Tuesday

I received a very nice email from a reader (thanks Don!). He called me erudite. Maybe not so much, I had to look that up.

GRIPE FOR THE DAY-TELEMARKETERS!

I am on the "do not call list", but there are certain types of annoying callers that are exempt. Political types, charity types, and types who think that you have done business with them in the past. "You walked within 10 feet of our booth at the fair, so we have the right to call you." Those types. If they had any brains or business sense they would understand that people who are on the DNC list are on there because they don't like to be called by people wanting to sell things or beg for money! Apparently intelligence and telemarketing don't belong in the same sentence. It is for this reason that I don't answer my phone until I know who's calling, and I don't have caller ID so the phone machine screens my calls. (Some people find this annoying, but I have tried to train people who know me to call my cell phone. Those who don't do that will have to continue to be screened by the phone machine.) 90 calls out of 100 whoever it is hangs up before time to leave a message, except for the latest set of morons who have been calling. The phone rings, the machine answers. When it's time to leave a message a voice (which is in the middle of something, the automatic dialer having believed that a person answered) says "please continue to hold". HELLO! Anytime anyone calls me and then asks me to hold I will hang up the phone immediately. Then a real person comes on and asks to speak to me. Of course, they are too stupid to figure out that their system can't tell the difference between a machine or a real person, so they sit there talking to the machine. "Hello? Hello?" Then their tiny little brains kick in that there's no one there, and they hang up. I figure that if it's someone with something important to say to me they can be polite and leave a message.

Sometimes I get annoyed if the phone rings four times in an hour and the automatic dialer hangs up, so I'll pick up the phone. "May I speak to Marilyn?" "Sure, hold on." A few minutes later I come back. "May I tell her who's calling?" They tell me, I ask them to hold again. An hour later I'll hang up the phone.

Yes, I know that telemarketers and survey takers and charity donation seekers are just trying to make a living. But I don't like people calling me for those reasons, and I have to right to not answer my phone. I also have the right to not answer my door if it's someone I don't know. Well, unless it's the police. I haven't had to worry about the police knocking on my door in a long time though.