{"id":2011,"date":"2014-09-29T05:30:29","date_gmt":"2014-09-29T15:30:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/grumpyseniors.com\/?p=2011"},"modified":"2014-09-28T21:00:46","modified_gmt":"2014-09-29T07:00:46","slug":"the-joy-of-political-phone-banks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/grumpyseniors.com\/?p=2011","title":{"rendered":"The joy of political phone banks"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’m trying to nap.
\nThat’s important to keep me spry and maintain my sanity.<\/p>\n

In three hours there were eleven political phone calls to the house.<\/p>\n

\"Phone-bank-sized\"<\/a>I could tell they were political because no one ever calls the house phone and none of them had a Caller ID that made any sense.<\/p>\n

Usually there’s the ever popular “Unknown Caller”.<\/p>\n

Hiding like that doesn’t work.
\nI don’t answer them.<\/p>\n

Lots of people don’t answer them either and the dirty little secret is it really skews the results.<\/p>\n

Occasionally I do pick up, just so I can have a conversation with the person at the other end about being sneaky.<\/p>\n

Major political races usually hire a polling company.
\nThey’re expensive.<\/p>\n

So smaller races or cheap candidates use friends, family, people pulled off the street.<\/p>\n

Having been in the political heap for a bunch of years, I may be considered an expert on these election things.<\/p>\n

I can tell you most of those calls during dinner time come from a phone bank of volunteers.<\/p>\n

“Volunteer” as used in the context of “being volunteered”.<\/p>\n

\"polls\"<\/a>Usually it’s a political appointee assigned to making poll calls.<\/p>\n

“Hi, if the election were held today, would you vote for Alfred E. Neuman or Mufi Hannemann?”<\/p>\n

“I’m sorry sir, ‘neither’ is not an answer on my list to check off.
\nPlease pick one.”<\/p>\n

In the back of your mind you know you better make those calls if you want to keep your appointee job in case the candidate wins.<\/p>\n

I hated that and usually weaseled my way out of it.<\/p>\n

Here’s how it works…
\nYou’re handed a list of random phone numbers from a certain district.
\nThat’s how they can call you even if your number is unlisted.<\/p>\n

They’re just dialing random numbers.<\/p>\n

You hope no one answers so you can get through your many page assigned list quickly and go back to something fun.<\/p>\n

Sometimes they call from home.<\/p>\n

Sometimes from their cell while at the beach having a brew.<\/p>\n

Sometimes from a bank of phones at a friendly lawyer or travel agency office.<\/p>\n

The typical shift is around four hours.<\/p>\n

After about an hour of this you really wish the people wouldn’t chat with you and explain why they plan to vote a certain way.<\/p>\n

You really, really don’t care.<\/p>\n

Just answer yes or no or pick one from the list I’m going to read to you.<\/p>\n

Sorry I’m interrupting your dinner.
\nI’m sitting here eating two-day old donuts and some moldy stuff left on the table.<\/p>\n

I gotta pee, I wanna go home, and a have a ton of work waiting for me back at the office.<\/p>\n

Getting out of there after your shift feels great.<\/p>\n

Then you remember you have to be back the next night.<\/p>\n

Welcome to grumpy.<\/p>\n

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