Saturday, November 03, 2018

Pollsters

Mike Royko had a good idea a few years ago: Lie to pollsters. He called it "one of my few constructive civic endeavors."

I'm taking a different tack. Sometimes I accidentally pick up a pollster's call. I hang up on robocalls. But I'm developing a spiel I use with humans. I tell them that I believe I can help them a great deal, that I look forward to working with them, and that I bill against retainer, with a 50 hour minimum and \$120/hour.

"That's all the questions I had for you today" was the last reply.

(If one of them accepts I'm going to have to head to the lawyer quickly for a standard retainer contract form.) I've heard that some people try to sell them insurance, but this seems faster.

1 comment:

Assistant Village Idiot said...

There was an article decades ago about calls to those of us in NH, from out-of-state politicians calling us during the primary. They pretty much thought we were all hicks from Cow Hampshire to begin with, so the writer took the tack of pretending to be a slightly deaf farmer, with full accent. "Bill? Is that you? Martha! It's Bill! I think he's found work or something in Washington! How are you doing, Bill? We missed you at Christmas, but figured you'd call soon..."

I've never had the cruelty to do it myself, but I have thought about it.