h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Telephones are horrible things - the curse of our times! Always when you just settle down with a nice hot cup of tea and your favourite prog is just starting, the hatefully smug ringing encroaches on your happy little world.
You try to ignore it, but then you start wondering if it's important - if it is a matter of life or death, will you ever be able to forgive yourself for just letting it ring away....
So you put your nice hot cup of tea down and rush through to answer it - only to find that it's an evil telesales call!!!! By the time you've managed to politely get rid of this intrusion and returned to your comfy chair, your tea is cold and the end credits are rolling.
Then of course there is the same uncanny timing of the thing just when you've settled into the wonderful foamy bath you've been longing for all day.... BRING BRING!!!!! AHHHHH!
In fact, the only good thing about the phone (at the moment, until all companies and stores have online ordering) is that you can order pizza with it.
Predictably though, you're just about to tuck into your newly deliciously delivered pizza when - GUESS WHAT!!!!!
Then there's the situation when you're in a shop, standing patiently in line to be served - your turn finally comes and the phone rings. You instantly become totally invisible and the sales assistant happily wanders off to answer the thing and then proceeds to chat and giggle away, leaving you waiting yet again and feeling somewhat ignored.
Phones - BAH!!!!!!

Hey - don't slag off phones, I'm a telecomms engineer and every time the phone rings - it helps to pay my wages. Keep using those phones!

If telesales people are evil, why are you polite to them?

Telesales people aren't evil - they tend to be poor, deprived teenagers who are unable to get any other form of job. (either that, or heavily overqualified people from India who end up getting a telesales job because the profession they have qualified either doesn't pay or isn't recruiting in India). Telesales jobs have huge turnovers and employees are expected to get a silly number of sales despite the fact that no one ever buys anythign off them... Its almost never the person who's talking to you who you should be pissed off with but their employers... that's why you should be polite!