Question
Telephone Salespeople
If my carpets need cleaning or I want a new cellphone plan, I will do some comparison shopping first. I am not likely to buy anything suddenly just because a complete stranger has phoned—usually during the dinner hour—to sell it. For this and other reasons, I have always been (1) of telephone salespeople. I don’t like their cheerful, overly amiable voices and their nervy suggestions as to how I might easily pay for whatever it is they are selling. My (2) is to get off the phone as soon as possible.
My husband, however, creates a(n) (3) for me when he takes these calls. He doesn’t want what is being sold either, but he feels sorry for the telemarketers. He doesn’t want to (4) them with such a(n) (5) reply as “No.” When they begin their sales pitches, he is overcome by their (6) for their products and therefore listens politely. Then he (7)s my efforts to discourage (8) calls by suggesting that the salespeople call back later to talk to his wife! I don’t know who gets more (9) when that happens—I or the salespeople, disappointed when they realize we never intended to buy a thing. More than once, when I’ve finally said “No sale” for the last time to an adamant telemarketer who had been refusing to take “no” for an answer, he or she has (10), “Well, thanks for wasting my time.”