In the course of my usual day I’ll make some phone calls to potential clients that are not familiar with my company. I don’t make cold calls. If I call you it is because I’m reasonably certain you are responsible for software development at your company, and that your company utilizes the stuff that my company is good at. It may be you don’t need any help, which is fine. You can ignore me, or a simple “we don’t need to oursource” will get rid of me. There are plenty of companies that need my help. I don’t need to hit my head against brick walls.

What you don’t get to do is be a dick. Today, I ran into a dick. I got a reply email informing me that it was company policy to never accept a cold call or email, and that they were on the do not call list therefore I was violating the law.

First of all, the do not call list does not apply to businesses. You would think a Director level person in an industry that relies heavily on direct marketing would be at least a little familiar with the rules. And second, this is a company in the magazine publishing industry, with dozens of titles. They have more advertising sales reps in cubes cranking out calls all day than my company has employees total. Without people willing to do sales, Mr. Dick would be unemployed.

I may be in sales, but at least I’m not a dick.

In the course of my usual day I’ll make some phone calls to potential clients that are not familiar with my company. I don’t make cold calls. If I call you it is because I’m reasonably certain you are responsible for software development at your company, and that your company utilizes the stuff that my company is good at. It may be you don’t need any help, which is fine. You can ignore me, or a simple “we don’t need to oursource” will get rid of me. There are plenty of companies that need my help. I don’t need to hit my head against brick walls.

What you don’t get to do is be a dick. Today, I ran into a dick. I got a reply email informing me that it was company policy to never accept a cold call or email, and that they were on the do not call list therefore I was violating the law.

First of all, the do not call list does not apply to businesses. You would think a Director level person in an industry that relies heavily on direct marketing would be at least a little familiar with the rules. And second, this is a company in the magazine publishing industry, with dozens of titles. They have more advertising sales reps in cubes cranking out calls all day than my company has employees total. Without people willing to do sales, Mr. Dick would be unemployed.

I may be in sales, but at least I’m not a dick.

Who needs a cup of coffee with dessert when you can just bake it right in! :)These amazing “caffeinated” brownies will give you the energy to kick-start your day… so go ahead, have one for breakfast!Low-Point Chocolate Chip Starbuck’s BrowniesIngredi…

A fun and creative way to enjoy one of my favorite desserts! Easy to make and fun to present. Hang on to this recipe because these cute little brownie popsicles will be the highlight of any party or get-together you host!Low-Point Brownie PopsiclesIngr…

Wrong. The officer is going to be at court. He usually has one day per month when he’s due at each court in his jurisdiction, and he will be there. If the officer doesn’t show up, it’s not an automatic victory for the defense. First of all, the judge is going to ask where the […]

Another entry in the Flying Dog Single Hop series, this Imperial IPA is brewed to showcase the Citra hop. When the sample from the brewery arrived last week, I knew based on the name alone, that my citrus-loving palate was in for a treat.

Flying D…

This is the first post.

I think I’ve finally wrapped my mind around what occurred during Friday’s chase.  Looking ahead I’m seeing a slightly less volatile setup showing up for this coming Wednesday but it appears interesting enough to chase east of the mountains again.&…

I imagine this is how Boomberg reacted when he realized that some U.S. Senators have actually read the Constitution.

H/T to Michael Bane.

[ This content originated at Musings Over a Pint ]

So I changed a few things around here. Hopefully you noticed the new “About.me” style entry page to the blog. You may also be be noticing that this does not look like Wordpress. I started using Wordpress when Movable Type was the hot blog CMS. 4000+ posts later and I was sort of bored with Wordpress. After playing with about a dozen different options I settled on Anchor CMS. It’s not even at version 1.0 yet, so expect stuff to break around here. That is what makes it fun.

The Wordpress site still exists and is here as an archive. With this version of ODonnellWeb I’ve gone very stripped down. No sidebars or anything else to distract. It’s all about what I write. Also, since nobody actually comments on blogs anymore I’m not bothering with comments. The conversations have migrated to Facebook, Twitter, and Google +. I don’t necessarily like it, but it is not a hill I want to die on either.

If anything seems broken please let me know.