Talking of the customer service people, let me tell you what happened today morning. I had barely settled into my place at the office when the mobile rang. I knew it had to be some salesman. But there was some time before the laptop could boot up and so I decided to answer it.

Even before watching the movie "Rocket Singh....", I have always spoken nicely with these salespeople, unless they catch me on my bad hair-day ;-) After all, they are doing their job, right? But I would hate to waste a moment of their and my time if the conversation is not going to be beneficial to either side (it rarely is!). So these days I have taken to saying the following "I am not interested in any financial or insurance product, personal loan or credit card". In almost all cases, this terminates the call.

But some people, like the guy who called me today morning, want to know why. So they go on - 'is there any particular reason?'. I would so like to reply - 'that's because I am thinking of chucking this all pretty soon and retiring to the Himalayas'. But I refrain, with a lot of difficulty and say benignly - 'I don't need these for the moment' or 'I have got all I want'.

Till now, this has shut them up for good. But I am sure that like a new Malaria or Dengue strain, they will soon become immune to it and keep pushing. I guess then I will have to resort to the good ol' "I am in the meeting so call me later". Of course, that means I will have save their number, ignore the next 2-3 calls and then delete it. But whosoever said life was a piece of cake never got such calls. Trust me on this one.

In the meantime though, I am seriously toying with the idea of making "I am not interested in any financial or insurance product, personal loan or credit card" my caller tune :-)