W. T. F. ???

[temporus]

I got a cold call from a salesperson today at work.  This isn't all that unusual in and of itself, I get a fair number of folks calling me up, hoping to make a sale.  I go to tech conventions, visit booths, talk with random vendors, so this doesn't surprise me.  I've noticed a major uptick in the number of contacts I get from out of the blue people hoping to get a foot in the door here.  This shouldn't be much a surprise either, afterall people are hungry for sales out there in this economy, and I'm sure salesfolk have to doggedly persue even the whiff of a lead to see what kind of business they can drum up.   I don't blame them for it, its just the economic environment that we're going through.

Today, however was a new one.  The salesrep called me up, inquiring who at my company might be interested in their type of product, because they had noticed that someone from my company performed a google search, that they followed over to their site and looked around.

Let me say this again:  I got a sales call because someone at my company ran a particular google search with particular key words that landed them on this company's site.   They had no clue who it might be.  The vistor didn't leave contact info.  So they called my company cold, hoping to get put in touch with the person who'd been on their website.

How in the world would *I* know who was on some random company's website?  More importantly, why would I care to know?  If the person that surfed on over to this company's website didn't want to submit their details to them, why on earth would I go and try to rat them out.  Seriously, does this random sales dude think I'm taking his side over a fellow employee?  Even if I've never met the person (odds are low based upon the nature of the software and the search described odds are it was someone from my own department) why would I throw one of our own employees under the bus?   If they'd wanted to be contacted, they would have left their details.   The fact that they didn't suggests that perhaps, they weren't actually interested in that product.

Sheesh, the audacity.  Now the irony is this: if the guy hadn't bothered to tell me why he was calling, and just asked me if their product was something I'd be interested in, I wouldn't have have thought askance at the call.  It just felt way too internet-stalker for my sensibility.   Even if I knew who exactly was looking for that type of software, there's no way I'd be interested in going with these guys after that experience.  Ick.