I don’t always look at the caller ID before I answer the telephone.  Sometimes I don’t think about it, and sometimes the phone is buried under a few things on my desk.  Well, sometimes more than a few.

Besides that, I’ve found that there are some people I’d really like to talk to who have strange things showing up on the caller ID.  Some say private number, some just give the city and state with no name.

So, I often just answer the telephone and suffer through the pain if I end up with a telemarketer.  I have gotten to the point where I don’t suffer people trying to take up my time very well.  I find the best thing for me is to tell the person that I am not interested in their product/service, but that I appreciate their call.

I know they’re just trying to earn a living.  But, then there are those people who will start talking faster, rushing through their script and asking me questions designed to make me feel stupid.  At that point, I’ve really had enough.  So, I’ll just apologize for hanging up on them, and then hang up.

But, I didn’t need any tricks to get rid of a telemarketer who called the other day.  It happened that I looked at the caller ID when the phone rang.  And, it is sad because whoever was calling just hadn’t figured out the technology piece yet.

So, what, you ask, showed up on the caller ID??

TELEMARKETER

Now that’s the idea!  Stop it before it starts!!!