Telemarketers and Telephone Etiquette

- A.D. Pecuyne, circa 755 B.C.

That said, now it's my turn to blow off some steam...

It's those imbeciles who call you on the phone trying to sell something you definitely don't want and don't need and which will certainly shorten, if not terminate your life. The first thing they do is sit there silent and count to 10, like they're calling from Mars or something and the transmission time is oh so difficult to cope with. How can anyone call you and not be ready to talk? I'll tell you how. They are ready to talk and the silence is just a lame psychological trick to alarm you. It's supposed to pry your brain wide open so that they can pour the maximum amount of poison into your ears that they possibly can. First it was those idiot newspaper subscription selling azzoles on Saturday morning when you're trying to catch up on some sleep. Now they're all doing it.

So whaddaya gonna do? Do what I do. Answer the phone normally to give legitimate callers the benefit of the doubt. Say hello or whatever and if you get silence, wait them out. Sit there silent and wait till they say something, then start counting to 10. During that time no matter what they say or do, stay absolutely silent. At this point you have two options.

• Simply hang up the phone. Slam it down if it makes you feel better, but make sure to say absolutely nothing. If the bum calls back repeat as often as necessary.
• After you reach 10, say one word and one word only, like yes or no. Then wait for them to say something again and do the 10 count once more. Repeat this process as many times as necessary. Believe me, it really strips their fur down to the bone. Try it and see for yourself how good it feels to do it to them the way they do it to you.

It then dawned on me that I was talking to a mere flunky who had little or no knowledge of what was really going on, and I think I'm being generous. Considering the fact that the computer knows the victim's name and phone number well in advance of dialing, there is all the time in the world for the name to hit the screen long before the computer even gets a dial tone. The computer program is designed to inject a delay so that the flunkies manning the phones have to cooperate whether they know it or not. Diabolical! So the real criminals are first and foremost, the managers who plan the marketing campaign and acquire the demonic computer program. A close second is the satanic programmer who created the evil concoction, on a Pentagramium class machine no doubt.

At this point, it becomes abundantly clear that the real solution to the problem is to