I work hard for my money. I must make enough to pay for food and for vices. And for bank charges. Sometimes I even do some extra work – I must if I want to maintain the level of wine to which my liver has become accustomed. So, when someone wastes my time, my precious wine-money-making time, I tend to become markedly less jovial than usual.

This happened last week: I am sitting in a meeting with an erstwhile colleague, who has to do some urgent work for me. We are midway through our conversation when my phone vibrates. The screen lights up in the angry red that tells me Truecaller identified a spammer. I decline the call. Almost immediately my phone lights up again. Same caller. I decline the call. Almost immediately my phone lights up again.

I answer. I shouldn’t have.

It’s FNB. They’re just calling to tell me that they see I’ve been using my credit card a lot more and that I should continue to do so to earn the most eBucks possible. “You just called me a third time after I declined the call twice, and then only to tell me that I’m already doing what I need to do to earn the most eBucks possible? So, you just pulled me out of a meeting to tell me absolutely nothing that will add value to my life?”

The man at the other end was somewhat at a loss for words; he agreed (sort of – I read between the lines) that I made a compelling point. I might be taking some liberties when I say he found my point “compelling”.

I wouldn’t be surprised if he works in an outbound contact centre that measures and pays on volume – number of calls made and number of clients spoken to. I doubt that “how did you make the client feel?” is one of the criteria to base commission on. If they were at all interested in client experience, I wouldn’t have gotten a call in the first place; they know very well what my communication preferences are, and phone is not one of them.