I always get the idea to do something strange to scare people like these off whenever they call, or knock on my door wanting to sell something or have me donate to some form of charity, but I always find myself unable to mostly because I know how badly these people already cop it from others (and to that charity worker who came knocking on my door only to see me answer it in my underpants, if you are out there somewhere I am
REALLY sorry. Sorry and shaved).
There actually was a moment when my internet stopped working for 2 days so I had to call Telstra about it, after getting through the annoying automated prompts, I was put onto tech support worker who was actually really helpful about getting the line working again. Out of nowhere when everything started working again, he and I struck up a conversation which ranged from Diablo 2 all-nighters to CounterStrike LAN parties. When you think about it, Telstra Bigpond tech support workers probably get more abusive phonecalls than any other ISP under the sun, as I'm certain most telemarketers probably know every swear word in at least 20 different languages after hearing most of them as responses to the calls they have to make.
In the end, they just do it to get paid. Often the case is the mood they're in when they're talking to you is a reflection of the majority of the responses they've already recieved, not to mention
no one knows more intimately how annoying a Telemarketer is than Telemarketers themselves. With that pointed out, you kind of have to credit them for at least trying to be polite to you most of the time. Odds are off the job quite alot of them are pretty nice people, I know if I was to get a job in Telemarketting I'd end up like this within the first week...