Be kind to your local telemarketers

To the editor:
    I want to protest the daily attacks that I hear upon the honor of telemarketers. As a call center employee, I hear these criticisms both on the phone and even among people in the street. Some of the more colorful criticisms I hear include, “Why don’t you get a real job?”
    The answer is this: America’s best jobs are being exported overseas. Unless one can work at a mill in Ashland or Madawaska, a call center is about as good as it gets in the County. If a customer wants to move to Aroostook County and open a business for the County’s telemarketers to work for instead, many of us would jump at the opportunity.
    Another interesting comment is “Stop calling us!” It is a computer that decides who to call and when, not the individual telemarketer. If you don’t want the product, don’t argue for 20 minutes. Just hang up immediately. It’s that simple. Just hang up.
    According to the Direct Marketing Association (DMA) website, telemarketing employs more than six million people. Call centers are usually located in small towns and rural areas. The DMA Web site states that the telemarketing industry, “Generated more that $660 billion in sales in 2001” — that’s about 6 percent of GDP [Gross Domestic Product] and more than the entire United States restaurant industry.”
    Imagine what the figures for 2007 must be like if they were available?
    You probably have a friend or relative who is a telemarketer. If your good job is exported overseas, someday you might be a telemarketer. For some people, working at a call center is the only alternative they have left to welfare or crime.
    If you want to abolish the telemarketing business, you have to accept that the unemployment rate will rise. Are you willing to pay more money in taxes for social welfare programs? If you want to abolish the telemarketing business, are you willing to look the other way if someone breaks into your house and steals your possessions to sell for food or rent money?
    The next time you talk to a telemarketer, don’t attack him. You should thank him for working and contributing to America’s GDP.
Joseph Normand Grinnell
Grand Isle