So, you’re sitting in your office, minding your own business\/doing your job, when suddenly your phone rings. “My,” you say, with all the misplaced optimism in the world. “Who could that be?”<\/p>\n
Now would be a good time to mention that 80% of my phone calls come from abroad, on the company phone system, which automatically shows who’s calling me. I should probably start being suspicious if I don’t recognize the number. Unfortunately, you get kinda conditioned to simply grab the work phone and see what you can do.<\/p>\n
Alas, today it was some guy trying to sell me something; A “financial advisor”, in fact, who wanted to sell me… financial advising? He should work on that a lil’ bit, because his wares don’t really drag you in. But all the same, I kinda forgot over my years of being in Japan how hard American advertisers push stuff on you. Japanese companies usually take ‘no’ for an answer, or are promptly met with “I don’t speak Japanese…<\/em>” (which I say in Japanese. Please don’t think about that too hard), but the American counterparts? Good luck.<\/p>\n My newest best friend–we’ll call him Kevin, since I didn’t bother paying attention to his name–seems to believe I need help planning my finances. Never mind the fact that you need finances in order to plan them; that didn’t bother Kevin. He’s going to be in the office next week meeting with some other clients of his, and he’s super excited to meet me<\/em>. No pressure (isn’t that what this phone call is all about?); just a quick, one-on-one Q&A sit-down to see what his financial planning services can do to plan my $4.27.\u00a0Rags to Riches<\/strong>!<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n After several attempts to explain to him that I don’t know my schedule (my job is basically constantly being on-call. I don’t know when work will come in, what the deadline will be, or what I’ll be doing from day to day), he insisted on booking an appointment with me. It’s kinda what high-pressure sales-people do. Now, I really don’t care for arguing with people, and I don’t want to say no<\/em> quite so directly. It just feels.. uncomfortable, you know?<\/p>\n So, WWJ!D (What Would Jason! Do) in such a situation? You’re in the middle of a job, the guy won’t stop talking, and he wants you to go to a seminar thing to push you on the hard sell. Well, Jason would say “yes”. And that puts him pretty high on the list of people that high pressure sales men hate. You see, your goal is to sell me something, and my goal is to get you off the phone. You tell me what I want to hear (“I can make you rich!<\/em>“), and I tell you what you want to hear (“Rich?! YES!!! Sign me up!<\/em>“).<\/p>\n But the catch is that I’m not actually listening to anything you’re saying to me, unless you start asking for money or to agree to anything related to billing. When you call next week to confirm my appointment the day before, I can bet that something’s going to suddenly come up and I’m going to be really busy. Yes, I can practically see the future!<\/p>\n Poor guy. I even wrote down the name of his company, spelled it out on the phone, and got the name of the guy I’m gonna be “too busy” to meet. Then I drew candy canes and Christmas trees on the paper. I’m pretty sure telemarketers don’t care for me.<\/p>\n In other news, I’ve only got one more day of work this week. I’m off on Friday for the next 3 weeks, so I’ll be going to the tax office (…fun?) to sort out the whole pension drama, and then baking Christmas cookies all day to prepare for my Saturday party with my ex students.<\/p>\n Right now, I’m gonna get into bed and read a novel. For some odd reason, all the Japanese novels I read are murder-mysteries. Huh. At least my vocabulary for describing murder investigations is pretty awesome!<\/p>\n Later!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" So, you’re sitting in your office, minding your own business\/doing your job, when suddenly your phone rings. “My,” you say, with all the misplaced optimism in the world. “Who could that be?”<\/p>\n Now would be a good time to mention that 80% of my phone calls come from abroad, on the company phone system, which automatically shows who’s calling me. I should probably start being suspicious if I don’t recognize the number. Unfortunately, you get kinda conditioned to simply grab the work phone and see what you can do.<\/p>\n