If you get a letter from the Arbitron (radio station ratings) people in the mail, beware. Annoyance shall follow.
A week or two ago, we received one explaining that they'd be calling to get our input on local radio stations, enclosing a dollar bill. This was a fairly transparent attempt to make me feel as if I had an obligation to talk to them. I kept the dollar and threw the rest away, planning on avoiding any surveyors who called. If they're stupid enough to send a dollar to an antisocial SOB such as myself, more the fool they.
Since then, they've been calling several times per day without leaving a message. Instead of disclosing their business name, it comes through as "Columbia, MD". We've also gotten a ton of "Unknown name, unknown number" calls lately, which may have been them as well. They finally left one confusing message, which finally clued me in to who was constantly calling us.
Finally, tired of seeing them pop up on my caller ID constantly, I answered the phone when they called early this morning. She started in on her spiel, which I politely answered with "I'm sorry, I don't listen to any radio, have a good day"and prepared to hang up. Instead of letting me politely brush them off, she answered back by saying that they're also interested in talking to people who don't listen to the radio (huh?), and, without pause, continued by beginning the "blah blah blah This call may be monitored for quality assurance blah blah blah" boilerplate (always a precursor to an annoying conversation).
Irritated, I simply said "Not interested, thanks very much" and hung up at that point. I understand that telephone operators are paid by the number of people who they can get to talk to them, but I HATE IT when they ignore polite brush-offs and force me to hang up on them. I really don't like feeling like a rude person, particularly to some poor surveyor who's just trying to put food on her table, and really resent being put in that position.
Screw you, Arbitron. If you want me to spend time talking to you, it'll cost a hell of a lot more than a dollar.
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