Phun with Phones
I worked the phonebanks for the No on 36 campaign (again, that's the campaign to defeat the constitutional amendment that would ban gay marriage in Oregon) last night. I hate making phone calls. I have for years. But as I said in my last post, it's time to get over that and do something good. So, I went in to the county Democratic headquarters, where we were working from, and got a list of about 70 names to call.
It was a good way to break into phonebanking. We were calling only people who had supported the effort to defeat similar ballot measures in the past, so out of the 70 numbers, I didn't have a single person try and argue with me about the merits of the measure. We weren't asking for money, we were just asking for campaign volunteers. A lot of the numbers I called were wrong numbers, disconnected or no answer (it's an old list -- part of the reason for doing the calling was to update the list), but I spoke to probably 20 or so people and actually got two people to commit to volunteering.
It was really a rush. After the first few calls, it got a lot easier, and generally once I get talking, I'm fine. It's starting the conversation that always throws me, and I had a script to go off of, so that helped tremendously. At the same time, I was seated among a bunch of Carry Oregon people calling to ask people who they were voting for in November, and got to hear how they handled the calls. Useful for me, since I intend to do that at some point soon too. If you've ever thought that you wanted to volunteer, but you're too scared to work phones, let me tell you that it's not that bad. Generally, people are pretty polite, and if they don't want to talk, they tell you that. I had a couple people say that, and I told them I'd mark that down on the list and they wouldn't get any more calls. Even the Carry Oregon people I overheard didn't get any nasty replies.
Volunteer. It's a great feeling, and it's not as scary as you might think.
It was a good way to break into phonebanking. We were calling only people who had supported the effort to defeat similar ballot measures in the past, so out of the 70 numbers, I didn't have a single person try and argue with me about the merits of the measure. We weren't asking for money, we were just asking for campaign volunteers. A lot of the numbers I called were wrong numbers, disconnected or no answer (it's an old list -- part of the reason for doing the calling was to update the list), but I spoke to probably 20 or so people and actually got two people to commit to volunteering.
It was really a rush. After the first few calls, it got a lot easier, and generally once I get talking, I'm fine. It's starting the conversation that always throws me, and I had a script to go off of, so that helped tremendously. At the same time, I was seated among a bunch of Carry Oregon people calling to ask people who they were voting for in November, and got to hear how they handled the calls. Useful for me, since I intend to do that at some point soon too. If you've ever thought that you wanted to volunteer, but you're too scared to work phones, let me tell you that it's not that bad. Generally, people are pretty polite, and if they don't want to talk, they tell you that. I had a couple people say that, and I told them I'd mark that down on the list and they wouldn't get any more calls. Even the Carry Oregon people I overheard didn't get any nasty replies.
Volunteer. It's a great feeling, and it's not as scary as you might think.