Sunday, October 31, 2010

I hate robo calls.

Dear Candidate for (Fill in the Blank):

I hate your automated phone calls.

I am not influenced by your friend, party associate, or name-in-the-headlines endorsement of your candidacy.

I decided quite awhile ago whom I would vote for, from our state governor to our local school board representative.

Nonetheless, in the past two weeks, our family has received 52+/- robo calls for various political candidates.

We're on the "do not call" list, but evidently that doesn't prevent this constant bombardment by office wannabes.

For anyone else, this would be a form of cyber-stalking.

But it's political season. So you are allowed to interrupt our homework time, dinner hour, and bedtime rituals with your incessant, loud, insistent pleas to VOTE FOR fill in the blank.

Please go away.

5 comments:

  1. Unfortunately, political calls are exempt from the do not call list. Pigs will probably fly before the politicians change that part of the law. Because we are close to county/district lines, we get calls for candidates we can't vote for.

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  2. Donna: Glad you have been keeping count, I lost track of the total and was curious. I have been here with Bonnie out of town for the last two weeks and had probably answered the phone 35 straight times to robo-calls when I found myself speaking to a real person (and initially tongue-tied!) earlier this afternoon. Maybe adding to my confusion was that it was Fran Millar, real live Fran Millar, calling about some non-please-vote-for-me business!

    But I'm writing because this election I have not minded the robo-calls as much as previous primaries and general elections.

    Yes they are interruptions, but with all of the candidates and posts, I've gotten something out of hearing the endorsements of down-ballot candidates from political folks who are (or appear to be!) known quantities. Even with having done research, I feel better about a couple of my choices from what I have heard from the robo-calls.

    Hey, does your count include all of the rings/calls where there isn't anything on the line because too many phones were answered when you picked up for the auto-dialer/computer to send you the message?!

    All the best, Steve

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  3. We turned off our answering machine. If this goes to a runoff (gubernatorial, they're saying it might) -- I think I may just shut off the home phone and we'll try to live by cell phone alone. Which would be an interesting experience in an of itself.

    Kim B.

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  4. Steve, my count includes every call - hang-up, no one on the line, message left on our machine while we're out, and the split second of someone talking before I hit "end." I don't bother listening to any of them because the sheer cacophony has deafened me to any of the content!

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  5. no home phone for three years now (three mobile phones only), no robo calls here

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Thanks for sharing your thoughts - it's great to hear from you!