Don't Call Me, I'll Call You!

My friends and family from back home probably remember the solid nine months I spent at my previous job.  Let me just say: I love my new job so much more!!!!!  Every Sunday and Wednesday evening, I spend a few hours calling alumni and friends of my school and asking them to donate money so I can continue funding my college education through scholarships.

At first, most of the people I called were friendly and receptive of my little speech!  However, now that we've begun calling a group of people we like to call "non-donors," the friendliness has dwindled to that of Ebenezer Scrooge on Christmas morning.  In honor of my love for bullet-pointed lists, here are some of the things the lovely alumni have said to me:

• No, you can't speak to Ms. _______!  It's dinner time!

Oh I'm sorry, we don't have your dinner time recorded in our files.  

• Ma'am, it's a Sunday night.  Please don't call me at night.

No worries, I'll just call you Monday morning.  During my biology class.

• I'm an alum.  But I'm not a friend.  Those were four years I'll never get back.

Really.  How am I supposed to respond to that?!

• You're not my mother!  I don't even know how you got here!  Please hang up now and let me talk to my mother.

No, I am not your mother.  I guess I can't argue with that.

• *Silence* Eeeeeeeep!  Eeeep?  Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeep!  Wahhhhh!!!!!

Wow.  I'm speechless.

Luckily, the rejections I receive aren't nearly as painful as they could be, because the rest of my team is going through the same thing at the exact same time.  Whenever we hang up, we relay our latest call to the rest of the room, inserting clever comments that we didn't (but should've) used in the conversation.

After over a month at my job, I've learned one very important thing: Never again will I rudely hang up on a telemarketer.

I should mention that not all calls are bad.  I've had several great conversations with really nice people, and I really enjoy talking to the people who care enough to talk to me.

Shout-out to my supervisor, who let me interview her for a paper I'm writing, will be studying in the Netherlands next semester, passionately enjoys recycling, and is just all-around awesome.  :)