I don’t know about the rest of you out there, but living in Colorado, we are subjected to calls from the Obama campaign every day. Multiple calls. At dinner time.
Yep, you read that right. The Obama Campaign. We had a single call from the Romney campaign early on, and we told them “everyone who can vote in this house is voting Romney, and the one who can’t vote is going to help with telephones. Don’t waste time calling us.” Miraculously – they haven’t. (Miraculously because the McCain campaign called us at home while we were manning phones.)
The Obama campaign, however, has no such scruples. It keeps calling. It keeps calling despite the fact that its phone operators are too strange to pronounce our names properly (they’re not creative names in any way.) It keeps calling despite the fact that, at times, its operators don’t seem to know why they called and stutter more than Obama without a teleprompter. It keeps calling despite the fact that I told them I’d crawl uphill in snow both ways, through broken glass to vote Obama out of office. And then I started telling them … cruder things, including my favorite curse, in Portuguese “inde la pro mar coalhado, onde nao cante galinha nem galo, onde nao haja pao nem vinho nem carne de toucinho” (Roughly: may you go to where the sea is congealed, where neither hen nor rooster crows, where there is neither bread nor wine nor bacon-meat. [Hey, it was what the village madwoman used to scream at us kids].)
They still call. They’re like the McCain campaign on steroids and on denial. Also, possibly, on mescaline.
So it’s become a game to see which of us can give them the oddest answer. Possibly my favorite is “Attack Latinas For Romney! How may we help bring down Obama?” (Sometimes in Portuguese.)
The guys have others. “Geeks for Romney. May the Force be With Us.”
Tonight my husband tried the double reverse gotcha “Smart people for Obama. Psyche! There aren’t any!”
The goal of the game is to see what makes them hang up the quickest. A “loss” at this game is when the befuddled, under-educated, occasionally non-English-fluent youngster on the other side STILL tries to make the sale.
It’s fun for the whole family and in my family (hey, we even play cut-throat Scrabble!) it’s become a competition sport with scores kept. So far younger kid is way ahead. Once he tried to sell the Obama caller a penguin.
It is our duty to demoralize Obama phone workers, no matter how much we hate to be rude to strangers. It is our duty to put them on notice they are no longer the cool kids.
What are your suggested lines? Family friendly, please. (I’ve tried the others. They don’t seem to work.)
Remember, ideally they should be punchy and funny while being unequivocal enough they get you a hang up.
When I was a teenager I once fielded a call from a portrait studio. I told the caller, “I don’t show up on film.” I have yet to get a telemarketer off the phone faster except by merely hanging up on him.
“neither bread nor wine nor bacon-meat”??
Three of the four basic food groups – that’s the cruelest curse I’ve ever heard.
I can tell you what a neighbor of mine uses. Imagine a soft Southern accent: “Honey, I’m as hard as my breast implants. Next time I’m going with saline.” She claims it works every time.
Lately Caller-ID has gotten good at identifying the phone-bank callers. So I’ve taken to answering such calls: “Satanists for Obama, Long Island Headquarters. How can I help you?”
Long pause. Then, “Look, I’m already on board here for Obama. Just so long as it means more dead people.”
Answers ?
“Obama who ? Who is Obama ?”
“My opinion of Obama is not optimal”
“We are already working for Obama, we are in a meeting here with the cartels, we are distributing rifles, fast and furious.”
“The last four years have been a bump in the road”
LOVE the penguin one. I may have to try that one.
What is the capital of Israel?
Sample platter for answers:
1) I decided that if I wanted his ideology I would write in Karl Marx and cut out the middle man.
2)The chances of me voting for Obama are not “optimal”. If by not optimal, we mean dead.
3)Where’s my Iphone? How can I call in for my free birth control pills without a free Iphone? Do you need protection for phone sex? I’m a member of the I Want More Free Stuff party. Do I have to move to Ohio to be bribed properly?
4)Where are the Greek columns? Are you guys playing this time for tragedy or farce?
“John Galt speaking.”
“Chris Matthews Leg Tingle Institute.”
“Solyndra LLC…Now you give me YOUR money!”
“Fido Foods. Dog, it’s what’s for dinner, just ask Obama.”
“You didn’t call me. Someone else did.”
“Presidential stuff? I’ve got more important things to do…like my 138th round of golf.”
“Soetoro Teleprompter Corporation.”
Every question they ask you respond, “Present.”
Interrupt them every couple of seconds by saying, “Reset.”
“Can’t talk now, but after Romney is elected, I’ll be more flexible.”
Love those. How ’bout “You have reached the Andrew Breitbart Memorial Trouble Makers League”…?
RE: The goal of the game is to see what makes them hang up the quickest.
NO! The goal is to extend the call, to make them waste their time at the least possible cost to you.
Try saying “I am so glad you called since I have a question. Could you hold on while I turn down the stove?” Then put the phone down and just walk away. You will be surprised just how long a committed Obamabot will wait for your return.
I don’t do these calls in person, can you send me a briefing on my Ipad?
I’d get behind you on this, but how do we form a line,if you’re leading from behind?
Why not see who can keep them on the longest?
We had the same experience with the Romney campaign.
We tell the Obamatrons how wonderful Hte Won is and how much we love Moochelle, and can we have more Moochelle cowbell. Feeding their BS talking points of the day back to them…inventing exotic ethnic combinations when asked…inflating the number of voters. We try to skew their internal numbers and keep them on the call as long as possible. We request campaign material giving the address of the empty for sale house down the street.
Sometimes I do a deaf old lady routine, eh? what? who? “Godzilla ate AL Qaeda with asparagus on a bun?!” Making them waste time repeating endlessly. If I have one at hand I intersperse blasts of canned air noise into the receiver.
“Please leave your message at the sound of the beep.”
I interrupt their first sentence with a completely exasperated “Oh for the love of God, No…” It gets them off the line every time.
I’d tell them being an emigre from Cuba, I’m ineligible to vote.
Works MUCH better than saying you’re a felon or illegal from Mexico.
Tell them you would like to donate. It will cause them to get real excited, legs all tingled etc.
Then ask them what is the maximum amount that you can give.
Then give them 16 digits of π for the credit card number: 3141 5926 5358 9793 and tell them the security code is 238.
Talk about plunging a stick into an ants nest.
I try to keep them on line as long as possible…That’s our game…First I tell them thanks for calling…Then I ask them when was the last time they called their mom and Dad…Then I engage them with why I absolutely loved Jimmy Carter’s wife now what was here name? And we go down memory lane…Then I quiz them about Jimmy Carter…Do you know where he graduated? USNA…Did you know Jimmy was the first person to enter a nuclear rector during a meltdown…Once we leave Carter its off to Walter Mondale….If the caller is struggling with the answers ask for his supervisor or buddy….that way you tie up two for the price of one….eventually we put them on speaker phone for a family discussion of Global warming…my 10 year gets on with his great fear of losing polar bears…our record is 35 minutes!!!!
My standard line?
When I see who is calling, I answer— Fulton County Prison, how may I help you?
Very quickly I add– What prisoner do you want to talk to?? Sir, WHAT PRISONER DO YOU WANT TO TALK TO?
They hang up.
“I’ll answer your questions if you give me one of those free Obamaphones”
Jami has it right. I have had two Obama campaigners come to my door and in each case i invited them in, said I didn’t follow politics too closely, and could they explain to me why I should vote for Obama. I was able to waste a total of twenty-five minutes, time they could have spent elsewhere.
I took as much in the way of literature as they had; I would have shredded it and put it in the cat box but my cat has prnciples.
I think you have it the wrong way around. You need to keep them on the phone as a long as possible. Ever see the movie the David Mamet movie “Glengarry Glen Ross”? Remember Jack Lemmon and “Harriet and blah-blah Nyborg”? Poor Jack worked that sale hard for a day and a half and then closed it in the wee hours of the morning, thinking he had won the sales contest, only to find out that the Nyborgs didnt have any credit and “only liked to talk to salesmen”.
Listen to David Mamet, that is how you demoralize people.
Talk to them, pretend to be interested, make the person calling work hard for you, but always draw back make them keep at it. Keep that lined tied up and you can help turn that phone bank into a knot of unproductive hours spent chasing phantoms.
My best line:
“Hello! Suicide Boutique! We supply, you die!
You’re from the Obama campaign? We have group discounts!”
1. “Ah, greetings Comrade! Tell me when you will have more flexibility, I will transmit this information to Vladimir!”
2. “Riverview Mental Hospital, Admitting Department. What is your diagnosis?… Ah, yes, another delusional Democrat. Will that be electroshock, anti-psychotic medications, or both?”
3. “Atlas Shrugged Fan Club. …No, I’m afraid we have no interest in talking to looters or moochers such as yourselves.”
4. “Benghazi Consulate. I’m sorry, but Ambassador Stevens is no longer able to take your call.”
5. Pretend they have reached one of those old-fashioned dirty talk lines and advise them their call will cost $4.95 a minute. Tell them they’re a naughty, dirty Democrat who needs to be punished and that the big bad RNC will be giving them a thorough spanking on November 6.
Same as I do for telemarketers.
Hand the phone to my 4 year old and tell her Elmo is on the phone calling to see what she wants Santa to bring her for Christmas.