Hey PR person, leave me alone
It’s that special time of year that we geeks all look forward to, that time of the year when we get to spend time doing what we love and with those who mean the most to us. I’m talking about CES time, of course. :) There’s nothing quite like the gathering of over 250,000 geeks in one place to prove the the world is a great place. Those of us fortunate enough to attend the upcoming show are no doubt experiencing the same thing this week as PR firms have gathered all their troops to make sure that each and every one of us who are registered to attend the big show are flooded with invitations to visit their booth to see the "most wonderful thing to be demonstrated" at the CES this year. I’m not really complaining about this, everyone has to do their job and that’s OK with me. This week I have been receiving over 100 such invitations daily and let’s face it that’s a bit overwhelming. I’m not complaining about this as I said, everyone has to do what they get paid to do and I understand that.
What I am going to complain about though is the few PR folks who have started calling my cell phone with the same invites. Yes, this year is the first year that the CES is apparently giving out the phone number that I registered with to some of the PR folks and they are jumping on the chance to give me a call to schedule time to meet with their CEO/PR folk/technical gurus to see the "most exciting product of the show". That’s going a little too far for me and I’m not too happy about that as I am currently trying to close out my year like everyone else and don’t need to be constantly answering my phone only to discover the equivalent of a marketing call. Come on folks, it may sound like a good idea but trust me it’s not. And to the folks at the CES who decided to give some exhibitors my phone number- lumps of coal in your stocking this year.
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To quote a great man (or great men rather:
“
Tucker: Let me guess. Everyone’s getting a lump of coal.
Church: **** no, you know how much coal costs? Like five bucks a ton! I’m not spending that much on you losers! You’re all gettin’ a lump of smoal.
Tucker: What’s smoal?
Church: It’s a knockoff synthetic coal. It’s just as good as the real thing, except when you burn it it doesn’t make any heat, just makes smoke.
Tucker: Huh, what? How does it make smoke with no heat?
Church: How the f*** do I know? Ask the fine makers of smoal.”
:-)
Send em a lump of smoal from me!
I’m sorry your post just reminded me of RVB.
>>>Yes, this year is the first year that the CES is apparently giving out the phone number that I registered with to some of the PR folks
Oh snap. Never giving out my real phone number when I reg for an event *ever* again.
Sounds like registering for CES now calls for a GrandCentral phone number. One that gets canceled after you confirm the registration.
You gotta lov…, er, hate it!
Woadan
This at least the second year (if not, third) I’ve gotten CES briefing request calls on my cell. Comes with the territory I guess – though fortunately there aren’t too many of them. James, in the past maybe you didn’t give out that number or a number? My cell is my only number so it’s the one I always give out (personal, work, and blog). I suppose I could give out a fake number or disposable number, but I may be ultimately limiting myself by doing so.