Sunday 29 August 2010

Smile on Sunday -

What do you do when you are painting and the phone rings? Do you break off from your watercolour wash to answer it and risk ruining your painting or do you let it ring?

I find the ‘cold calls’, especially the automated ones beginning, ‘Congratulations, you have won...’ a real nuisance and they somehow persist even though I’ve registered with ‘Telephone Preferences’. Unfortunately many of them show up as ‘Out of Area’ so I can never be certain that it’s not my daughter calling me from Sweden.

There’s not much to be done about the automated ones except to put the phone down. But then there are the less obviously ‘spam’ calls, where the caller asks not only if you are Mrs Such-and-such but then goes on to ask ‘how are you today?’ – to which I’m afraid I’ve been known to reply that I’d be much better if their call hadn’t interrupted my work (and wanting to add that it’s none of their business.) But more often I interrupt them just as they are beginning to get into full flow to ask where they got my number and politely explain that they seem to be one that has slipped through the Telephone Preferences net. Usually they apologise and say they’ll remove me from their list. But if I’m painting when the call comes, the damage is already done and it can be infuriating.

As ever, I find the best way is to try to see a funny side and the video clip at the bottom of this page, even though it doesn’t solve the problem of the interruption, made me laugh – though I haven’t tried it out yet! 

(If you have time to spare, there are a lot more 'solutions' on Youtube!)

5 comments:

Ulla Hennig said...

Interesting to now know that that kind of telephone marketing (terror) is international! I always react with just terminating the connection. Saying "yes" for several times like the person in the video does could be dangerous here--at the end you are buying something you never wanted to buy!

Judy Adamson said...

Thank you for your comments, Ulla. Yes, I too thought it could be risky to just keep saying 'yes' but I think the idea is that the uninvited caller will get completely frustrated well before s/he gets to the place where you might find yourself committing to something you don't want!

jeanlivingsimple said...

I didn't realize that those annoying calls were international either. What really makes me mad is getting them on my Cell phone with some in Spanish! Finally learned how to get my number off "the" list.
I like the idea of just repeating the same word over and over. I will try this at work.LOL!
Hope you are OK with my Sunday funny post.

Judy Adamson said...

Jean, I'm more than OK, as I've said in the comments on your blog! Maybe we can make Sunday Funnies 'go viral'?!

And, just as you've done, I'd like to invite anyone reading this to share their 'funnies' with us all - if you come across anything funny at all that's vaguely related to this blog, please email me! (Doesn't have to be a video clip).

Carole Barkett said...

I love your new profile photo, it's wonderful and I look forward now to your Sunday posts. In fact, I realized it was Sunday and knew I had to come check :O)