> > > I find several things surprising about "Ann", the volunteer:
> >
> > Another, of course, is the tragic fact that such a
> >harmless moment of frivolity bothers her so much.
> >Sad, really.
>
> I gotta figure if my job was to randomly call people who probably don't want to listen to what I have to say, who often hang up on me before I can finish what I have to say, and who often aren't even home, making it so I have to listen to hundreds of "clever" answering machine messages, I'd probably hate the world as much as this woman apparently does. To make it worse, she claims to actually believe in what she's doing and wants to get the word out, so it's probably even more frustrating.

This probably explains her attitude, but it doesn't excuse it. If you want to get the word out to people by calling up strangers in their homes, knowing that most of them resent the intrusion, the heck with you anyway, but the least you can do is approach the people you're calling on their own terms, with the respect they deserve. If that means listening to a ton of sing-songy answering machine messages, too bad. As a supplicant to the people you're trying to enlist to your cause, you don't have the prerogative to criticize the hospitality you receive.

Of course, my feeling is that even polite political telemarketers with respectable attitudes should be shot.