So I’m standing in my local computer repair shop attempting to pick up our just-fixed laptop.
I’m trying to have a half coherent conversation with the guy behind the counter while at the same time getting my jumping, spinning, thinks-he’s-a-ninja six-year-old son under control so he doesn’t smash into a display.
And then my cell phone rings.
I look in disbelief down at my pants pocket in the direction of the noise.
My cell phone hardly ever rings.
Why? Because I hate cell phones. I hate the lag in signal during conversations. I hate it when inconsiderate jerks start loudly talking on them in public. When I see people using them and driving, I want to smack them.
I am forever forgetting my cell phone. Why? Because I hate it. I also forget to charge it a lot—because I hate it. And when it is charged and I have it with me, it’s usually not on—much to the consternation of my long-suffering saint of a wife—because I hate it.
Moreover, very few people have my cell phone number. Why give it to them? It’s almost impossible to get me on it—unless, that is, I’m at a trade show.
That’s the one place where I find a cell phone useful.
But I wasn’t at a trade show and here it was ringing. Miraculously, it was charged, in my pocket and on all at the same time—kind of like a Magilla cell phone perfect storm.
“Hello?” I answered.
“May I speak to Ken Magill?” the caller asked.
“Who’s calling?” I responded.
“Monster,” the woman on the other end of the line said. And then she said something about selling online advertising.
After I yelled at her for calling my cell (I feel bad about that now because I know it wasn’t her fault.) she apologized and we hung up.
In any case, I got a business-to-business cold call from jobs site Monster on my personal cell phone. The big question, of course, is how Monster got that number.
Hmmm. I cover direct marketing. I’ve given my cell number to direct marketers and DM vendors at trade shows and somehow it ended up in a B-to-B database. Could it be?
For the record, my cell number has never been on my business card and I’ve never supplied it to any contact database as a way to get hold of me. Why? Because …I … hate … cell … phones.
At first, I suspected that someone uploaded my cell number to Jigsaw. After setting up an account, I was able to find that Jigsaw had my correct contact information, including my office telephone number, but not my cell number.
So apparently Monster did not get my cell number from Jigsaw.
I also noticed Jigsaw had two other Ken Magills. One was me while at the New York Sun. Good luck getting me there.
The other was my dad. His contact information was correct.
One problem. He died two years ago.
Before I logged off Jigsaw, I decided I need a title change, so I updated my title to God Among Men.
In any case, apparently someone to whom I gave my personal cell phone number at a trade show put it in a business-to-business database and sold it.
Sometimes this industry can be very hard to defend.
