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Many years ago, over a decade at least, I used to work for a cold-call survey center in Rexburg Idaho while attending school. The hours were awful, you were only paid based on completed surveys, and they could be any length from five minutes to an hour each, but it was one of the only places hiring and I needed the cash.
The best part of working there was that the cold-call system used a random number generator type program to generate phone numbers. You may start with a call in Idaho then the next call would be Montana and the next could be in Washington. The one interesting part is that with enough luck you could get some really fun calls if you happened to get just the right rng with the generator.
A few gems that I got was once calling an internal line at an ambulance dispatch station where I was yelled at by an EMT for disrupting their response system since I was taking up a line that they needed to send out first responders to emergencies. Another time I ended up calling in to a live radio station in Oklahoma and fumbled through an apology live on the air before dropping the call.
This particular call was near the end of my shift on a Friday. The call connected and I started my usual script, “Hello, my name is TexanPirate with Research Company, do you have a few minutes to complete a survey?” The gentleman responded with a deep sigh and angrily responded “how is it that you people always end up calling right when we sit down to dinner? I’ve asked a million times to be removed from your list and I can’t believe that y’all are stupid enough to keep calling!”
After having a particularly long and not-very profitable day due to minimal completed surveys, I was tired and just done for the night. “Sir, it’s nearly 8 o’clock here where my building is located. You may be sitting down for dinner, but I’m still at work. Do you have time for a survey or not?” After a short pause that I prefer to believe was due to some introspection into his life, he simply said no and hung up on me. Thankfully no supervisors magically ever happen to get the late shift so no one was listening in on the call to get upset at me. I ended up leaving soon after that anyway due to the semester ending so I never really looked back.
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