I can't remember why I have a phone.

Warning: There may be some ranting in this post. I'm not to be held responsible. Blame your congressman. Or McCain or Obama. Whichever you prefer.

I dislike phones. In fact, I pretty much hate phones. So it really mystifies me that I spent two years working as a phone operator. I must like torturing myself. It's been a while since I have made more than one or two calls a day, to people other than those whom I bug all the time, and know pretty well, and have a sneaking suspicion like hearing from me (i.e., my mother and Jessie). Today, however, I had a to-call list. Not a terribly long one, but long enough to be depressing. Especially since half of them were customer service issues, which I hate calling about, because no one ever understands my needs. Ever. When I call a customer service number, I think of how I hated it when people rambled on and on about their problem instead of just telling me who they needed to talk to, and I try not to repeat that performance myself. But somehow, the operators never understand what I'm going for, so I end up telling them the whole story anyway. Which is embarrassing when it's a call to the doctor, annoying when it's a call to the bank on some paperwork they should have told us to fill out while we were there a month ago, and downright irritating when it's my tenth call to the insurance company with the same problems.

It's also really annoying when people call me. I have a hit list of telemarketers who won't leave me alone. On the top of the list is WorldMark, who have tried a dozen times to get me to come claim my free vacation I "won" by sitting through a ninety minute presentation. The problem is, I already sat through the thing, and got thoroughly irritated (see my previous post, which I would link to if I was cool), and got my vacation. It's especially cool when they tell me I "won" through the county fair, which I haven't attended in two years. They must be desperate for buiness. The Insurance Store is also on my list, because they call me every day and ask if I'm happy with my insurance and if I want free quotes, and don't believe me when I say I've done my research and worked it all out on my own, thank you very much. There aren't too many health insurance companies in Utah, so it's not too hard to figure out, actually. They also don't ever believe that I've talked to them before, because it doesn't show up in their records. NExt time I'm going to insist that the Insurance Store doesn't exist, because I've done a lot of research and it's not in my records. (On purpose. Because they can just die.)