I was very uncomfortable watching it. It looks like one of the company's employees showed up... possibly one of the people you claim may already be getting mistreated?
Now what happens to this person after they come back to work having wasted an hour with you?
If it had been the CEO, then I would see some humor possibly.
Where's the line? The CEO of GoDaddy kills an elephant in Africa to feed a village and save its crops and the world shits bricks. Another company goes out of their way to trick and be mean to another fellow human being and it's funny?
I think it's turnabout here. Spamming, being crappy business people, I think this is their 74 minute way of getting the people to never call them again.
Only problem is it backfired on them the moment they set up the in person meeting. The offshoring company doesn't know they were being played. Anybody who would agree to an in person meeting- hell, these guys even initiated it- is a hot lead. On top of it, the "CTO" looks like an easy mark. They are going to receive calls for probably the next three years. Sleazy move on their part, and not at all smart if the objective is to stop the sales calls.
Be firm, but cordial. Tell them you are not interested and the repeated phone calls are a waste of your time as well as theirs. If it keeps up tell them you feel like it's getting to the point of harrassment. Tell them you will call the better business bureau. Look into blocking the calls. The important thing is to not give them the impression you are even the least bit interested in doing business with them. Ever. There is an opportunity cost involved with them making the calls. Sooner or later they are going to realize it makes no business sense to keep this up.
I guess if that still doesn't work you could just tell them to get fucked. No reasonable person is going to keep calling to be verbally abused.
The piece is either funny or sad depending on what lens you view it through. At a company level, it's one company giving another one their just deserts.
On a personal level for the sales guy involved, it's a waste of his time (and possibly income) when he's not necessarily the one who decides the policy of spammy calling. A better prank might have been on the other company's CEO or someone more responsible.
I agree, when they attacked paypal it was funny, because they were going after the big guy.
when they attacked paypal they were attacking an idea, if they had singled out a paypal employee and did this kinda stuff, it would be equally mean.
And this guy is not even a paypal employee who is paid of the order of 100K. I am sure this guy is just getting by.
People do what they do to get by, for their family or to pay rent etc. So that is why all people automatically get assigned a default non-zero value for dignity.
So insult is not prankish and fun. It is just sad to watch.
OK Rich, I know it's just good clean fun (especially today), so I'll see your "We Pay Haiku" and raise you a...
Hacker News Dilemma
You work your butt off on your blog
Providing content that's all the rage,
But no matter how hard you try and try
You can't hit the Hacker News front page.
Then someone takes your picture
Goofing off or rolling joints,
And there your are at Number 1
Voted up with 42 points.
What did you think was going to happen?! [in my bed Ed Norton voice]
Folks seeing this might not understand the degree of annoyance this company has caused. I've personally been called at least 40 times, half of those AFTER I shut down Tipjoy.
This reminds me of something a friend's game development company did in the 90s. They kept getting fax spam from some local print shop, and after calling them back repeatedly asking them to stop, they decided enough was enough.
So at about 9pm, when they figured everyone would have gone home, they taped together two or three bits of paper to make a loop inside the fax machine, and faxed it back to the company - it went all night.
I have visions of mountains of paper strewn across the floor, but more likely the other fax machine would have had a couple hundred sheets loaded at most and probably quite a bit less.
Still, apparently the print shop was annoyed enough to call the cops, but as you'd expect, nothing ever came of it.
I don't get it, why cant you name this douchey company?
For the amount of work that went into setting it up, the prank itself was boring, if the 5 minute reel is the funniest part I shudder to think what a yawn the rest was. There was potential for a lot more, could have really made that guy squirm a lot more..
Assuming this happened in California in the recent past (post 1994), and the annoying outsourcing guy was not aware he was having audio recorded, congratulations -- you've just violated state law! (California v. Gibbons, 215 Cal. App. 3d 1204 (Cal Ct. App. 1989).) This is California Penal Code SS 630-638. Up to $2500 fine, 1 year in jail.
(any covert audio recordings of telephone/electronic conversations are also illegal in California; it's an all-party consent state, although you can disclose and report recording all business calls as a routine thing (you play a "we record all calls" at the beginning of the call, and staying on is implied consent). )
They could have overlooked this, but it would not seem odd to say it's being recorded, for whatever reason. Or even having a sign that says "audio and video recording in use" would probably suffice.
Yes, it's one party consent, two party notification. There was clear expectation of privacy (it wasn't a public meeting in a cafe, or a press conference). Hiding the identity of the outsourcing guy might legally change things -- I actually have no idea. The firm is trivially identifiable, but it might be enough. Regardless, it's irresponsible.
More ice blocks and real guerilla marketing, less bragging about violating employment laws or wiretapping vendors, please.
I was very uncomfortable watching it. It looks like one of the company's employees showed up... possibly one of the people you claim may already be getting mistreated?
Now what happens to this person after they come back to work having wasted an hour with you?
If it had been the CEO, then I would see some humor possibly.
Where's the line? The CEO of GoDaddy kills an elephant in Africa to feed a village and save its crops and the world shits bricks. Another company goes out of their way to trick and be mean to another fellow human being and it's funny?
What the hell am I missing?