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Dear Matt O'Malley: Get another IVR system
By adamg on Wed, 09/21/2005 - 3:01pm
We are technological troglodytes. Not only don't we have cell phones, our kitchen phone is a mid-'70s rotary-dial wall-mounted Bell System phone, the sort you could easily use as a murder weapon ("Bell System property Do not use as a murder weapon" is imprinted on the receiver).
Last night, I answered the phone. It was Suffolk County Sheriff Andrea J. Cabral!
Sheriff Andrea J. Cabral, or rather, a recording of Sheriff Andrea J. Cabral (who no doubt included her middle initial to avoid confusion with Sheriff Andrea K. Cabral), was calling to urge that I vote for youthful ward Dick Grayson, um, at-large City Council candidate Matt O'Malley in next week's elections (O'Malley ran her sheriff's campaign last fall). OK, fine.
Then she tells me to "press 1" for more information. Only I can't, being on a rotary phone. So I hang up. Then I pick up again because, well, I don't trust automated messages like this. And sure enough, there's Sheriff Andrea J. Cabral, urging me to hit 1 again. I hang up. I pick up. Apparently interpreting my hangup as a hearing deficit on my part, she once again urges me to hit 1. I hang up and go away. At some point, robotic Sheriff Andrea J. Cabral must have gotten tired of repeating herself, because we've gotten phone calls today.
I thought systems like this were illegal - imagine if hearing from Sheriff Andrea J. Cabral so stressed me out that I had a heart attack and then I died because when I picked up the phone to dial 911, I couldn't, because Sheriff Andrea J. Cabral was still there, yelling at me to hit 1. But even if there's some sort of First Amendment exemption for city-council candidates, well, Matt, annoying voters is not the way to get elected.
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Comments
I just hit delete on my
I just hit delete on my answering machine now. I don't know how I get on these lists. But my favorite so far was Ray Flynn calling to urge me to vote for his daughter?? (He was stumbling through the written text, it was painful.)
Ray Flynn?
Not Kevin White?
Edward M Flynn
Dig article
Had to google him. I definitely recognized Ray Flynn's voice. But it didn't stop me from hitting delete on the answering machine. I never listened fully to find out who he was endorsing.
I like Kevin White but I believe he is in advanced stages of alzheimer's and wouldn't be up to such a phone call. And, more importantly, I'd hope he wouldn't stoop to such a thing.
annoying candidates
There are several reasons why I won't vote for Matt O'Malley this time around, and I voted for him two years ago. Chief among my reasons is candidate fatigue. I'm so tired of seeing him and his purple signs that I want him to go away. Not voting for him is my way of telling him so.
He's been like a friend who keeps calling even though he doesn't get the hint that I don't really want to be friends with him. I try to ignore him, but his signs have invaded my neighborhood. Then I come home and find a slick pushcard sitting on my stairs. It remained there until it blew away. I hate it when I have to pick up candidate's litter, er, literature. It's their way of saying "Sorry I missed you when I came by at 11 a.m. when most working people aren't home." Then they go on an count my door as one of the "thousands" they have knocked on. Even when I do get knocked, I have yet to have an actual candidate at my door, and some claimed to have knocked on all the doors in the district. (For the record, I haven't missed an election, city, state, federal, special, since moving to Boston). Mostly I get the candidate's volunteers, some kids hoping for free pizza, coming by and shoving some pre-fab card in my hand. When I ask about the candidate, they say, "Like, he's, um, really cool and stuff, so you should vote for him." Great. Thanks for the endorsement. I'll be sure to fill in his oval now thanks to you.
What I want is a real effort by candidates to retail politic, not the Wal-Mart version. A phone call such as the one you received would have driven me crazy. I wanted to mail back all of the Rob Consalvo literature that was stuffed in my mailbox (yes, my mailbox) when he ran citywide, and make him pay for the postage (it's against federal law to use mail boxes without paying postage). I also don't vote for Rob Consalvo because he promised to fix my street four years ago and then disappeared. I told him one morning as he and several other candidates' representatives were crowding my local polling station entrance, well within the 150 feet limit, that I would vote for him if he fixed my street. Still waiting on the call, Rob. Every time I have to swerve around that pot hole, I think of you. Sometimes three or four times a day. I told all my neighbors, too. I think my whole street blanks on you now.
But there was one candidate who wanted on the council so badly that he met me. That was Felix Arroyo. Granted he was at a local Dunkin' Donuts, but still, he was there, meeting the people, talking to them and listening. He wasn't chatting on a cell phone while waving at traffic trying to look important. He wasn't blowing in with 20 hangers-on to look like he has a "good organization" to do a "visibility" and then move to the next stop. He was thoughtful and energetic. He earned my vote. And I bet he would call me himself, not even a recording of him.
Meeting a candidate at a
Meeting a candidate at a Dunkin Donuts hardly shows an effort above and beyond any of the others. I've seen probably every significant candidate at Dunkin Donuts in the past few months. And you should call Felix's office about your street. See if he can get it done.