The trick?

Make sure each call you are the Hannibal Lecter of prospects. Just get psycho with them, and work your hardest to place the most morbid, fear inducing, ugly, horrible impressions in their mind you can. Mix it up with near constant pleas to their humanity as you get them to empathize with the poor souls they prey on each day. From time to time, earnest pleas to get them to quit that job while you hold the line for them as they walk out is a nice, often finishing touch.

Do this a few times and mean it and don't break any laws and they will remove you from the dialer of their own free will.

My last call ended with "Oh Fuck! It's you." and that was the last I ever heard from those clowns.

I got several calls from the last wave.

I worked them hard, even getting a few of them to admit they are just running a script for easy cash.

This wave is different. My usual "hey, let's fuck with them on the phone" techniques have been accounted for. They hang up much quicker and do not reveal much of anything. Most importantly, they will not entertain basic human conversation easily. It's either advancing the script, or they play dumb hoping you are too and things can proceed anyway, or they are gone.

I damn near got one of them to quit on the spot last wave. Had him on the ropes feeling very shitty about the whole thing. One of these days, I'll get one to go, right then, just leave the phone hanging and walk out.

Fuckers.

My thoughts too. Seems a reasonable outcome considering a nice hunk of metal came into serious contact with his car.

I like the low battery, maybe do some serious analysis on the armor plate and beef it all up. Or, like you say, move the whole works. Something. The FEA structural software can do amazing things these days. This problem can be engineered away.

Nice outcome for the driver. He got informed and could proceed to take appropriate action.

Gas cars just catch fire and escalate quickly for comparison. I'll bet he does get another one.

Yes. Shit on the road.

All kinds of stuff happens and sometimes you don't have time or options to deal with it. So, it's a drive over and hope. Sucks, but there isn't too much we can do about the problem.

Here's a nice one:

It's a torrential rain kind of night. About 11:00 PM, on a rural highway, two lane, cars regularly passing in opposing lane. My brother in law was driving an old 70's Toyota Corolla. The engine in that thing was great, but the body was crapping out here and there. This was the mid 90's. Toyota has since beefed things up some, but their 70's era cars were awful thin in places. The Corolla was thin in the trunk.

This brother in law saw a few rust patches, but didn't think too much of it having driven some Chevy thing or other before. No worries. Well, he had a nice, big, heavy floor jack in the back of that Corolla because he lost the stock one. Besides, the floor jack could lift one end of the car in a pinch, which made tire rotation quicker. That, and a 4-way lug wrench, various cans of oil, etc... were all in this razor thin, rusted out trunk, just waiting to exit the car, which they did.

When it happened, he was moving about 60, nobody in front, headed to meet the rest of the family. Two or three vehicles were behind him, following close as people in my neck of the woods will often do. Out comes that jack. It probably weighed 25 pounds. He heard the clunk, and it actually wedged in a way that moved the rear of the car some, he saw sparks and then one of the lights behind him went out.

Now he's a dick, and just floored it. All he knows is that way too close tailgater got up close and very personal with that floor jack, and had to pull off the road. Some other cars in the other lane darted about and a few had pulled over that he could see in the rear mirror, while speeding away as quickly as he could.

When he arrived to tell the story, we opened the trunk, and he basically didn't have one anymore. All the stuff was gone, and the metal bits were bent this way and that along the edges. We think the trunk floor just dropped out and onto the road. The news featured the event and he worried about it for years. That jack took the first car right out! Bashed the drivers side light out, pierced the radiator, and ruined the drivers side tire before bouncing into traffic going the other direction where other fun 'n games proceeded to occur where it bounced into another one doing enough damage to the muffler and side panel to be ugly, and ended up pinned under a third where it ground to a stop.

Shit happens.

Probably that thing was not secured and just ended up on the road. So this guy is driving along, somebody changes lanes or something and there it is! He probably didn't have options. If he did, he would have not driven over it, unless it just dropped in such a way that left him no time.

Yeah me too. We had one of those, and we had the stove type for cooking, which we sometimes did. LOVE early morning heat. Just gets you up and MOVING. Haven't felt that in years and I'm old now as are you. We both could use it.

It was not as cold where I lived, but I did walk to and from the bus stop and it was about a half mile. 5 days a week with a few other kids who all centered on the same route, just because company on that kind of thing is just nice. And there is some basic safety in numbers. You learn that out there...

Good posts. I struggle with some of the energy decisions too. I like things that can be regional and local, like solar. I'm not such a fan of fossil fuels for heating.

I think there are many good options coming on line. I think wood will continue to be one of them.

The solution to checking work on weekends is to focus on your weekend.

Sure, there is almost always something. Where a group or person is fully utilized, there always is.

"No problem, I can get on that first thing Tuesday AM, have a great holiday weekend --I'm going camping, yeah no service up there, see you Tuesday..."

Reading through this, I just had a goofy idea. Might be fun. Wants, needs, risks and weightings.

Have people input their income and expenses. The product of that is some nice presentation of where their money currently goes.

Add value by doing the math, and if the inputs do not come within a few percent of income, prompt them for more spending.

For each spend, give it some data fields that detail the kind of spending, when, why, how and variances. Break it down so they get a screen with some great picks that tell the system what they are spending and might spend in rough ways.

eg:

Type of spend
Electric Bill, recurring, 15th of every month. Time base = quarter (as opposed to weekday, week, day, year, month, etc...) Summer = $100, Fall = $150, Winter = $200, Spring = $75

Smokes, recurring, every other day (give options here, day of month, pattern, weekly, annually, quarterly), $5

Oil Change, recurring, Quarterly, $35.

Savings, recurring, bi-weekly, $200.

You get the idea.

The more they input, the more robust the data is, and show them that as often as you can, or ideally as they are inputting so you are flexing that database and using spiffy features too.

Now they know what they are spending. Ask them about risks based on the input and some stuff you've thought up.

Car repair? Theft? Get sick? Have them input those.

Wants.

New car, $10K. Given that want, and the spending, show them options to save vs finance. As they add more wants, highlight where they overshoot their means and how the risks might screw them.

Then they can select weightings of various kinds...

Lots of fun there, uses database, might actually get used too.

Generally, I'll sample during a trial because that's a freebie. If I've paid in, they get that cycle to sell me.

Ok, I can type more than that for my comment.

In a nut shell, I make them regret they even considered calling me. Generally speaking, I get them to run from the cube sobbing, never to return to work again. Ideally, they quit their job right then and there. Been close to that, and I've deffo scored the sobbing and a coupla "unscheduled breaks" from the cube. One of these days, I will get one to quit right then and there.

Throughout that mess, I remind them about that recording for quality and I ask them whether or not they really want to face the ribbing they will get when the call gets checked. "Jesus, look at what happened to Ron last Tuesday! Holy fuck! What a lamer!" Or whatever...

There are a few rules to this.

1. You have to keep the call time high. It takes some time to break through their script and understand them well enough to impact them personally.

2. Every single word is double edged torture, laced to the max with empathetic expressions of wonder and disgust over how they can even consider doing that work, while at the same time establishing a rapport on some common ground basis they can identify with. This really gets to them.

3. Use profanity very lightly, if at all, and always use it in context that can be taken to be colorful, passionate expression, not anything they can take personally. Demean the work, the company, everything, but make sure it's one citizen to another trapped in a hopeless machine kind of way.

4. Use their name frequently, and if you suspect it's fake, work 'em for the real deal, then continue.

I've stopped most of them on the first call. Once or twice I've come up on the dialer within a short time frame. Typical responses are, "Oh fuck, it's you!" to which I start in as if nothing ever happened, happy to be speaking with them again, and where did we leave off?

The best is when they lose it big! Usually, it's some rant, or really sorry story, involving crying, yelling, frustration, you name it. And I listen intently, looking for just the right response to send them over the edge hard.

Call me, you might lose one of ur doodz.

Fuck, if I know the answer to this mess, but I do know how to raise the cost and I've got some great audio archived.... Hey Brandon from Vonage! Yeah, it's me. You know who I am, and are you still working there after our last two calls? Jesus dude, I told you how to get hold of me. Quit that shit and I'll do my best to hook you up. Just let me know.

http://cm.bell-labs.com/who/ken/trust.html

They need extensive testing and an object level code audit, along with tool chain certification to insure what they are running is what the code represents.

??

That's a hilarious warning. When we observe elections in other nations, we get involved at all levels, and frankly given the state of many of our elections, could use the same here.

Oregon Vote My Mail: Ask for it in a State near you.

and take it to work.

Cheap ass, and damn tasty, if you know what you are doing. If not? Well, there is that Arby's...

All of them. They remain useful until they are completely broken, thrashed, just worn the fuck out dead.

That's why they are doing well. I pay a lot for mine, run them hard, and when they are behind the curve, they get cycled home for various things, until they finally just don't work, and that process is generally painless too.

I like the matte black finish. It's not sexy, but it endures way better than the shiny, "please don't scratch it" finishes on so many machines do. Maybe starting out a little less sexy has it's advantages. Black is damn cool in my book, and there is always that little brightly colored something on the machines, sort of like a great tie on an otherwise boring business suit. Perfect.

The keyboards are a bit noisy, but I like that too. Always have. I can type and type and type until the buttons are all worn, and they just keep going great, no worries.

Heavy little buggers, if you buy the more powerful ones. If I need to clock somebody with my laptop, Lenovo is there! No worries, and I can probably post to Facebook after doing it too.

Linux is well supported across most of the machines. I love that. A Think Pad was the first machine I ran OS X on too. Worked amazingly well, and was faster than the Mac I ended up getting soon after. Gotta admit, the touch pad on the Mac is better tho, but not by much. Some Think Pad touch pads need to be worn in. Once that has happened, they work much better. Weird.

By and large, I leave most of the value added software on the machines. It works well. HP is noisy, Dell just horrible, etc.... I get a competent disc burning kit, defrag tools, etc... Nice package that actually has some real value. On my latest machine they even tossed in the nVidia 3D licenses. Didn't know that, until I connected up to a new TV for some 3D CAD tests. Nice!! That's $14.99 for most of you out there.

Funny thing is I was not a fan early on. One ended up at the house, and I started using it. By the time I got it, the machine was a bit dated, but damn if it wasn't just great to use. When it outlasted some HP thing or other, I was sold. Typically, I get a top machine for work purposes. Need big RAM / CPU, nVidia, etc... Once it's done, it goes home for micro-controller related projects. Long life cycle on these. Worth it.

And... matte finish displays that are typically nice, bright, with fine dot pitches. They've wavered a bit on these on some models as of late. Gotta be a bit picky about that, but so has everybody else. Get the better display they offer, and it's no worry.

The few times I've ordered replacement things under warranty, they shipped 'em, the work wasn't hard. Once the machine ends up at home, I find I can service it much easier than I can the HP machines, which incorporate all manner of fiddly components, glue, buttons that fail, etc... Ugh. Dell sometimes does better, and is in my mind, competitive on this front. Apple? Difficult, but then their stuff works a long time too. Fair game they are playing, but HP is just losing big on this front. Get an HP, and you better hope it works, or service might be very difficult no matter who does it.

I expected some of this to fade when IBM let go to Lenovo. Very pleased to see they've kept the bar high so far. Hoping they continue.