feeling pretty stupid
Have you ever done something and afterwards had that almost panicky feeling that you've really messed up?
While putting away the groceries today I received a phone call from the "University of Michigan" blah-blah-blah doing a research study about people's attitudes towards blah-blah-blah. I'm usually very wary of telephone things but having worked on several research projects at Tech I'm also very sympathetic to the people conducting university research (one of my thrilling field study assignments in college was to call people who'd taken breathalizers downtown on Friday night and ask them questions about their sexual behaviors later that night). The woman went on to read what sounded exactly like the consent forms I used to read on the phone and that I've signed a million times before.
So the woman went on to ask me all kinds of boring questions about hotels, airlines, electrical service, phone service, cellular service, etc. After, no exaggeration, 23 minutes I finally told her I was out of time (my answers were completely unreliable anyway, I kept answering "5" to all these "on a scale of 1-10 questions" that I wasn't even listening to) and couldn't answer any more questions. She stopped then and asked my first name and zip code, then thanked me for my time.
Since the moment I hung up there's been a feeling of dread in my stomach. I never told her my last name or address but they're easy enough to figure out since she had my phone number. I didn't do anything like give her my social security number, annual income, bank info, etc but I still feel like I did something stupid.
I tried googling the phone number and all I came up with was one hit with some guy who logs personal telemarketer violations. This didn't allay my fears though since he said they asked him "who at your company makes decisions about Internet and telecom services?" That's not quite how my conversation went so I'm a little more worried now.
On the brightside, I may start keeping track of telemarketer calls (I usually let caller ID and my answering machine weed out the ones who still call) and earn some extra cash going after those who violate our being on the "do not call list". This guy makes it sound fairly worthwhile!
While putting away the groceries today I received a phone call from the "University of Michigan" blah-blah-blah doing a research study about people's attitudes towards blah-blah-blah. I'm usually very wary of telephone things but having worked on several research projects at Tech I'm also very sympathetic to the people conducting university research (one of my thrilling field study assignments in college was to call people who'd taken breathalizers downtown on Friday night and ask them questions about their sexual behaviors later that night). The woman went on to read what sounded exactly like the consent forms I used to read on the phone and that I've signed a million times before.
So the woman went on to ask me all kinds of boring questions about hotels, airlines, electrical service, phone service, cellular service, etc. After, no exaggeration, 23 minutes I finally told her I was out of time (my answers were completely unreliable anyway, I kept answering "5" to all these "on a scale of 1-10 questions" that I wasn't even listening to) and couldn't answer any more questions. She stopped then and asked my first name and zip code, then thanked me for my time.
Since the moment I hung up there's been a feeling of dread in my stomach. I never told her my last name or address but they're easy enough to figure out since she had my phone number. I didn't do anything like give her my social security number, annual income, bank info, etc but I still feel like I did something stupid.
I tried googling the phone number and all I came up with was one hit with some guy who logs personal telemarketer violations. This didn't allay my fears though since he said they asked him "who at your company makes decisions about Internet and telecom services?" That's not quite how my conversation went so I'm a little more worried now.
On the brightside, I may start keeping track of telemarketer calls (I usually let caller ID and my answering machine weed out the ones who still call) and earn some extra cash going after those who violate our being on the "do not call list". This guy makes it sound fairly worthwhile!
posted by virge at
3:19 PM
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