I had a rather interesting comment on an old blog post where I somewhat persecute a cold caller. The comment being "What a prick you are !! this young lad is only doing his job and your trying to prosecute him" [sic].
Obviously I am not trying to prosecute him, that would be for the CPA or the Information Commissioner. I was trying to verbally persecute him though.
But it does leave me wondering why anyone thinks that "only doing his job" is a valid comment? After all, if criminal gang employ someone to break people's legs, a criminal activity, would the same comment be said "he was just doing his job"? After all, whoever employs this cold caller is getting him to do criminal acts. I am not saying they are as severe as breaking someone's legs, but they are just as much a criminal act - illegal - against the law - wrong - offensive - etc.
Anyway, just to make life simpler for such people I am formally making it "part of my job" that I persecute cold callers and ridicule them publicly whenever I can. Now, you can take reassurance that, in such cases, I am "just doing my job", and not anything to get upset about...
This should make all better with the world :-)
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When people say that to me I always think it makes it worse!
ReplyDeleteIf someone is harassing me for something the belive in then that's one thing. If they are doing because someone is giving them money to do so, how is that supposed to make it acceptable?
If the act of criminality is in making the call, and the call centre farm has people chained to desk with turret phones with no keypad, just a headset, and are 'fed' calls (which are inbound to them, in a sense), then it's not really the person you end up speaking to, that's committing the offence, in my view.
ReplyDeleteTheir employers on the other hand are quite liable, and telling them they're working for a bunch of crooks is fair comment.
I think telling them that they themselves are criminals, is a little harsh.
I might point out (no idea which side of the argument this falls on, mind) that (with the exception of Adolf himself) the people implementing the Third Reich's "Final Solution to the Jewish Problem" were "just doing their job"; Hitler had declared that the Jews were to be obliterated, and everyone below him was just doing their job...
ReplyDeleteIn their local country they were probably not even breaking the law when they did that! So the phone scammers are actually worse than Hitler drones as they are breaking the local laws!
DeleteLatest comment "would you prefer this young lad to be claiming benefits ? its hardley breaking the law, hes doing a job! you are joke" but hang on - it *is* breaking the law, that is my point FFS
ReplyDeleteThe law isn't even the point - a country could make it legal to stab people but it wouldn't make it right to do so.. As pointed out above Nazi Germany made it legal to mass murder.
ReplyDeleteCold calling isn't quite on the same moral scale, of course, but it's a very unpleasant thing to do to people for a living... and those that choose to do so deserve the reaction they get.
I believe there are interesting legal things about personal liabilities and employer liabilities in asking people to do unlawful things. I got asked about such things and need to compose my response now I've got my citations sorted as someone is claiming we're lying when we identified areas of personal liability if certain fellow employees don't do as advised by my department...
ReplyDeleteI don't buy the "just doing my job" either, doesn't make it any less unpleasant or mean I should have to put up with it. As long as I am not being personally abusive or attacking that individual in a way which makes them fear for their safety putting up with hassle for their lawbreaking job is also "part of the job" as unfortunate as that is for individuals in those horrid jobs.
It would help however if the government didn't list dodgy, illegal and scamming jobs on its job portals and threaten to sanction jobseekers who might say "no, this is is dodgy".