'You only brought in 21 clients': Cold-caller maliciously complies with boss by extending phone call times

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Remy Millisky • Writer and Editor
Aug 2, 2023 5:00 PM EDT

This person made their cold-calling job extra easy with a life hack of sorts. 

As a cold caller, you're signing up for a job that's both repetitive and competitive. You have to make the same exact sales pitch dozens of times per day, but you can't let the monotony get to you. Instead, you have to convince potential clients to purchase your company's service. For those with the charisma of a salesperson, this job can be great. However, this OP, u/Unashamed_Outrage, writes that they strongly disliked the gig. And, weirdly, their boss kept switching their role between contractor and employee, "when it suited him." That seems less than legal, but at least this cold caller got some incredibly satisfying malicious compliance on their boss. 

In addition to maliciously complying their boss's desires, this person also made the world a better place by preventing cold calls from happening in the first place. These types of calls are super annoying to most of us. In this day and age, most of us aren't shopping via phone calls, it's just way too sketchy. Check out the entire story below!

Up next, this employee shared the reason their micromanaging boss was fired — and the employees are partially to blame for her downfall. 

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  • 01
    Font - Boss wanted to me to increase active phone time S OC I had this job at the height of C VID that was primarily a cold calling/business development job. I hated this job, but didn't quit, because...C VID. My boss was ridiculous and kept forcing me to be an independent contractor, and then switching me to an employee, when it suited him. He was a real jerk in a lot of ways, though.
    via u/Unashamed_Outrage
  • 02
    Font - One day, my boss contacted me (I worked from home) and said, "you only brought on 21 clients in the last 3 weeks and you have only been on the phone 50% of the time. So, you could have brought on more clients if you were on the phone more. "1
    via u/Unashamed_Outrage
  • 03
    Font - I asked him what he wanted me to do. He said, he wanted my active phone time to increase. He gave me no other instructions, such as bring on x amount of clients or make x amount of calls, so I decided to comply, by doing exactly what he told me to.
    via u/Unashamed_Outrage
  • 04
    Font - I found phone numbers that, when I called, I would have to listen to a menu that I would choose options from so I could be transferred. Many of these repeated, forever. Well, the longest one I found was an hour, before I disconnected. So, I would sit there, increasing my phone time, while listening to these menus and knowing I would never select any option. I would just indicate there had been "no answer" in my notes. I called these same numbers, every day, to make sure my active phone ti
    via u/Unashamed_Outrage
  • 05
    Font - I did this for more than a year, before I realized I was wasting my time, not accomplishing anything, and was completely bored. So, I quit. He, apparently, never caught on.
    via u/Unashamed_Outrage
  • 06
    Font - BartFly i feel like, if you automated this, you could have had free money for a while
    via u/BartFly
  • 07
    Human body - mttp1990 Yeah, easy to do with voice systems
    via u/mttp1990
  • 08
    Font - HopeRepresentative29 +2 If this was 2 years ago or less then you can report your employer. They don't get to choose when you're an employee or a contractor. You are an employee, period, and if you got screwed over at any point for "contractor reasons" then your former employer most likely owes you money, and you can still collect thay money within 2 years.
    via u/HopeRepresentative29
  • 09
    Font - StormBeyond Time +2 "Misclassification of Employees as Independent Contractors" IRS tax publication on the issue.
    via u/StormBeyondTime
  • 10
    Font - ChiefTK1 +2 An employer cannot switch you between being an employee or IC whenever it suits them. That's 100% something you should have and still should report to your state labor office
    via u/ChiefTK1
  • 11
    Smile - TechnOght +3. Watch stupid metrics, get stupid results.
    via u/ TechnOght
  • 12
    Font - 50 konamiko We had this stupid metric at an old sales job I had. I made my sales goals with emails and good incoming calls from my clients, but management was strict about the number of outbound calls we made. So every one of us had lists of clients who never answered the phone, or who had complicated answering systems. I had a couple of chatty cathys I could call and bulls with every . couple of weeks (one of them caught on pretty quickly about my call time, and was happy to help me rack
    via u/konamiko
  • 13
    Font - The outgoing call metric worked with maybe like... five people across three teams. For most of us, cold calling our clients just annoyed them, so we worked the system. Want outgoing calls and don't care if they result in a sale? Weekly calls to the Gator Farm with the hilarious answering machine it is!
    via u/konamiko
  • 14
    Font - mizinamo +3 Isn't there a "talking clock" phone number where you live? Couldn't you just stay on the line with it for 8 hours every day, and then read a book or learn programming or whatever while the headset is lying on the table next to you?
    via u/mizinamo
  • 15
    Font - Geminii27 +3 So, I quit. He, apparently, never caught on. Legend says OP is still being paid to this day.
    via u/Geminii27
  • 16
    Rectangle - emmytau Did you at least play videogames or do errands while the phone was occupied lol?
    via u/emmytau

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Tags

contractor phone phone call malicious compliance malicious-compliance-reddit call boss boredom Horrible Bosses
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