It never fails; you will be sitting in front of your T.V. watching your favorite show and the phone rings. No, it is not the guy saying, “Hello Sydney,” it’s worse: It’s a damn telemarketer trying to sell you shit or make you take a “quick survey” that takes four hours. There is nothing worse than wasting precious minutes of your life trying to tell this person to leave you alone. You always want to say it nicely too, most people will apologize and say, “No thanks, I am not interested.” Then they start to push you by asking another damn question, and the next thing you know it’s four hours later and you’ve purchased three years of National Geographic just to get a toaster that toasts pop tarts. You can never let them ask that second question – that is where you get sucked in to their crap. I find it useful to just hang up as soon as you hear, “Are you the head of the household?” That way you don’t really have to feel bad.

Have you ever actually listened to some of the things these people ask in the surveys? They have some of the dumbest topics to survey on. I swear they get this shit straight off of MySpace, and even though it is a political survey they somehow have to sneak in the question about bestiality… did I miss something? I am giving blood? I think that the telemarketers top the list for the most harassing phone calls you can get. Creditors are right up there in close second, but they are harassing you because you actually owe someone money; telemarketers harass you because they can. They are relentless with their questioning, too; no matter how many times you say no, they will keep pestering you until you want to flip out and shoot them down. Now, I know that it is their job and all, but that was their career choice, and had they learned that no means no, I wouldn’t have to insult their mother and ruin yet another phone by slamming it on the coffee table.

Telemarketers are the reason I got rid of my landline, and it was cheaper just to go with a cell phone only. There is a website, www.donotcall.gov, that allows you to sign up to NOT receive phone calls from telemarketers for people with landlines, but what about us with cell phones? The day I got a telemarketer calling my cell phone, I about lost my mind. It was one thing to call a landline that was listed in the phone book, but my cell? Are you kidding? I said some mean things to this person and eventually they hung up. Luckily I was able to avoid any further soliciting calls to my cell, but I know plenty of people who still have a problem with it.
Hopefully one day, telemarketing companies will just get the hint and stop calling.