That last articles make methink. Customers are not a function of traffic. Customers are made one by one, in confidence. I’ll never forget that cute, super tough lesbian cyber chick that told me why this-and-no-other nokia mobile is the best for me. She was bright, candid, on the same level with me, and she was right. In the last year I found most of my customers for SL projects (and I’m talking about contract volumes of 6000-160000€ each) in-world: By arousing their interest, focussing on them, knowing what I talk about, being witty, being kind, and being all here (in this or the other world). And I absolutely love to have a bright guy or gal on the phone line, when the thoughts fly like shuriken, it’s more a ballet than a phone call, and I’m vibrant with positive energy after such magic happened.

And then there are these lame cold call guys. (A cold call is a kind of phone spam, where the participants were having no connection beforehand. It’s forbidden in Germany.) “Mrs. Luna, from my papers I can see that you are a good customer of the *X* insurance company!!1!” “huh, wot?” “Yeah !!1! [his voice clipping of anticipated lies], and you must know your personal consultant, Mr. X!!1!” O R’lyeh, must I? In a blink of an eye I get the whole story. Mr. X was so lame that he got fired, but he stole the records of some poor customers, and sold them to phone spammers, probably to buy more cocaine and booze… “Well, to be true, the good customer you’re talking about, that’s not me, but my dog. [I actually bought a Hundehaftpflichtversicherung for my sweet Alice some time ago, but not from some phone spammer hiding his caller id.] So we have no connection whatsoever, but please, carry on with your talk!” I swear, I said exactly that, only in german. And it’s a super bad sign that he let me say it. And he knows it. Within german jurisprudence it’s not allowed to hide the callers id when spamming, which he did, and I just made sure that he is cold-calling. From now on, I can buy a yellow submarine from that guy, just for the lulz, and all he’d get was trouble.) He says one more totally desperate sentence, I have forgotten, and I kindly tell him that my time slice of polite conversation is over now, and hang up. OMG, such a poor, poor guy. In the elder days, when I was not yet filed under “DO NOT CALL! YOU WILL SUFFER MAJOR DEPRESSION AFTERWARDS! WE’RE ALL GONNA DIE! WEEP!”, I often told the guys to get a real job, instead of having to talk to me. But what to do with this specimen? I feel so much mercy for him, I’d maybe even buy something. Nay, probably not.

Anyway, here’s the Phone Spam anti script, in case you lost it, or really didn’t know. Oh, and here’s some information kindly brought to you by the ministry of telecommunication security:

Always park your headset mic in a safe position when eating pizza!

Cheers,

Torrid

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