The Zen of defeating telephone sales cretins

Poor Gord. He's just suffered from yet another telesales zombie calling him. A sales friend of mine (thankfully not in telesales ... just a normal sales droid) once told me great way to get at them.

The telesales thief-of-time will call, offering you the Joojanta2000 sunglasses (or whatever), and your first instinct will be to be polite (unless you've already gone postal - sorry, in that case I can't help you). Then you'll get pissed, and want the sales amoeba to just go away. Rather than be confrontational, or rant, or whatever, say something like

"That's sounds interesting, let me get a pen." (note - don't use language that could be construed as accepting their offer).

Don't wait for an answer - don't even listen as you say the words. Just put the phone down on the bench (don't hang up), and simply walk away. Sit down, have a cup of tea, play with the kids, whatever. The sales git will be hanging out for you to return, and they'll waste minutes - 4, 5, 6, maybe even 10 - waiting for you to return. They'll get fed up eventually, and probably will realise they've been had.

You get the satisfaction of knowing you wasted a shit-load of their time, and the worst they can do? Mark your record as "Do not call".