Telephone Rant

Likely my recent telephone woes have been because we still use a landline.  For those of you who don’t know, that’s a phone that can receive and make calls and can have a voicemail function.  It’s connected to your home and is not portable – at least not outside the home – hence “land” line.  And it does nothing else but those three things. 

Old school, I know.  The annoying, scammy, shameful folks who like to prey on us older and dumber (or so they think) folks, love landlines. Right now, I have a top three on my personal list of annoying entities that call my phone several times a day.

Now before I start my rant, let me say, that yes, we have caller ID.  And I could just not answer.  Or I could just hang up (mom would spin in her grave at this display of poor manners). Or I could block the numbers (which sometimes works, but usually they just use another stolen caller ID). But at my house, any number of three of us might be taking a nap. This could be happening morning, afternoon or evening and these calls are incredible.  They are relentless.  And the people are definitely on my poop list.

The first one is from the “Medicare unit.”  The caller ID does’t say that and when pressed on this obvious misrepresentation, the person will admit they are the “medicare unit of some health care agency.”  Seriously?  I waste several minutes of my life explaining to Kevin or Joe, whose primary language is consistently something other than American English, that I don’t appreciate these calls and to remove me, please from their lists.  They call back – often the same day – from another number.

Sigh.

Second on my annoying list are the warranty people…who asked them anyway?  It’s been 8 years …EIGHT YEARS…since we purchased our car. If we wanted another or extended warranty, I’d likely have (a) called them, (b) notified my dealer, or (c) returned any of their 300 mail notifications.  Get a clue people.  How about this?  When we bought our truck 7years ago, we paid for a LIFETIME warranty to be included in the price.  Yet, these warranty ghouls still call us every month or so.

Sigh again.  At least these people only call once a month.

Last week,  I tracked at least 8 calls every day from “medicare unit,” “warranty division,” or my new favorite “the police alliance league.”  This so-called charity is so sketchy that they don’t have a caller id that is official (it always has spam risk or some random cell number), they don’t appear on charity navigator (HUGE issue) and they are likely NOT a 501(3)(c) but merely a “non-profit.”  They tell me that they “use donations to support law makers who support law enforcement.”

Every call, I ask the same thing…which lawmakers are those?  I get either hung up on, the spiel repeated, or some shaming comment like “don’t you support our police?”  Well yes, I do.  Emphatically.  However, I have seen some absolutely abhorrent behavior from our federal and state “lawmakers” who are NOT supporting police.  They are not acknowledging the destructive and hateful behavior on January 6 and are blaming others than those who actually participated in that day of domestic terrorism.  I watched the atrocities live on television as they happened, with my heart in my throat and now I’m watching the “law makers” dance around and act like it was an “altercation” and a “misunderstanding.” So I believe “WHICH LAWMAKERS ARE YOU GIVING MY MONEY TO?” is a valid question.  Since I’m not getting an answer, that particular organization’s professional callers will continue to get my wrath.  You’d think they’d stop calling.  But they don’t.

Final sigh.

Why don’t these people get jobs that actually help others?  Drive down any street and you’ll see “now hiring” signs.  For heaven’s sake, please get these people off my phone line and into a job where someone might actually benefit.  Pour concrete, bake bread, deliver pizza.  Do something besides harass me (and wake me from a lovely nap).

Rant over.