Doesn’t Subscribe To Your Way Of Thinking

(My company provides trade magazines for a small subscription fee. They have started trying to sell them to people who sign up for the website my division runs. I and all of my employees are of course members of the website ourselves.)

Me: “Hello, thank you for calling [my division]. How can I help you?”

Caller: “Hi. I’m [Caller], and I’d like to talk to you about a subscription to [Magazine]! It gives you all the latest news on [industry].”

Me: “Hi! I actually work for [Corporate Parent] which publishes that magazine. My office gets three complimentary copies each month. Can you do me a favor and pull our number out of your list?”

Caller: “But the subscription also comes with free access to our website, with up to the minute news!”

Me: “I know. I already have access to the website.”

Caller: “You can’t have access without a subscription, and I show you as not having a subscription. If you sign up I can set you up with access today!”

Me: “I don’t think you’re getting it. I work for the company that publishes the magazine. I have the latest issue in my hand right now.”

(Confused silence.)

Me: “I work for the company who is paying you to make this call.”

Caller: “Oh.”

Me: “Please take my number off the list?”

Caller: “Okay, then!”

(Three of my division’s staff got the same pitch that week. I got the same call again from a different rep the next day. It happened for two months, even after I called the project lead who’d farmed the project out to the call center, and informed her she forgot to remove her own coworkers from the list!)