Disaster, part 3

I admit it. I simply couldn’t help myself.

I wrote the Joyce Morocco campaign office yesterday. While it’s true that part of me just can’t leave it alone, another part of me would like them to be as minimally annoying as possible to the population in general. Perhaps they didn’t bother telling their volunteer representatives to be polite when they annoy potential voters. Perhaps they didn’t tell the volunteers when they are allowed to call and annoy voters.

So I sent off a quick message to them last night:

To: info@votemorocco.ca
From: Rick Pali <rpali@alienshore.com>
Subject: You’re not off to a great start with me…
Date: January 26, 2014 at 9:55:45 PM EST 

I received a telemarketing call from one of your campaign reps last night (Saturday) at 8:30 pm. Why you’d resort to telemarketing calls is a mystery to me as people hate them.

Further, when I said the call made my support less likely, the rep did not speak well of the campaign with her answer. Details are here if you’re interested: bit.ly/1lbFauw

What I found particularly interesting is that CRTC telemarketing rules allow calls on weekends only from 1am to 6pm. Yet you called me at 8:30pm!

Doubly not cool.

Rick.

You’ll note that I made a significant typo. The important part of the last sentence should read, “CRTC telemarketing rules allow calls on weekends only from 10am to 6pm.” Not 1am to 6pm.

I expected to hear something today. I combed through my spam folder very carefully, to no avail. This time I’m at an utter loss in trying to imagine what they’re thinking. Are they silent, hoping the whole thing goes away? It’s a poor strategy for someone who is vying for a leadership position. It’s doubly vexing because when someone tried the same thing with them, they considered it important enough to issue a press release. It’s titled, “Gates Silent on NDP Opposition to Niagara Falls Hospital, Ignores Open Letter from Joyce Morocco.”

So it’s okay to pursue another candidate for ignoring an obvious political manoeuvre and ignore a voter they’ve treated poorly when he points out a minor no-no they’ve committed? My mind … it boggles.

In the comments to my previous entry, Jessica suggested that I take advantage of the CTRC complaints web site, and she even provided the URL. Thanks Jessica! My first reaction was amusement. I fully expected the Morocco campaign would reply to my e‑mail message and say something like, “Sorry about that, we screwed up.” And you know what? That would have closed the matter for me. I still would have been extremely unlikely to vote for her, but it would have been the right thing to do.

Instead, the Morocco team seems unable to do the right thing. I hasten to point out that this ‘right thing’ would have been invisible to the public at large. Seriously, the number of visitors to this site is nothing to boast about. Admitting to an issue and saying sorry when no one will hear of it is the easiest apology anyone can make. Regardless, they still can’t seem to manage it.

So I filed a complaint with the CRTC.

I can’t imagine much of anything will come of it, but given the circumstances, I felt it was the right thing for me to do to put this unpleasantness behind me.