4:22 p.m. - 2003-05-16
Cranky and Righteous!
Did ya'll catch the eclipse last night? I love sky events. I always imagine that I and all my friends are all looking up at the sky together, even though we're in way different geographical places, we all look up at the same sky.
I am soooo capable of sappy, yet early Yoko Ono-esque, type-thinking, eh?
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I pulled out our dogged-eared copy of Abbie Hoffmans' "Steal This Book" yesterday. Since my revelations that I'm not doing enough to change the world this past weekend, I have been feeling very militant. "Steal This Book" always puts me in a good mood. Even though it's terribly dated, it inspires me to heights of change-the-world-make-the-corporate-pigs-clean-toilets mania.
And then I looked around the net for more up-to-date ideas. And I found this gem. Yeah! I love this!! Read on:
"Andy Rooney's Tips for Telemarketers and Junk Mail
Three Little Words That Work !!
(1)The three little words are: "Hold On, Please..."
Saying this, while putting down your phone and walking off (instead of hanging-up immediately) would make each telemarketing call so much more time-consuming that boiler room sales would grind to a halt.
Then when you eventually hear the phone company's "beep-beep-beep" tone, you know it's time to go back and hang up your handset, which has efficiently completed its task. These three little words will help eliminate telephone soliciting.
(2) Do you ever get those annoying phone calls with no one on the other end? This is a telemarketing technique where a machine makes phone calls and records the time of day when a person answers the phone. This technique is used to determine the best time of day for a "real" sales person to call back and get someone at home.
What you can do after answering, if you notice there is no one there, is to immediately start hitting your # button on the phone, 6 or 7 times, as quickly as possible. This confuses the machine that dialed the call and it kicks your number out of their system.
Since doing this, my phone calls have decreased dramatically.
(3) Another Good Idea:
When you get "ads" enclosed with your phone or utility bill, return these "ads" with your payment. Let the sending companies throw their own junk mail away. When you get those "pre-approved" letters in the mail for everything from credit cards to 2nd mortgages and similar type junk, do not throw away the return envelope.
Most of these come with postage-paid return envelopes, right? It costs them more than the regular 37 cents postage "IF" and when they receive them back. It costs them nothing if you throw them away! The postage was around 50 cents before the last increase and it is according to the weight. In that case, why not get rid of some of your other junk mail and put it in these cool little, postage-paid return envelopes. Send an ad for your local chimney cleaner to American Express. Send a pizza coupon to Citibank. If you didn't get anything else that day, then just send them their blank application back!
If you want to remain anonymous, just make sure your name isn't on anything you send them. You can even send the envelope back empty if you want to just to keep them guessing! Eventually, the banks and credit card companies will begin getting their own junk back in the mail. Let's let them know what it's like to get lots of junk mail, and best of all they're paying for it...Twice!
Let's help keep our postal service busy since they are saying that e-mail is cutting into their business profits, and that's why they need to increase postage costs again. You get the idea !
If enough people follow these tips, it will work!"
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Yah, Andy Rooney! I have been doing that last tip for years. In fact, I think I first learned it from the Yippies, except they recommended taping the business reply envelope to a brick before you sent it back.
And you know, as if on cue, I just got the most amazing piece of mail from, of all the groups to know better than to send junk mail, the Sierra Club!!
It makes me sick. The Sierra Club sent a packet a full 1/4 inch thick, stuffed with hysterical rantings about how we must save the Tongass National Forest from nasty loggers!!
And why does the Tongass have to be cut down? So that those nasty loggers can keep wasteful groups like the Sierra Club supplied with paper so they can send out these enormous packets of junk mail!!!
GRRRRRR! I am not kidding folks. This packet has the following:
1. A TWO PAGE come on letter to join the Sierra Club.
2. A page detailing the wildlife in the Tongass.
3. A sheet offering membership for $15 a year.
4. Little Calendar Stickers. In casse you don't already have 50 of these from all the other junk mail you get.
5. A sheet offering me a free back pack if I JOIN NOW!! NOW!!! NOW!!!
6. A sheet with a goat on one side and fun facts about the Tongass on the other.
7. A sticker.
8. A sheet with a quote from John Muir, who would undoubtedly be appalled at this insane waste of paper.
9. A sheet which states the Sierra Club was named the most effective envoronmental organization. Will someone tell the Aspen Group, which gave them this distinction, about the Sierra clubs ridiculous mailings?
10.A long form with a petition to the Secretary of Agriculture and yet another membership come-on. And it has a calendar printed on the back. In case those sticker ones weren't enough. You can NEVER have enough calendars!!
Seriously, folks, I am packing all of this back up, topped with a very nasty note, and putting it in the business reply envelope they kindly provided, and I am sending it all back to them, at their expense. It really is about time that this crap just stopped.
DANG IT!!! I am Cranky!! Cranky and Righteous!!!! GRRRRR!!!
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