There are few things in life I like less than talking on the phone to strangers. For most of my life, I've always gotten someone else to place the pizza order or find out what time the store closes. When I've had to make phone calls at work, I've put them off until the very last minute. I can drive myself to a panic attack just thinking of placing a phone call to someone I don't know. I also hate rejection. Of almost every kind. When I ask a friend to do something and they can't make it, I feel rejected. When a friend promises to call and doesn't, I get upset.

When you consider these two dislikes of mine together, it becomes perfectly clear that I am not cut out for the world of telemarketing. And yet, I still signed up to participate in the Carolina Poll, an annual telephone survey administered every year right before the election. I did it for my Research Methods class- I had to spend an evening working the poll and then write a paper about my experience.

I started the evening out in absolutely dread. I did not want to talk to rude people who might cuss me out or even -gasp- hang up on me. Now with so many people on the Do-Not-Call list and so many unlisted numbers, I just knew that people would not be happy with an unsolicited phone call (by the way, the Do-Not-Call list applies only to telemarketers, not to non-profits asking for donations or people conducting surveys). So at first I was afraid to even dial a number. I went through the survey questions on the computer screen, flipped through the stack of phone numbers I was assigned to call (I hoped that I would end up with the phone number of someone I knew, but no luck), and basically just wished the evening to be over. Eventually, though, I could hear the other people all around me conducting their surveys, and I knew I had to at least try. They told us we didn't have to use our real name, so I decided to reinvent myself as the most self-confident person I knew (it ended up being my friend Julie from high school- she wasn't afraid of anything).

So I (aka "Julie") started dialing numbers. Most were "no longer in service," most likely due to the fact that the numbers were randomly computer-generated, not taken from any kind of database. I got answering machines more often than anything else, so I would leave a message: "Hi, this is Julie from the University of North Carolina...I'm sorry I missed you...." A lot of the people who answered were elderly- they didn't really want to discuss politics. I ended up surveying a couple of people who I could have sworn sounded like children (the minimum age to be surveyed is 18) but it turned out they were college students. One high school student I spoke to was participating in her first election. Another person I surveyed was an American Indian who wanted to tell me all about the economic troubles they experienced in the mills in his hometown. Another man made sure I knew he was from the northeastern corner of the state, an area where the politicians didn't care about campaigning and thus he had been exposed to no television advertisements or news reports about the candidates (I wish I lived in his town, because if I see one more ad about Burr and breast cancer I'm going to pull my hair out).

Another thing that amazed me was how little most people knew about the candidates. A lot of people don't know that George W. Bush graduated from Harvard business school, or that Erskine Bowles was Clinton's chief of staff. It was also interesting that the people I talked to were either very conservative Republicans or staunch Liberals. There wasn't much in-between.

I ended up being the last one conducting surveys; and part of me really didn't want to leave. I had a blast! People were so nice to me, and absolutely no one hung up on me. No one was even rude about declining to participate. They would say that they just weren't interested or that they were busy or whatever else. It was really exciting! Nathan (aka "Charles"), who sat at the station next to me, said it was probably because I had a nice voice and no one could be mean to me. Whatever the reason, I'm just glad that no one was mean to me. Yet at the same time it would probably have done me some good to have been yelled at or hung up on. I'm going to have to develop a tough skin eventually.

All in all, it was a pleasant experience. Do I think I missed my calling as a telemarketer? Definitely not. But maybe now I can call the pizza guy with confidence.