My girlfriend and I get calls constantly; not because we’re popular but because we own credit cards, we applied for the super savers card at the local grocery store, we subscribe to magazines, we’ve ordered something online, etc. Our information has been distributed and sold to the highest bidding corporation whose aim is to sell us a product or service we don’t necessarily need, or more importantly something we don’t necessarily want. As a society we have dealt with this for years and now we don’t answer the phone if we don’t recognize the name on the caller ID, we hang up the minute we hear someone introduce themselves as “Jim from ABC company…,” we ignore anyone who sounds like they’re trying to sell us something. It’s become ingrained in our behavior as an automatic response to just say “not interested” or to simply hang up the phone. Even when they get us to hear them out, do we really listen? As admissions counselors, this is the cultural environment in which we have to work and the stigma we’re trying to overcome.
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