I have the same issue, and I personally think it’s stupid (as in, in what way is talking to a stranger in public weird?). Thinking it’s stupid doesn’t make it much easier to overcome my own inhibitions about it, but it is somewhere to start.
I think tact is the key. Interrupt as politely as you can, and gauge their reactions when you do. If it is clear they are not interested in your input, then turn around and leave them alone. No harm, no foul. If you have something to contribute, though, and the individuals weren’t specifically seeking a private conversation, then they will probably be interested in what you have to contribute.
This reminds me of a recent episode of the Ricky Gervais Show (basically Ricky and his friend make fun of another friend of theirs the whole time, funny but it gets old), where one of the hosts went swimming, noticed the guy in the lane next to him had an excellent front crawl (which the host has always struggled with) and asked the guy if he could give him some tips. Ricky’s response was “Oh god, you didn’t! Why would you do that?!” My thought the whole time was why in the world is that wrong? If the guy isn’t interested he’ll say no, and that will be it. If he is willing to help out a fellow swimmer then he will, and they may become friends over it. Where is the loss for anybody there?
I have a half dozen friends now that I wouldn’t have if I hadn’t done something very similar a couple years ago, at a swimming pool too, no less. I simply started talking to the lifeguard before and I after I swam. Not quite as out of the blue as the Gervais Show co-host, but it was similar.
Still, some people find it rude. I don’t for the life of me understand why, except for when they are clearly having (or are attempting to have) a private conversation, or talking about a personal. Otherwise, where is the harm? And really, the risk for me personally is extremely low. So some stranger thinks I’m odd, so what? Most people are odd in some way, friendliness is far from the worst odd trait you could have.
Strangers are a potential threat. So when a stranger comes up to you and initiates a conversation, there’s some reason to be on your guard.
This is combined with basic etiquette. If someone makes a small request, it is considered rude to refuse. The problem here is that creepy weird dangerous strangers can take advantage of this fact by making a small request, which then makes you feel obligated to comply. So now a complete stranger, who may be dangerous, has ensnared you. You’re now doing something that he asked, instead of something that you want to do. And he can keep you dancing to his tune by making more small requests. So if you follow the rules of etiquette, a complete stranger, possibly dangerous, can monopolize you for a significant length of time.
I see this happen all the time with telemarketers. The phone will ring. Somebody will answer it. Then they’ll be at the phone for a long time, maybe half a minute maybe a couple of minutes. And it turns out that it was a telemarketer, and the reason the person stayed at the phone for a long time was that he just couldn’t think of a polite way to end the conversation. You go ahead and try it. If you try to disengage, the telemarketer has a scripted response ready which cancels your attempt.
For my part, I’m not trapped by telemarketers. But I simply hang up. I say “no thanks”, and the telemarketer goes on to the corresponding point in his script, and I simply hang up on him while he’s in the middle of a sentence. That’s rude. But I do it, because there are no personal repercussions for me in doing it.
Being rude to a stranger face to face is not as easy to do. If you’re rude to someone, they might get angry, and one thing might lead to another. So it’s easy to hang up on telemarketers (for me, but importantly, not for everyone) but not so easy to “hang up” on a stranger right in front of you. For this reason, being approached by a stranger represents a more serious potential problem, a social trap that may be more difficult to get out of.
So what do you do? There are plenty of ways to initiate a conversation. One is to be already with somebody. If you’re not alone, if you already have a conversational partner, and if you’re deep in conversation with them, then you are obviously less in need of company, so the possibility that you might try to trap a stranger into a conversation is correspondingly reduced. Another method is to get the other person to initiate the exchange.
The thing to do with telemarketers, I have learned, is not to immediately hang up.
You just let them get to what they want to sell you, then say, loudly but politely and without a pause for them to butt in, something like “Let me stop you there, [name], I’m afraid I’m not interested, but thank you very much for calling.” If they don’t back down, THEN summarily hang up.
I prefer this to simply hanging up because doing the latter always makes me feel bad for several minutes afterward for having been rude to somebody who is, after all, trying to make a living.
The thing to do with telemarketers, I have learned, is not to immediately hang up.
No, it really is to hang up.
I prefer this to simply hanging up because doing the latter always makes me feel bad for several minutes afterward for having been rude to somebody who is, after all, trying to make a living.
Your emotions seem to be doing both you and the telemarketers a disservice—perhaps due to an instinctive misunderstanding of what kind of social transaction is taking place. The telemarketer is not socially vulnerable and nor are you in a position where perception will have future consequences. They also don’t WANT to have an extended positive interaction that has no chance of success. Wasting five minutes on a mark that has no chance of giving a commission is strictly worse than an instant hang up. Your instincts are right that they are “after all, just trying to make a living” and you are just getting in their way.
I’m not saying it is necessarily worth retraining your emotional attachments in this case. You seem to attach pride to the act of wasting telemarketer time and guilt to the act of hanging up. This, combined with assertiveness practice you get and the cost of retraining yourself may mean that it is better to stay in the behavioral local minima.
My own attitude is that time spent talking to me is time they aren’t spending making a sale, so getting off the phone is the nicest thing I can do for them under the highly constrained circumstances. So as soon as I recognize them as telemarketers, I politely say “Sorry, but I’m really not interested; have a good day” and hang up, without waiting for them to do anything in particular.
I disagree that strangers as a potential threat is one of the driving motivators for this practice. It may be a rationalization for it, but it is not a natural position to take.
In sparsely populated areas, where strangers are less frequent, strangers are often assumed to be friendly. People are still wary, of course, because there is always the possibility that a stranger is dangerous, but this is not a particularly strong reason to avoid them completely. The occasions where this seems to not be true are when individuals want nothing to do with anybody new, regardless of who they are or where they come from or what potential threat they might be (i.e. the old man with the “trespassers shot on sight” signs posted doesn’t want anything to do with anybody).
In sparsely populated areas people will often take random strangers in need into their home for a night or two, far more than any small request the average stranger in a city might make, yet the people in the sparsely populated areas don’t seem particularly put off by this.
Your second point I think hits closer to the mark. People believe it is rude to say no, and so seek to avoid situations where they can be trapped into small requests like you mentioned. Instead of learning to say “no, sorry”, or “I’m sorry but this is a private conversation”, we ostracize those who are friendly (a really sad state of affairs common to any large-ish city).
But I simply hang up. I say “no thanks”, and the telemarketer goes on to the corresponding point in his script, and I simply hang up on him while he’s in the middle of a sentence. That’s rude.
This I disagree that this is rude. It is not rude for you to hang up on him after you decline his offer outright and he disregards you. That is extremely rude of him to do so. He is required to continue based on the nature of his job, but it is still rude. Taking his rudeness onto yourself is wrong.
It may be polite to oblige small requests, but it is not particularly impolite to decline them. You are not beholden to strangers, and there is nothing in the rules of etiquette to make you so.
This I think is also one of the major problems with people using a cell phone in inappropriate places. People seem to think it is rude to not answer the phone, even when it would be incredibly rude to those around you to do so. It’s a conflict and most people seem to choose the caller on the cell phone for some bizarre reason, even when it isn’t likely to be any kind of emergency.
You are talking about what ought to be. I am describing what is—how people think and behave. What we can observe is that many people have a great deal of difficulty getting off the phone when a telemarketer calls. The reason, I think, is clear: they are reluctant to end the conversation unless the other person lets them go, because this is conversational etiquette. That’s why it’s difficult. You saying that it ought not be difficult isn’t a description, it’s an exhortation. You’re talking in exhortatory/advisory mode when saying “I disagree that this is rude”. I’m talking in descriptive mode: ending a conversation when the other party has not let go violates the etiquette that many people have thoroughly internalized. It doesn’t matter that some alternative etiquette would be superior if analyzed from a utilitarian standpoint. The one people have internalized is the one that produces the behavior.
Another entity who takes (unintentional) advantage of our reluctance to disengage until we allowed to is the bore, the tedious person who won’t shut up. I see the same behavior relative to bores that I see relative to telemarketers. Though people want nothing better than for the bore to shut up and let them get on with their day, they stay and pretend to listen to the bore until the bore is done talking, which may not be for a long time. Again, it doesn’t matter that, analyzed from a utilitarian standpoint, the optimal behavior is to disengage. I’m describing, not advising. My advice is to cut them short, but that is neither here nor there.
Another entity who takes (unintentional) advantage of our reluctance to disengage until we allowed to is the bore, the tedious person who won’t shut up. I see the same behavior relative to bores that I see relative to telemarketers.
Of course that is true, and it is not at all what I was advocating. And you’re right that suggesting people learn to say “no” is an exhortation. It was also quite beside the original point (though I did bring it up first, certainly).
The point is that politely interrupting a conversation that does not appear to be particularly private or personal, for the purpose of contributing to that conversation, is not rude. Neither is asking a question. It can certainly become so if you ignore the hints to stop, but it does not start out that way.
I also doubt the bore enjoys boring people, so getting irritated at him when you aren’t willing to tell him to stop seems pretty inconsiderate to me.
politely interrupting a conversation that does not appear to be particularly private or personal, for the purpose of contributing to that conversation, is not rude
I’m sure they like to think they’re entertaining. Which, ironically, incentivises their investing very little in finding out they actually are. I honestly would expect someone to react pretty badly to being told or hinted at that they’re abusing your patience—and I think that’s why people get pissed off with such people. There’s little option to exit the conversation properly.
IME, bores tend to just find themselves with fewer and fewer friends as time goes on - often without ever finding out why. Because how can you tell them? Costs you social points for dubious gain.
I agree that the usual politeness rules don’t apply with telemarketers. I go with “No” or “No, thank you” and hang up.
This is actually relatively polite, not just compared to yelling at them, but also in comparison to keeping the conversation going (some people do this deliberately) when the telemarketer is certainly not going to make a sale.
This reminds me of a story I heard of a comedian who really put the screws to a telemarketer.
The comedian pretended to be a detective investigating a homicide when the telemarketer called, and started grilling him about his relationship with the deceased (i.e. the comedian). He even went so far as to find out what city and office building the guy worked at, and told him not to move because local police would soon be on their way to pick him up for questioning.
It was hilarious, but incredibly mean. I wouldn’t be too surprised if the telemarketer found himself a new job as soon as possible after that.
I have the same issue, and I personally think it’s stupid (as in, in what way is talking to a stranger in public weird?). Thinking it’s stupid doesn’t make it much easier to overcome my own inhibitions about it, but it is somewhere to start.
I think tact is the key. Interrupt as politely as you can, and gauge their reactions when you do. If it is clear they are not interested in your input, then turn around and leave them alone. No harm, no foul. If you have something to contribute, though, and the individuals weren’t specifically seeking a private conversation, then they will probably be interested in what you have to contribute.
This reminds me of a recent episode of the Ricky Gervais Show (basically Ricky and his friend make fun of another friend of theirs the whole time, funny but it gets old), where one of the hosts went swimming, noticed the guy in the lane next to him had an excellent front crawl (which the host has always struggled with) and asked the guy if he could give him some tips. Ricky’s response was “Oh god, you didn’t! Why would you do that?!” My thought the whole time was why in the world is that wrong? If the guy isn’t interested he’ll say no, and that will be it. If he is willing to help out a fellow swimmer then he will, and they may become friends over it. Where is the loss for anybody there?
I have a half dozen friends now that I wouldn’t have if I hadn’t done something very similar a couple years ago, at a swimming pool too, no less. I simply started talking to the lifeguard before and I after I swam. Not quite as out of the blue as the Gervais Show co-host, but it was similar.
Still, some people find it rude. I don’t for the life of me understand why, except for when they are clearly having (or are attempting to have) a private conversation, or talking about a personal. Otherwise, where is the harm? And really, the risk for me personally is extremely low. So some stranger thinks I’m odd, so what? Most people are odd in some way, friendliness is far from the worst odd trait you could have.
Strangers are a potential threat. So when a stranger comes up to you and initiates a conversation, there’s some reason to be on your guard.
This is combined with basic etiquette. If someone makes a small request, it is considered rude to refuse. The problem here is that creepy weird dangerous strangers can take advantage of this fact by making a small request, which then makes you feel obligated to comply. So now a complete stranger, who may be dangerous, has ensnared you. You’re now doing something that he asked, instead of something that you want to do. And he can keep you dancing to his tune by making more small requests. So if you follow the rules of etiquette, a complete stranger, possibly dangerous, can monopolize you for a significant length of time.
I see this happen all the time with telemarketers. The phone will ring. Somebody will answer it. Then they’ll be at the phone for a long time, maybe half a minute maybe a couple of minutes. And it turns out that it was a telemarketer, and the reason the person stayed at the phone for a long time was that he just couldn’t think of a polite way to end the conversation. You go ahead and try it. If you try to disengage, the telemarketer has a scripted response ready which cancels your attempt.
For my part, I’m not trapped by telemarketers. But I simply hang up. I say “no thanks”, and the telemarketer goes on to the corresponding point in his script, and I simply hang up on him while he’s in the middle of a sentence. That’s rude. But I do it, because there are no personal repercussions for me in doing it.
Being rude to a stranger face to face is not as easy to do. If you’re rude to someone, they might get angry, and one thing might lead to another. So it’s easy to hang up on telemarketers (for me, but importantly, not for everyone) but not so easy to “hang up” on a stranger right in front of you. For this reason, being approached by a stranger represents a more serious potential problem, a social trap that may be more difficult to get out of.
So what do you do? There are plenty of ways to initiate a conversation. One is to be already with somebody. If you’re not alone, if you already have a conversational partner, and if you’re deep in conversation with them, then you are obviously less in need of company, so the possibility that you might try to trap a stranger into a conversation is correspondingly reduced. Another method is to get the other person to initiate the exchange.
The thing to do with telemarketers, I have learned, is not to immediately hang up.
You just let them get to what they want to sell you, then say, loudly but politely and without a pause for them to butt in, something like “Let me stop you there, [name], I’m afraid I’m not interested, but thank you very much for calling.” If they don’t back down, THEN summarily hang up.
I prefer this to simply hanging up because doing the latter always makes me feel bad for several minutes afterward for having been rude to somebody who is, after all, trying to make a living.
No, it really is to hang up.
Your emotions seem to be doing both you and the telemarketers a disservice—perhaps due to an instinctive misunderstanding of what kind of social transaction is taking place. The telemarketer is not socially vulnerable and nor are you in a position where perception will have future consequences. They also don’t WANT to have an extended positive interaction that has no chance of success. Wasting five minutes on a mark that has no chance of giving a commission is strictly worse than an instant hang up. Your instincts are right that they are “after all, just trying to make a living” and you are just getting in their way.
I’m not saying it is necessarily worth retraining your emotional attachments in this case. You seem to attach pride to the act of wasting telemarketer time and guilt to the act of hanging up. This, combined with assertiveness practice you get and the cost of retraining yourself may mean that it is better to stay in the behavioral local minima.
My own attitude is that time spent talking to me is time they aren’t spending making a sale, so getting off the phone is the nicest thing I can do for them under the highly constrained circumstances. So as soon as I recognize them as telemarketers, I politely say “Sorry, but I’m really not interested; have a good day” and hang up, without waiting for them to do anything in particular.
I disagree that strangers as a potential threat is one of the driving motivators for this practice. It may be a rationalization for it, but it is not a natural position to take.
In sparsely populated areas, where strangers are less frequent, strangers are often assumed to be friendly. People are still wary, of course, because there is always the possibility that a stranger is dangerous, but this is not a particularly strong reason to avoid them completely. The occasions where this seems to not be true are when individuals want nothing to do with anybody new, regardless of who they are or where they come from or what potential threat they might be (i.e. the old man with the “trespassers shot on sight” signs posted doesn’t want anything to do with anybody).
In sparsely populated areas people will often take random strangers in need into their home for a night or two, far more than any small request the average stranger in a city might make, yet the people in the sparsely populated areas don’t seem particularly put off by this.
Your second point I think hits closer to the mark. People believe it is rude to say no, and so seek to avoid situations where they can be trapped into small requests like you mentioned. Instead of learning to say “no, sorry”, or “I’m sorry but this is a private conversation”, we ostracize those who are friendly (a really sad state of affairs common to any large-ish city).
This I disagree that this is rude. It is not rude for you to hang up on him after you decline his offer outright and he disregards you. That is extremely rude of him to do so. He is required to continue based on the nature of his job, but it is still rude. Taking his rudeness onto yourself is wrong.
It may be polite to oblige small requests, but it is not particularly impolite to decline them. You are not beholden to strangers, and there is nothing in the rules of etiquette to make you so.
This I think is also one of the major problems with people using a cell phone in inappropriate places. People seem to think it is rude to not answer the phone, even when it would be incredibly rude to those around you to do so. It’s a conflict and most people seem to choose the caller on the cell phone for some bizarre reason, even when it isn’t likely to be any kind of emergency.
You are talking about what ought to be. I am describing what is—how people think and behave. What we can observe is that many people have a great deal of difficulty getting off the phone when a telemarketer calls. The reason, I think, is clear: they are reluctant to end the conversation unless the other person lets them go, because this is conversational etiquette. That’s why it’s difficult. You saying that it ought not be difficult isn’t a description, it’s an exhortation. You’re talking in exhortatory/advisory mode when saying “I disagree that this is rude”. I’m talking in descriptive mode: ending a conversation when the other party has not let go violates the etiquette that many people have thoroughly internalized. It doesn’t matter that some alternative etiquette would be superior if analyzed from a utilitarian standpoint. The one people have internalized is the one that produces the behavior.
Another entity who takes (unintentional) advantage of our reluctance to disengage until we allowed to is the bore, the tedious person who won’t shut up. I see the same behavior relative to bores that I see relative to telemarketers. Though people want nothing better than for the bore to shut up and let them get on with their day, they stay and pretend to listen to the bore until the bore is done talking, which may not be for a long time. Again, it doesn’t matter that, analyzed from a utilitarian standpoint, the optimal behavior is to disengage. I’m describing, not advising. My advice is to cut them short, but that is neither here nor there.
Of course that is true, and it is not at all what I was advocating. And you’re right that suggesting people learn to say “no” is an exhortation. It was also quite beside the original point (though I did bring it up first, certainly).
The point is that politely interrupting a conversation that does not appear to be particularly private or personal, for the purpose of contributing to that conversation, is not rude. Neither is asking a question. It can certainly become so if you ignore the hints to stop, but it does not start out that way.
I also doubt the bore enjoys boring people, so getting irritated at him when you aren’t willing to tell him to stop seems pretty inconsiderate to me.
Also, tautologies are tautological.
Indeed, I meant only to suggest there is a polite and impolite way to do it, and that interrupting in and of itself was not rude.
I could have phrased it better.
I’m sure they like to think they’re entertaining. Which, ironically, incentivises their investing very little in finding out they actually are. I honestly would expect someone to react pretty badly to being told or hinted at that they’re abusing your patience—and I think that’s why people get pissed off with such people. There’s little option to exit the conversation properly.
IME, bores tend to just find themselves with fewer and fewer friends as time goes on - often without ever finding out why. Because how can you tell them? Costs you social points for dubious gain.
I agree that the usual politeness rules don’t apply with telemarketers. I go with “No” or “No, thank you” and hang up.
This is actually relatively polite, not just compared to yelling at them, but also in comparison to keeping the conversation going (some people do this deliberately) when the telemarketer is certainly not going to make a sale.
This reminds me of a story I heard of a comedian who really put the screws to a telemarketer.
The comedian pretended to be a detective investigating a homicide when the telemarketer called, and started grilling him about his relationship with the deceased (i.e. the comedian). He even went so far as to find out what city and office building the guy worked at, and told him not to move because local police would soon be on their way to pick him up for questioning.
It was hilarious, but incredibly mean. I wouldn’t be too surprised if the telemarketer found himself a new job as soon as possible after that.
http://www.tommabe.com/videos-find/video_murder_scene.htm