Aaargh!

[daibhidc]

You know, I'm a fairly easy-going person. If someone phones and tells me they aren't selling anything, I believe them. If they ask if I can answer a few questions I usually say yes.

But is there any point in asking questions if you aren't going to listen to the answers? I couldn't even get him to accept my name; he had me down as P. Kennedy, therefore I couldn't be saying "David", I must be saying "Peter", even when I spelt it out for him. When he kept asking me to confirm I had £5,000 debt, while I was practically shouting down the phone "No! I have no debts!" I just had to hang up.

Edit: Come to think of it, I'm sure Mum's signed us up for something which means we're not supposed to get calls like that.

Comments

[the-s-guy.livejournal.com]

Generally I figure that if someone's phoning me, they had better have an acceptable reason for taking up my time and concentration.

I'm not too harsh - "acceptable" can be anything from "I know this person" to "friend of a friend / friend of the family" to "calling about a specific job opportunity".

I can't think of any call whatsoever that could start with "I'm not selling anything" and lead to an acceptable use of my time, so such calls end up speaking to a dial tone or dead air, depending on whether I'm already waiting for a call or not.

Ditto for anyone calling me who doesn't actually know my name.

Anyone calling me who knows my name, but doesn't give theirs and their reason for calling, and who starts asking me questions, gets none of their questions answered until they tell me what I want to know - and even then, it's a matter of whether I think they're worth talking to afterwards.

Of course, if they're going to play silly buggers, I'm more than happy to provide non-sequiturs to their scripted questions until they give up in disgust or confusion.

[daibhid-c.livejournal.com]

Yeah, the way I figure it, my time isn't particularly valuable just at the moment, and since my standard reaction to reading a survey in the papers is "Well, I don't remember anyone asking me", I might as well go along with it if they actually do.

To be honest, though, I usually just don't answer the phone during the day, because it's either a survey or a charity (and I'm a member of enough charities, thanks), and I'm bad at getting out of these things. I only answered this one because I was expecting a call from my sister.