I saw “take two” and thought it meant “select one profession, then another”. So I went with telemarketer (actually my first choice) and car salesman, then cast my vote, which of course registered as the second option. Both are annoying, but to echo what others have said, at least I’ve never gotten ten calls in one day from someone trying to convince me to purchase a Hyundai or Chevy. Of course, there are those dudes who keep trying to tell me my warranty is about to expire…
Next time I read a thread about how smart Dopers are I will temper it with the knowledge that 250% more Dopers despise some poor working stiff making a phone call that they can simply hang up on than despise politicians. Try ignoring your government, not so easy.
Ignoring your government is irresponsible and foolish, one should try to actively change the government if they’re not satisfied with it- you can’t just hang up and assume that politics is going to go away just because you don’t like certain politicians.
And who says they don’t hang up on Telemarketers? You can still hate them and ignore them.
Eh, there are good clerics, good lawyers, even a few good politicians - but there are never good telemarketers. I mean, they may be good people in a shitty job, but they serve no use to society and they are always reviled. Hence their dominance of the poll, IMO.
Judges. The dirty ones spoil all the rest of them.
I wouldn’t go quite that far, but anyone who can put food on the table and a roof over their heads, but who chooses for monetary gain to go to war–anyone with such a mercenary, cavalier attitude toward killing–has, in my opinion, made a profoundly unethical choice.
I picked *Other *because I didn’t see the equivalent to high pressure sales. I’m thinking specifically of a couple I’ve dealt with.
First the “carpet cleaner” - oh yeah, we’ll “clean” my carpets for $19.99, but the stains and the heavy traffic areas will require this special spray that runs $49.99 per room. Then of course I’ll want the stain release treatment that’s only $69.99 for the whole house. And we won’t mention that our “steam cleaner” is actually a wussy wet vac that’ll leave the carpets soggy for 2 days. (I was young, and my husband thought the guy on the phone was offering him a great deal to clean all our carpets for under 20 bucks…)
Second was the replacement window salesman. My fault for having him come to the house (where he arrived 30 minutes late.) He stayed on script, even when we called him on his bogus claims (we’re engineers - we know a little bit about structural materials.) He made us *guess *how much the windows would cost. Then he said he’d give us a discount if we ordered them “right now.” And he whined when we said we had an appointment (which we did) and ushered him out to his protests of “But you knew I needed 90 minutes!” His parting shot was “Thanks for being serious.” I don’t care how much gas you burned coming to our house, we don’t owe you diddly-squat, and you embody the worst of the worst characteristics of sleezy sales guys.
Oh how I despise that kind of salesman…
No, they are not good people. If they were, they’d get out and get a more respectable job. Like crack whore or child pornographer.
I’ve always found that joke offensive. I can picture quite a few people I know and love going into telemarketing due to lack of other options. I cannot imagine any of them going into the others for any reason that is remotely moral.
Telemarketers get enough shit to their face. They don’t need extra behind their backs. It’s silly to blame them for annoying you. They don’t intend to annoy, just to advertise. If you aren’t smart enough to screen your calls, that’s on you. Just like if you watch commercials or don’t block ads. Blame makes less sense than something that’s actually effective.
Though I’d really like to add a spam folder to my phone, though. Pure blocking doesn’t work as well.
A politician and a Lawyer should count as one vote… 
This
I haven’t voted but I am not especially fond of several of the teachers (and school staff in general) I have encountered, between my own son and kids I know through family and friends. I would never condemn the entire profession but, around here anyway, it seems pretty standard to take any incidence of an undesirable yet totally normal kid behavior (“Oh, he talked during reading today.”) and attempt to convince the parent the kid has ADD/ADHD or Asperger’s or autism or whatever.
My sister went so far as to get her son evaluated, first by medical doctors and then by a whole TEAM of psych professionals, just so she could prove to his teacher that he’s totally fine so she would stop getting harassed about how he needs this med and that med and how he can’t seem to function, etc.
Next year, new teacher? Totally fine. Some of these teachers are really horrible. It’s easy for me to see why somebody with enough experience with the bad apples would despise the entire profession.
I chose cop because I despise being lied to: when a search warrant was executed on my previous apartment I was lied to by every law enforcement officer I spoke with at length and some who barely said anything to me. This is not to say that politicians, CEOs, lawyers, etc don’t lie just as routinely as police, but those professions have a less direct impact on individuals.