ME: Hello?

NORMAN: Hello is that Mr Turnbull?

ME: Yes.

NORMAN: And are you the only Mr Giles Turnbull at that address?

ME: Yes.

NORMAL: I’m calling today to tell you that as one of our most valued and loyal customers, you’ve been pre-selected for our amazing new credit card—

ME: I don’t want it.

NORMAN: You don’t want the card… may I ask why not?

(At this point, you see, Norman is looking at a computer screen and he’s got a checkbox to tick that says “Customer declined card”, or something similar, and then he’s got a text box that he must fill in with a reason for the loss of business. It’s not Norman’s fault, it’s that of his clueless employers, who make his job - and my life - a misery by forcing him to ask these stupid questions.)

ME: Because I don’t want any credit. I’ve got plenty of credit already. I don’t need more credit.

NORMAN: OK sir, that’s fine, thank you for your—

ME: Look Norman, this isn’t directed at you personally, I’m sure you’re a lovely person; this is directed at your employers. If I’m such a valued and loyal customer, why does your company keep cold calling me? I’ve been getting loads of calls from your colleagues over recent months and its driving me crazy. I just want it to stop.

NORMAN: Certainly sir, I can take you off our list - that’s the list for the credit card department - but if you want to opt out of all marketing you’ll have to pop into your local branch.

(Funny, that. You’d have thought that computers would make it easy for Norman to switch off all marketing sent to me with the click of a thingy. I’m sure, if I were coming along as a new customer, he’d be able to pass information about me to all the other departments in an instant, so that they could all cold call me too. But when the information has to go the other way - from customer to supplier - it seems the internet’s tubes get all blocked up.)