My roommate is not the only one who depends on telemarketing to make a living. In college, I held several phone-based positions. I sold subscriptions to the New Jersey Symphony, collected money from graduates of New York University for the Alumni Fund, and solicited office space and sublets from residents of New York City's Chelsea neighborhood. I took these jobs not because I enjoyed interrupting people's dinners or favorite television shows, or because I got some odd satisfaction from being cursed at and hung up on, but because I could work part-time and not worry about it interfering with my schoolwork. Telemarketing companies recruit college students, offering them lucrative sales-based commission on top of a minimum wage salary. The hours are flexible and can easily be designed to fit a student's class schedule. Without telemarketing, the market for part-time student jobs diminishes drastically. And, contrary to popular belief, not all of America's university students are trust fund babies who survive on allowance checks from mommy and daddy. Some of us worked our way through school.
The implications of the Do Not Call list are larger than they seem. Since she graduated from college, my roommate has made her living selling knives. Much of her job depends on a list of phone numbers obtained from customers, recommendations of people who may also be interested in purchasing a set of knives. She spends at least two hours on the phone every night cold-calling potential customers and contacting former ones. She hopes to make enough money to pay for graduate school. Up until now, she has been incredibly successful, ranked highly in the nation for sales.
However, with the national Do Not Call list looming, her job security has been shattered. She will no longer be able to contact customers who purchased knives more than 18 months ago, nor can she cold-call the numbers of friends provided by current clients. She can only have customers dial their friends and ask permission for her to call while she is sitting in their houses, shifting the responsibility from her to her customer. A quick search of her old customers in the Do Not Call Database showed that most of them had, in fact, registered. Her dilemma now? Continue to call and potentially face a hefty fine, or comply with the new regulations and watch her sales drop significantly and worry about paying the rent.
My roommate is not the only one who depends on telemarketing to make a living. In college, I held several phone-based positions. I sold subscriptions to the New Jersey Symphony, collected money from graduates of New York University for the Alumni Fund, and solicited office space and sublets from residents of New York City's Chelsea neighborhood. I took these jobs not because I enjoyed interrupting people's dinners or favorite television shows, or because I got some odd satisfaction from being cursed at and hung up on, but because I could work part-time and not worry about it interfering with my schoolwork. Telemarketing companies recruit college students, offering them lucrative sales-based commission on top of a minimum wage salary. The hours are flexible and can easily be designed to fit a student's class schedule. Without telemarketing, the market for part-time student jobs diminishes drastically. And, contrary to popular belief, not all of America's university students are trust fund babies who survive on allowance checks from mommy and daddy. Some of us worked our way through school.
And it's not just college students who are affected. Anyone who needs a job with flexible hours, from single moms to people with full-time day employment, will now have to look elsewhere. In a time when unemployment has risen sharply, eliminating a section of the U.S. job market with a superfluous Do Not Call list in order to improve the quality of life for people who feel compelled to answer the phone every time it rings is certainly not the best investment of government energy, nor is it a way to upturn the unemployment rate.
Sure, telemarketers are annoying and can, at times, be tenacious. We have all received three to seven calls between the hours of 6 and 9 p.m., and it's frustrating, particularly when we're hoping the voice on the other end is a friendly and familiar one. But how difficult is it to say, "No thank you, I'm not interested," or even simply hang up? Is this really a pressing problem or one of those annoying things that America is just sick of being bothered with? Have we really become too lazy to say, "Please take me off your list?"
If the phone rings during dinner, don't answer it. Let the machine pick up. If it was important, call back. If you're afraid of missing a pressing call, get caller ID and answer only those calls you recognize. Many phone service providers even offer a service where callers from blocked numbers must identify themselves before the phone rings in the house. Homeowners can choose whether to accept the call, much like denying and accepting collect calls. And the government could create limits on the hours during which phone solicitation can occur instead of pulling the telemarketing industry's cord out of the jack.
The Do Not Call list does not just prevent long distance service providers from offering you an alternative to your current service, it eliminates thousands of jobs for a section of the population unqualified for most jobs but overqualified for many. It will cause people who are already overworked and underpaid to become even more overworked, and push college students out of jobs with flexible hours that teach them people skills and—from someone who has been on the dialing end of telemarketing calls—patience. Perhaps it's time to look at the bigger picture and think about not just who will benefit from this, but who will be adversely affected when the phones no longer ring. Telemarketers are a nuisance, but not cause for a national uproar. Until, of course, the list takes effect and the unemployment rate inches higher.
Jessica Hemerly of New Tripoli is a recent graduate of New York University. She works at the National Journal in Washington, D.C.
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