Civics

Whenever there's a Ford in power, I feel more inclined to volunteer.

Last time, I helped clean up the Allan Gardens.

This time, I made a small effort to help re-elect my local councillor, Kristyn Wong-Tam.

A couple of weekends ago, working at her campaign office, I canvassed the ward by phone.

If you've never done it, it goes like this:

You sit at a desk with a phone and a computer. The computer has a program (not an app; this is old technology) that combines a data base and an auto-dialling machine. You click on a button that puts you into a particular campaign, you put the phone to your ear and you click "call." 

Then the auto-dialler does its thing. 

A name and number pops up on the screen and one of several things happens:

1) the phone rings four times and then the auto-dialler hangs up and moves to the next name and number
2) the phone rings and voicemail answers; if this happens, you click a button that sends an automated voicemail message, recorded by the candidate, to the automated voicemail answer as the auto-dialler moves to the next name and number.
3) someone answers; this happens once every ten or so calls. 

If someone answers, then, using my white voice, I read through my script. One of several things happens:

1) the person listens politely without interruption and then tells me they are voting for Wong-Tam. This happens about 4% of the time.
2) the person, when I ask for the name on my screen, tells me I have the wrong number. There is a 3% incidence rate on that outcome. 
3) the person listens politely until they hang up on me, 2% of the time.
4) 1% of the time, the person interrupts me when I say I'm calling on behalf of Wong-Tam and tells me they are not voting for her.
5) once, the person listens politely, marvels out loud that George Smitherman is also running, asks me what I think of Smitherman, observes that they personally don't need anything from anybody and then hangs up on me.

In an hour and a half, I logged 100 calls. That both did not seem like much to me and was just about all I could take, for my entire lifetime.

Thanks for reading!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Karen

Waldo's down on his luck, but still wants to be found...

If you're reading this in Ward 13, get out and vote on October 22 to re-elect Wong-Tam!