Wednesday, April 6, 2011

Guest Post: Ring Ring

Today's guest is the woman I have no shame in admitting my blog crush about. She's been revamping her blog and working on another {secret} project and I missed her so much, I asked her to guest post. Please welcome Erika from The Girl Next Door Grows Up back to The Scoop on Poop!! Also note that today is Jellybean's 11th birthday and I will be slammed with sleepover details for you next week. Happy Birthday, Jellybean!!!



Hi!  Some of you know me, others do not.  My name is Erika and I write the blog, The Girl Next Door Grows Up.  My friend Stephanie has been ever so nice in asking me to do a guest post for her and I must say that I jumped at the chance.   I have not been writing for a few weeks since I am in the middle of redesigning my blog and (ahem) 2 other new projects that are sort of a secret.
And no, I won’t say what they are, but they are cool.
It is an honor to be here especially on Jellybean’s Birthday. 
Thank you Stephanie so much.  It is quite a treat to be here.  Now here is my take on 800 numbers…

*Ring-Ring*
My husband Kevin has a thing about me not answering the phone when either a number I don’t know calls us, or if it is an 800 number.
He hates it in fact.
Now, we do have a number similar to a car wash so we get many calls asking for our Hours of Operation and in one old edition of the phone book, our number is actually listed as The Car Wash so when I do see a name and number that I don’t know, I just keep right on walking by.
I figure they will get the hint when the answering machine clicks on.
Sometimes, I do stop and pick up the phone and give the caller the correct number. 
As for the 800 numbers…
 I have been asked to be on the Do Not Call list.
I have spoken to credit card, bank card, and charity organizations and politely asked to be removed from the list.
It never works.
Even though I donated clothes last week, they keep calling and calling and calling every week to see if I have more.
How much more can I have?   I am all tapped out. 
Then there are the charity calls.  Now, I have my list of organizations that we donate money to.  I do not randomly donate money over the phone because I am certain it is a scam. 
Unfortunately, we get lots of calls asking for money.
Mostly I walk by the ringing phone, but sometimes I don’t and I answer.
I tell them that, “No I can’t donate at this time.” and then they ask for money again. 
“Can I donate $50?”
No.  I can’t donate anything at this time.
“How about $25?”
No I can’t donate ANY MONEY.
“Maybe $10?”
And this is my breaking point.
I have been polite.  I have already stated I couldn’t donate anything so what do I do?
I lie.
I tell the person on the other end of the phone that we have lost our jobs and have no money.
I know.  That is probably a bad thing to do, but I have a hard time just hanging up the phone on them.  I figure they are supposed to do their script no matter what I say, but there is nothing in their script when I tell them that we are broke.
Oh, and being broke gets you off of their call list faster than you can say “Buh-Bye.”
Please tell me, what do you do in these situations?

No comments:

Post a Comment