GRRRRR. so i just got off the phone with Rogers. i called to inquire about blocking specific numbers from calling our home phone and the only option is to pay them $6/month to do so! apparently some other features come along with it, such as specific family ringtones, blocking private caller names, specific long distance rings, forwarding calls to another number etc etc BUT i don’t care about those. i just want to block the ignorant people who keep calling my house when i’m trying to put my son to bed. the first call was at 8:15pm tonight and the second was at 8:45pm! telemarketers should not be permitted to call after 7pm, ever. whether you have children or not, who wants to sit on the phone and sign up for services or do a survey (or whatever they’re calling about) when you likely are tired from a long day and would like to unwind and enjoy that at that exact moment, you have no responsibilities, nothing to cook or clean, nothing to do but to sit your ass and reeeeeelax (ok, so there’ll always be laundry and cleaning to do, but really those can wait). every evening, especially when my hubby is on afternoon shift, i look forward to the small amount of “me” time that i get after my son goes to bed. if someone disturbs that time by calling to ask me to take a survey or to tell me that my computer has a virus i’m going to lose it on them (and by the way, we have a MAC so telling me that my PC has a virus is a bad excuse for calling). you’d think that a company like Rogers, who has hundreds of thousands of customers and makes millions a year would be able to offer a simple feature of blocking callers without it costing me $40/year. i know it doesn’t sound like much, but every time i add another feature to our bill that’s more money we have to fork out, to a company who likely could survive without my $6/month. what’s even more infuriating is that when i tried to call said numbers back i wasn’t able to speak to anyone, surprise surprise. i discovered that the one number, upon Googling it, is from somewhere in Quebec, and apparently the person at extension 200 is unavailable and i am to leave them a message. i did just that, more than a few times over the last few weeks too. and it wasn’t a pleasant message, and i don’t care. when i phoned the other number a recorded message came on thanking me for calling Greenwich Associates and explained that they’re just calling to do a survey and not sell me anything, and that they look forward to talking to me in the future. unfortunately there wasn’t an option to leave a message for them; if so, they wouldn’t have been looking forward to any future phone calls from me asking them to not call me at 9pm, ever. while i understand that telemarketers have a job, and that said job is phoning people to sell services, take surveys and inquire as to recent customer experiences, it’s still shitty for those of us on the receiving end. i had a telemarketing job like that once, it lasted for half a day of training and then one shift and i quit. it just wasn’t worth it. i felt like an asshole calling people to ask them to take a survey about carpets, and then calling them back later to tell them that they’d won a free gift basket for completing the survey. the gift basket was a ploy to get a vacuum salesman in the door to try and sell them a $2,000 vacuum. REALLY?! it felt dishonest and very wrong. which is exactly what i said when i told the supervisor that i wouldn’t be returning to work the next day, or ever. that was almost 15 years ago now, how time flies. i feel better ranting about it here; that way my hubby gets to hear the more condensed and less-angry version, which i’m sure he appreciates.