Readers, let’s be honest for a second. We all hate telemarketers. It’s just a fact. If we could we’d reach through the phone and slap them across their mouths. In a recent survey of Northeastern students, 100 percent of the participants listed telemarketing as one of their top three annoyances. Sure, the only participants were my roommate and me, and I was the one conducting the survey, but it still comes out to 100 percent and numbers don’t lie.

Recently, the telemarketing industry has begun to use a new system of automated telemarketers to reach customers at home. These new robotic telemarketers are cold and methodical and slowly taking control of our phone lines. There are five main reasons to hate these robo-marketers (clever, I know). But in the interest of time and the fact that I have yet to think of the other two reasons, I will list here the top three.

First, despite my hatred for telemarketers, at times I could almost justify their actions by telling myself they did it because they needed to support a family. However, with the invention of robotic telemarketers, the one speck of understanding I may have had for the profession is gone. While I’m not a scientist, I’m fairly sure that robots do not need to support families or themselves with money from their job as telemarketers. And if they’re not doing it for the money, then you have to wonder why the companies use robots at all. Is it because they are simple voice-activated machines and have no free will or conscience? Or is it because robotic telemarketers secretly feed off the misery of humans and plan on overthrowing our government as soon as they finish bankrupting us through over the phone pyramid schemes? You don’t need to answer now, just take a minute to let that sink in.

Second, robot telemarketers use a script much like regular telemarketers would, however unlike human telemarketers they cannot be distracted or confused by things we might say or do to them. Calls from human telemarketers can have their own slight entertainment value at times, but with an automated telemarketer, the human factor is removed and you’re just shouting into dead air. Even if you have a serious question or concern about the product being sold, and are generally interested in purchasing something, they must first transfer you to a human telemarketer before your questions can be answered. Robotic telemarketers are wasting your time and energy and you can’t even curse at them to make yourself feel better.

Finally, outsourcing. It’s one thing when domestic jobs go to foreign people in other countries, but robots? Or even worse, foreign robots? I, for one, refuse to live in a world where some smug robot halfway around the world can call me in the middle of dinner and try to sell me boat insurance.

To conclude, I would just like to say this: We have put up with a lot of crap from telemarketers during the years; their tricks and their lies and their lies that are also tricks, and we deserve better. I’m not going to have some glorified answering machine lying to me on the phone. This is America, and if I’m going to be told lies, I deserve to hear them from someone I trust, like a politician, a major corporation or my parents.

– Skylar Shankman is a sophomore photography major.