TELEMARKETERS - ARE THEY REALLY HUMAN?

I got in trouble with my wife the other night for the way I answered a phone call from a telemarketer:

Caller ID: Service Master Carpet Cleaning Service

Me answering phone: “Thanks for calling but we have dirt floors”…click.

Now, come on…that’s kind of funny, isn’t it? My wife didn’t think so. In fact, she implied that I was being a complete horse’s arse.

Whether or not I was being a horse’s arse is really dependent on whether you think telemarketers qualify as human beings, or if you think they are vile, sub-human, scum-sucking leeches, residing at the Mariana Trench level on the scale of basic decency.

I like to think of them in the later category but I know in my heart that they are decent people who are trying to make a living by calling obnoxious people like me. They are college students, single moms, and folks from all walks of life. That’s why I don’t scream or curse at them, or threaten to hunt down their families and assassinate everyone gangland style. Rather, I try to find creative ways of expressing my frustration with receiving 42 phone calls every evening.

I’ve employed the tried and true method of saying “Yes, I’m really interested, would you mind holding on for a second while I grab a pencil so I can take some notes?” and then setting the phone down and going back to watching TV just to see how long they will actually stay on the line. But that’s only fun so many times before it becomes cliché.

On many occasions I’ve picked up the phone and in my best Don Pardo voice said; “Congratulations, you’re the 10^th telemarketing call tonight! You’ve won a chance to interview for a real job!”

Ok…perhaps I am a horse’s arse.

I’ve put our number on the do-not-call list. I’ve patiently and pleasantly thanked them for calling and then asked them to remove our name from their files. I’ve even made up sob stories to make them feel bad; “I’d really like to purchase your product, but ever since the explosion at the mine I've been a quadriplegic and I'm attached to a respirator so I can’t really reach my wallet to get to my credit card right now.” And yet the telemarketers continue to call in larger and larger numbers.

Obviously, I could turn the ringer on my phone off, but my wife’s mother who lives nearby is not in the best of health, and we don’t want to miss an actual important phone call. I’ve also thought about just dropping our land line and using only our mobile phones. That was until something happened the other day more horrifying than an IRS audit; I got a telemarketing call on my cell phone. It was one of those where there isn’t a real person on the line, but a recorded message instead. I’m sure the call was generated by a program that dials consecutive phone numbers, but the point is that the last bastion of telephonic privacy has been breached, and I feel as violated as when I get a pat-down at the Tulsa Airport.

I can’t run, I can’t hide. They’re like mutant Jehovah's Witnesses, clawing at the windows and doors, trying to find a way into my home until I break down and buy the porcelain cow figurines or the UFO insurance.

My wife suggests that I should be careful because if I keep continuing to be a jerk, someday, telemarketers will be the only phone calls I’ll ever receive, and that I just might appreciate the company.

In the meantime, this is the greatest prank ever played on a telemarketer:

http://howtoprankatelemarketer.ytmnd.com/