Another one who doesn’t answer his phone. I let my calls all go to voicemail. There’s nothing going on in my life that’s so important it can’t wait.
But I’ll bet you hit any Texts in a instant. :rolleyes:
If I’ve answered which is unlikely, I’ll usually answer a political poll. I’ll also usually lie about specific voting decisions if asked.
I did a couple times and then quickly realized they were incredibly biased towards one candidate. So now no, never.
I’ll take them if I feel I have time. Having time being an extended period of having cigarettes, a fresh beer, and not needing to go to the bathroom. I used to believe them when they said, “It will only take a couple of minutes.” I got over that quickly.
Indeed. A few years back, I was getting all sorts of calls where the callerID reported the origin as “NRA.” Finally answered one and listened to spectacular derp about how the US was somehow binding itself to UN resolutions about gun control or whatever, followed by the poll question
Pollster: Do you believe third world dictators should control the right to bear arms in this country?
Me: Sure!
Pollster: Um, really?
Me: Yeah, why not?
Pollster: OK, sir, thank you for your time. <click>
I’ve never gotten another call from the NRA.
The local polls are slanted as Hell, and basically trick questions.
I got called by a pollster asking about the Mayor of Los Angeles.
I stuck it out as long as I could, but after he asked the same question the 6th different way, I told him to go fuck himself and hung up.
Never. Besides the fact that I have very little time for random pollsters, my real problem is that I don’t trust how they use my information. Political polls often use leading questions.
I remember a mail poll done by the Republican Party a few years back that asked one question that amounted to “Do you support toddlers wielding assault rifles, or do you place no value civil rights whatsoever?” :dubious:
nope. in an election year, if I get calls from numbers I don’t recognize, I don’t answer. If it’s someone I know, they’ll leave a vm or follow up with a text.
Yeah, if I’m in the mood for it, I do.
responding to a text takes a couple of seconds, and can be done at my convenience.
maybe it’s just an increase in crotchetiness as I get older, but more and more I consider phone calls to be annoyingly intrusive. The caller is basically demanding your attention right now, and you don’t know for how long. If the number is one I know I’ll answer ('cos it’s more likely it might be important) but for everything else, I’ll let go to vm.
I got a call from an actual candidate (state senate) a few elections ago. I told him I thought he was an unprincipled mountebank. He laughed. A real moral majority type, but he seemed to have a sense of humor.
I dislike being called. By anyone, really. But by people I don’t know? Fuck that. Stop wasting my time. I might answer an online survey.
I sometimes participate. If it’s a recorded poll I hang up. If it’s a live person calling, I participate.
I rarely get texts. Anybody with a reason to text me will be a relative. Or my cell phone company reminding me I need to refill my service. And I don’t see texts as anything I have to answer immediately. They’ll keep until I get around to them.
Anyway that has fuck-all to do with this thread.
Political surveys are great because I can express any damn thing that comes to mind. Sometimes I even give my real opinion!
I don’t pick up; sometimes my partner picks up and then hands me the phone. As soon as they stop for breath I say, politely, “I’m not interested in participating, thank you” and hang up.
The first few times I got these calls, I tried to participate, with the following results: the accent was so strong and/or the phone connection so bad, I had to ask to have every question repeated several times; or the questions were so loaded that I could not answer them; or the process that they promised would only be a few minutes took 15 or 20 minutes; and mostly all of the above.
So not only do I no longer participate, I no longer respect the results of surveys except from long-time respectable survey outfits, which as far as I know have never called me.
In general I don’t pick up the phone at all when I don’t know who it is. I would never participate in a phone poll because I have no way of knowing who is on the other end and I don’t want them to have any information about me.
I try to answer whenever I can. I call it “Voting early and often”. 