"People don't buy out of need or desire; they buy because they've been sold," writes Franklin Schneider in a 2024 essay in Slate about his experience as "the No. 1 telemarketer in the United States."
The environment was depressing — "low-ceilinged, fluorescent-lit office building at the edge of town, the empty liquor bottles piled up in the men's room, a time capsule of a world that came and went nearly unnoticed."
Worse was the mindset that develops when your livelihood depends on extracting "yes" from strangers. After observing one of the call center's top performers — "a matronly woman with a kid at home" — he realized: "Whether you're peddling long distance over the phone, Bibles door to door, or your own political candidacy on live national TV, it doesn't matter what you're selling — it matters how you make people feel. If you make them feel good, they'll say yes."
The success came with a psychological cost. The constant rejection warps your perspective: "Eventually, as you're hung up on, insulted, rejected by hundreds of leads a day, you realize that, miraculously, you have found the architects of your misery: Here, right here — these are the people responsible!"
Next comes hard-heartedness. "Fairness, conscience, empathy, and honesty were luxuries that, like caviar or health insurance, were for other people — we had to work for a living. We were victims. Therefore, we had license to take whatever measures were necessary."
The "sales mindset" can corrupt every aspect of life: "Seeing the world through the lens of selling and dealmaking can feel freeing, even empowering, but all you've done is condemn yourself to a life of never-ending nickel-and-diming."
He compares the selling of crap services to selling versions of ourselves online: "We're all trapped in the back-office cubicle pod, our desperation rebranded as hustle, bitter entrepreneurs of abjection competing for the same dwindling pool of broke rubes."
Previously:
• Is AI better for telemarketing or for infuriating telemarketers?
• The story of 'Lenny' — a chatbot designed to make telemarketing unprofitable
• Vacation scammer telemarketer spends 15 minutes talking to a bot
• Counter-script to use on telemarketers
• Robo Revenge automates the process of suing telemarketers
• Listen to this call I got from some outfit called Associated Community Services
