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By education and experience - Accountant with a specialty in taxation. Formerly a CPA (license has lapsed). Masters degree in law of taxation from University of Denver. Now retired. Part time work during baseball season as receptionist & switchboard operator for the Colorado Rockies. This gig feeds my soul in ways I have trouble articulating. One daughter, and four grandchildren. I share the house with two cats; a big goof of a cat called Grinch (named as a joke for his easy going "whatever" disposition); and Lady, a shelter adoptee with a regal bearing and sweet little soprano voice. I would be very bereft if it ever becomes necessary to keep house without a cat.
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Phone solicitations
I'm on the mailing list for several entities connected with the university where I got my bachelor's degree. Sometime this summer, I began to come home from the stadium with a hang up on the answering machine and a caller ID report with an area code I recognized as belonging to the town where I went to college.
This pattern continued for at least a couple of months. A call when I wasn't home, no message, and that same phone number on the caller ID report. Somewhere during that period I got an email from the alumni office with the subject line "Please answer our phone call." The email went on to describe student volunteers working long and hard to contact alumni, blah, blah, blah.
Eventually I did speak with a young student. He clearly had quite a few details from my alumni file, he knew that I had studied accounting, and a few tidbits about my employers over the years. I declined to contribute this time around. He was a pleasant young man, and handled my refusal with reasonable grace, I thought.
And then I got to thinking. Why didn't the callers during all those weeks leave messages? Wouldn't that at least have been courteous? I've managed to get my name on quite a few "do not call" lists, but non profit organizations like my alumni group don't need to participate in that program. So couldn't they be polite?
So I emailed that question to an address I found on the alumni association website, and this morning got a reply which says they will take my name off of the call list. That's fine, and will eliminate all the hang ups, but the writer completely sidestepped the issue of courtesy.
Maybe I'm just grumpy today, but I think I have similar feelings toward telephone solicitations as I do toward human bank tellers.
This pattern continued for at least a couple of months. A call when I wasn't home, no message, and that same phone number on the caller ID report. Somewhere during that period I got an email from the alumni office with the subject line "Please answer our phone call." The email went on to describe student volunteers working long and hard to contact alumni, blah, blah, blah.
Eventually I did speak with a young student. He clearly had quite a few details from my alumni file, he knew that I had studied accounting, and a few tidbits about my employers over the years. I declined to contribute this time around. He was a pleasant young man, and handled my refusal with reasonable grace, I thought.
And then I got to thinking. Why didn't the callers during all those weeks leave messages? Wouldn't that at least have been courteous? I've managed to get my name on quite a few "do not call" lists, but non profit organizations like my alumni group don't need to participate in that program. So couldn't they be polite?
So I emailed that question to an address I found on the alumni association website, and this morning got a reply which says they will take my name off of the call list. That's fine, and will eliminate all the hang ups, but the writer completely sidestepped the issue of courtesy.
Maybe I'm just grumpy today, but I think I have similar feelings toward telephone solicitations as I do toward human bank tellers.
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