Off Script
I hate people calling me to sell me stuff. See, I figure if you want to sell me something, you should pay for the medium you're doing the selling in. You should pay for the overhead at the grocery store or car dealership, you should buy the air time for the TV commercial, and so forth. Me, I pay for the phone service, so I don't want you to call me on it to sell me things. Just doesn't seem right. I'm on every do-not-call list there is.
But! I'm in the market for insurance, and a while back I filled out some information on this online listing deal so I could get a bunch of quotes. Got the quotes fine, but as I suspected, I've gotten a lot of calls too. A lot of calls. They say I filled out an application, which I didn't. And they're very avid—there's profit in selling insurance, I imagine—and there's a lot of them. And last night the phone buzzed just as I was getting the collard greens out to cut the ribs out of them and sauté them in olive oil and garlic. Ringy-dingy!
"Hello?"
"Hello. Can I speak with Matthew?"
"Well, not if you're calling from an insurance company."
My tone was pleasant, sort of nothing-personal, and bless the fellow's heart, he was cool about it. There was silence for a couple of moments, and then a low, amused chuckling. It was the kind of thing a person with a measure of ego strength would do if he were playing checkers, say, and his opponent saw he was wide open and did one of those bam-bam-bam-bam-bam deals and wiped him off the board in one move. That's life, the bear ate you, it happens. Best you can do is laugh to yourself.
Obviously there was nothing in the script about this situation, and just as obviously this guy was an authentic, down-to-earth person, a pretty cool person, really. I loved it that he just laughed. But I've learned to be firm, so I just said "Matthew is going to make dinner now" and hung up.
And then I felt bad. A guy who can take life's little setbacks philosophically is a guy I might want to buy insurance from. So call back, buddy, if you're reading this, OK? Just not at dinnertime.
But! I'm in the market for insurance, and a while back I filled out some information on this online listing deal so I could get a bunch of quotes. Got the quotes fine, but as I suspected, I've gotten a lot of calls too. A lot of calls. They say I filled out an application, which I didn't. And they're very avid—there's profit in selling insurance, I imagine—and there's a lot of them. And last night the phone buzzed just as I was getting the collard greens out to cut the ribs out of them and sauté them in olive oil and garlic. Ringy-dingy!
"Hello?"
"Hello. Can I speak with Matthew?"
"Well, not if you're calling from an insurance company."
My tone was pleasant, sort of nothing-personal, and bless the fellow's heart, he was cool about it. There was silence for a couple of moments, and then a low, amused chuckling. It was the kind of thing a person with a measure of ego strength would do if he were playing checkers, say, and his opponent saw he was wide open and did one of those bam-bam-bam-bam-bam deals and wiped him off the board in one move. That's life, the bear ate you, it happens. Best you can do is laugh to yourself.
Obviously there was nothing in the script about this situation, and just as obviously this guy was an authentic, down-to-earth person, a pretty cool person, really. I loved it that he just laughed. But I've learned to be firm, so I just said "Matthew is going to make dinner now" and hung up.
And then I felt bad. A guy who can take life's little setbacks philosophically is a guy I might want to buy insurance from. So call back, buddy, if you're reading this, OK? Just not at dinnertime.
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