Good morning, American. It's Friday. And that it is. It is Friday.
My name is Michael Prose. This, well, this, damn it, it's the Daily Grateful. And what am I grateful for today? I have been sitting at the computer doing, like, typing stuff up like you would not, but what was that noise?
Oh, whenever I type on the keyboard, it's like noise comes out through the, I shouldn't do that. Let me do it again. That's amazing. You know, you learn something new every damn day with all of this equipment.
I'm going to try again. I like that. Anyway, what did I learn today? I have spent the last couple of hours painstakingly writing out a report with pictures for a client and my brain hurts.
And then I had to call back a contractor for another client in the contractor thought I was a telemarketer. And he just answered the phone in the best way possible. And I mean, you know, it was hysterical. It made my heart sing.
And I just started laughing. And I said, I got to tell you, I really wish I was a telemarketer just so I could piss you off. And he said, who the hell is this? And I told him who I was.
And we just had this great conversation. We're probably going to do some business in the future, you know, business, business. So it was fun. Don't you just love the telemarketers that you are getting on your cell phone now?
I don't understand this. They used to, you know, before we had cell phones, we had these phones plugged into the wall and telemarketers would call and there were strict rules. A telemarketer could only call until nine o'clock at night and then they weren't allowed to call anymore. They could start at eight o'clock in the morning, I think, or maybe nine o'clock in the morning.
And then at nine o'clock at night, they couldn't call. And if you didn't want them to call at all, you could go and put your name on a do not call list. Well, not great. I immediately did that because man, I put myself on it.
Unless you were a business, if you had a business listing for your lined telephone, you know, and I had a business in an office and I had a business line, which is the same identical thing as the line that I had at my house, except they charged me $25 a month more for it. And if you had a business line, you were not allowed to go on the do not call list, which I thought, you know, because I said, no, it's business. People are calling you for business. Okay.
But I took myself on the house, stuck myself on the do not call list. Then we got these little things right here. I'm holding them in my hands to call cell phones. And you know, I really want that bad for a number of years.
And then technology took off. We all have caller ID now, which we didn't have back in those days. You had no caller ID. You had no idea who was calling when you got a call.
No idea whatsoever at all. Phone would ring. We're Americans. What do we do?
We answer the phone. There's no reason to answer the phone if you don't want to answer the phone. But because it's been ingrained into our systems, we always answer the damn phone. And it was if it was a telemarker, but anyway, with cell phones, something really interesting, some technology came out within the last couple of years.
And it was called phone masking. This is where a telemarketing company from outside of the United States. And there's three countries who are real good at this, the Philippines and India and Pakistan. There's other countries that do it.
But these are the three big ones. I understand Mexico is getting into it now too. And what they do is when you look at your caller ID, you see a local phone number to your, and so you answer the phone. And I run a business and I see a local phone number and somebody wants to give me money.
No, no, most of the time it's, it's, you know, first thing you hear, this is how you know you got to hear this boop, like a little boop noise. And then they go, hello. And you say, hello, my name is George. His name is not George.
I just tell him his name is not George. How are you today? I want to engage you in conversation. I say, what can I do for you?
And that, you know, well, the state has just opened up a, and somebody's calling me, hang on, I got to put you all on hold for a minute. Well, Jim, what can I do for you? Medicare or Medicare advantage? Yeah.
Do you inject insulin every day? No, just twice a day, sometimes seven. So, oh, he hung up. I see, just as I was doing this, I got a telemarketing call and I put you on it.
So you could listen to it. I don't know how much of it you heard, but I stuck it on there. I think that's great. I'll try and enhance the audio later.
And that's usually, you know, you just hang up and that came from a local number in my area code. All right. Now, here's a fun fact. Let's, let's go in here to the phone.
And this is a recent call. Let's try if we can and re-dial it. It won't, it will not do it. I'm pushing it.
It will not re-dial it. So, or sometimes you'll re-dial it, and it'll say the number you've reached is not in service because they just hijack these numbers. That's what they do. They fight, you know, and they call from, did that guy sound like he was from here?
Who knows? I don't know. But yeah, that's what we're faced with today. But you know what, golly gee willikers, I'm grateful that people are allowed to conduct commerce.
I'm pissed off that they're going after people and trying to take their money. And this is my advice to you on the Friday edition of the Ask, what is the name of the show? Oh yeah, the Daily Grateful. We're getting ready to change it.
I don't know what we're getting ready to change it. I know, I know, but is the show going to be better? No. Oh, all right.
But anyway, on this Friday edition of the podcast, I forgot what I was going to say. Oh, I was going to give you advice. Don't buy anything from anybody who calls you on the phone or knocks on your door. Nothing ever good comes of it.
Nothing ever good comes of it. All right. You were not in the mood for a $2,000 vacuum cleaner. If you wanted one of those things, you'd go to the store or go to Amazon and you would buy it.
All right? You would do that. You are not in the mood to buy final expenses from somebody on the phone. If you want that, you would call the person you do insurance with and say, Hey, should I get a policy?
So when I croak, my kids can do whatever they want with me, you know, that and that should be up to you. That should that should not be up to somebody who is calling you and trying to talk you into it. So that's my advice. That that's that was a little consumer information advice for you.
Maybe I should podcast about consumer information advice. I don't know. Oh, well, I want you to have a terrific weekend. And I if you were affected by the storm, just know something I'm thinking about you.
I have dear friends who lost everything in the storm. And when you drive around here, you're on wonderful streets, I was in Gulfport, Florida today. I was in wonderful street, beautiful homes, two blocks over. The houses were flooded and devastated.
It's all going to get better. I love you all. Bye bye.