You know the routine by now. You're trying to read a book or a magazine that's sat on your go-to pile for way too long. You're eating lunch, or maybe, you're just in the middle of dinner. Your favorite show is about to hit a crucial plot point. That's when they strike. That's why I call them...The 50-Foot Robocaller. Because the results are like something out of a cheap '50s monster movie, without the campy humor. Or the cheap special effects.
You let the answering machine do the work, if you've got one, or the resulting message slide into voicemail. Most of the time, they just hang it up, and call it a day, but sometimes, you hear something along these lines:
"If you're not a registered voter, press 1. If you are a registered voter, press 2." Pause. "We are a national polling firm, and want do a brief survey. It will only take four minutes, and we will not try to sell you anything." Usually, at this point, I'll click off, though sometimes, I'll get the canned message while I'm lying in bed. Then the predictive dialer, the device that makes the call, seems to get stuck on the first part:
"If you're not a registered voter, press 1. If you are a registered voter, press 2... If you're not a registered voter, press 1. If you are a registered voter, press 2..."
At last, the dialer runs out of steam, and the message stops in mid-canned soliloquy. Click! Prrp! And then, finally, your line goes dead.
Lately, it's gotten really bad. They call at 8:00 a.m. (seriously!). They call at 6:00 p.m. They call on weekends, again, when you're trying to enjoy your lunch, or in my case, beat a deadline of some kind or other. Either way, it's jarring and grating. You got jerked out of the groove; now it's up to you, apparently, to find your way back. Meanwhile, the 50-Foot Robocaller prepares to phone bomb the next unwary sucker.
Many of these particular phone bombs seem to originate from outfits engaging in "push polling," a less reputable category of surveying that our friends at Wikipedia define thusly: "A push poll is an interactive marketing technique, most commonly employed during political campaigning, in which an individual or organization attempts to manipulate or alter prospective voters' views under the guise of conducting an opinion poll."
What kind of candidates resort to this trick? Presumably, the same candidates struggling to get traction against better-positioned rivals, though I imagine the scam cuts both ways. Typically, the results got woven into some dubious press release or other, that duly wings way over the media's mighty e-transom. I pitch those releases the second I scan them, but you never know what might stick, right? That's the theory, I suspect.
Now and then, an actual live person answers, but the results don't go any better. When I tell the caller, "Look, I don't want to do your survey," or, "I'm not ready to do this right now," they'll literally just barrel right through whatever prepared script they've been handed. It's hard to think of anything more disrespectful or rude to the person on the other end.
I suppose I shouldn't get mad at them, because these people are probably just grabbing whatever bucks they can find. It's not like we're getting another stimulus check soon, right? But what's really aggravating are the calls that continue coming in, even after you tell them, "Please don't call here anymore. " At a certain point, you just want to be left alone.
I felt the same visceral reaction to someone claiming to represent the FOP (Fraternal Order Of Police), trying to shake me down for money. I remember it clearly, because this call came only a couple of months after George Floyd's slow suffocation in Minneapolis. The FOP is among the most reactionary organizations on the planet.
Their agenda is to buy politicians, to help them stifle any reforms, no matter how badly needed (if they have teeth), nor tepid (if they don't). Or, as In These Times labor reporter, Hamilton Nolan, succinctly put it, in a June 30 opinion piece for the Guardian: "The time has come to put police unions on a raft and set them adrift. perhaps they can reapply for solidarity if they ever stop abusing the rest of us."
You'd think the FOP and their ilk would get the memo, right? Especially after all that unflattering footage of their heroes cracking old peoples' skulls, beating up pregnant women, and hitting reporters with rubber bullets -- to name three of the more egregious acts that have been documented. You'd think they might keep a low profile, or at least not harass the decent folks, for a week or two.
No such luck, though. I could literally feel the oil dripping off the guy, as he launched into his prepared spiel: "Hello, I'm calling on behalf of the Fraternal Order of Police, and if you're concerned about law and order, you'll appreciate the need for..." I tried to tell him, "You're not getting any money from me," followed by, "Don't call here anymore."
And still the pitch continued, full steam ahead: "These men and women of law enforcement who blah-blah-blah work so hard to keep you and I safe blah-blah-blah so that you and I may blah-blah-blah feel safer blah-blah-blah..."
I didn't stick around for the rest. I slammed down the receiver with a resounding thud, and left it at that. Even then, the FOP -- if that's who they really were, which is a different discussion -- didn't get the memo, because I got two or three more calls after that one, until they finally (mercifully) tapered off.
No doubt about it, we're all yearning for more interactions during the era of endless pandemic. The 50-Foot Robocaller is hardly what we had in mind. But right now, this is what passes for social interaction during the Corona Era, and we're all the worse off for it. --The Reckoner
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