.
Taken aback by her imagined beauty, my mind races in anticipation.
Before I've had time to regain my composure or articulate any intelligible response, Tracey goes on.
With immaculately auto-cued diction, she educates me about all the good works and achievements of the charity she represents.
"Don't you think that's wonderful?" she asks.
She doesn't wait, but anticipates that I'll say, "Oh, yes!"
She continues, without interruption, to brazenly invite me to help financially.
"But you said that you're not asking for money," say I, when I can get a word in edgeways.
"Oh, no," she replies, "But I wonder if you'd be generous enough to make a monthly donation by direct debit?"
(Thinks - "How does Tracey know that I have a bank account?")
... "Now, how much can you afford?" !!!
... "Are you a UK tax-payer?"
If I'm in a charitable mood, and if Tracey sounds enormously cooperative, I will politely invite her to discover, as a one-off contribution, all the cash I have in my numerous pockets.
This invariably meets with, "Oh, no, we can't do that!"
If I am less aroused by her tentative contact, I will say, "OK, Tracey, please can you tell me your registration number with the Charities Commission?"
Tracey, predictably, doesn't know the answer to that, because she's not personally working for the charity. She's operating from a call centre which, (at considerable expense to the charity,) has been contracted to generate these carefully-scripted calls. Off she goes to find her line-manager. Meanwhile I hurriedly go on line to see if I can discover the information before Tracey does.
After some time we agree that Tracey's new-found information matches the intelligence that I gleaned in a few seconds.
I make the same 'up-front' offer again.
(Readers may misunderstand that sentence.)
Tracey doesn't!
She again declines by saying, "I'm not authorised."
"Goodbye, and thank you for your call," I say.
"HUMPHHH!" says Tracey.
The outcome ...
Tracey's wasted her time.
I have wasted mine.
The charity paying Tracey, directly or otherwise, have wasted their money for no gain.
My vivid imagination about Tracey's desirable corpus proves a disappointment.
My 'compassion fatigue' becomes near terminal!
The lesson ...
Get 'caller display' on your phone.
NEVER answer if you don't know who it is.
If it's Tracey, tell her you could love her dearly, then put the phone down!
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