The Day I called 648 people

The Boss had a fabulous idea.  Combine all of his contact lists (there were three of them) into one big list.  When that was done, we could send out one mass email about using our office to get their taxes done.

I got right on combining all three lists.  That wasn't a big deal and made a list of around 1100 contacts.  Then Part II went through the list and found the duplicates which put it down to around 900.  When we sorted it out by who had an email address it only yielded about 225 contacts.  That left a sizable number of people not being contacted.

"You can just call the other ones and leave a message," The Boss suggested with a breezy wave of the hand.

Part II looked horrified.  "There's no way I'm calling 700 people!"

"Me either!" I piped in, riding on her bravery.

The Boss never looked up.  "Yeah, well maybe we can find one of those programs that sends a recorded message."

Five minutes later he had found a place that sent out your message for three and a half cents a successful call.  You don't even have to do the math to figure out that's much cheaper than making me hand dial 700 people.

The next day Part II set up the account.  I wrote the script for the message and sent a test message to see how it worked.  It was all fairly easy.  When it came time to record the real message, Part II and The Boss decided I should be the one to say it, so I did.

In the next half hour, my message successfully called 648 people, talking to real people and leaving messages on machines and voice mail.

The Boss checked his phone.  "I just got a text from a buddy of mine.  He wants to know who's the broad who just called him from here."

I wonder how "Phone Broad" looks on a resumé?