Remember that big list you put your phone number on a few months ago? The list that was supposed to serve as a nationwide registry of people who do not want to be bothered by telemarketing irritants ever again? Well, a federal judge has just ruled that the FCC did not have the authority to create such a list, and thus, the national Do-Not-Call registry has just been rendered useless!

Granted, this is only a temporary stoppage of the list’s enforcement, at least for now. But it’s infuriating. 50 million Americans had finally been given the opportunity to defend their own tele-property against unwanted trespassers, and now we find our small voices quashed yet again by a single human being with way too much power and no oversight, otherwise known as a federal judge.

Today’s ruling was in response to—who would have guessed—a lawsuit filed by the Direct Marketing Association or whatever the DMA stands for. Sickeningly enough, the company for which I work is a member of this pathetic cabal of marketing turdbrains. Oh, did I tell you that I fucking hate marketing? It’s quite ironic, because as the art director for my company, I’m involved in a lot of marketing, mostly the design aspects. But I design advertisements for print publications, direct mail pieces and web banners. I don’t involve myself in the kind of “annoyance marketing” tactics that so often turn people away from your services, and turn them off to the idea of marketing in general. And I’m one of those people, too. I hate marketing. Hate it. Hate it. All too often, it’s so false and misleading and wheedling and…

Okay, enough of that tangent. I have a mildly disturbing question to ask, in light of today’s ruling against the Do-Not-Call list. Now that the FCC has a database of 50 million active phone numbers, if the DNC list isn’t allowed to move forward, what are they going to do with those numbers? Organizations like the DMA would look at a database like that as the holy grail, for God’s sake. I hope the FCC doesn’t just toss the numbers in the dumpster out back and then look the other way as a bunch of ravenous telemarketers start rifling through it.

This whole mess reminds me that the first job I ever interviewed for was a telemarketing position. Why would I ever have interviewed for such a thing? Because the telemarketing whiz kid who cold-called me about the position (he apparently got my name & info from some graphics software I had registered…I don’t register software anymore) completely misrepresented the function of his company. When he called, he told me he got my name from this graphics software registration and asked, “How would you like to have a job where you could work at a computer and use your favorite digital art software for real money?”

Sounds great, I said. So I drove down, and was promptly shown onto a telemarketing floor where I got to witness one poor young woman get verbally shot to death by some irritable second-shift worker whom she’d woken up with her cold-call. “No fucking thanks,” said I, and scooted my ass out of there. The dude who was showing me around looked at me in utter shock, like he couldn’t believe that a knuckleheaded high school punk would refuse a job offer. Whatever, pal…some of us knuckleheaded punks actually had standards when we were that age. I know it’s hard to imagine for someone who is so devoid of a moral base that they would choose a career in telemarketing, but it’s true.

Anyway, that’s my rant for the day. I figured I needed to give you guys something that wasn’t car-related.