"How are you today?", from strangers on the phone
It throws me every single time. I can't stand it. Whether they're buying or selling, they say hello and then ask this completely insincere question, and wait for a reply, not actually giving a damn what that might be. Do they really want to know how I am? Why? What if I said "really shit, actually?" What would they do then? And what bloody business is it of theirs, anyway?

I know it's just phone custom; they don't care how I am at all and I'm not supposed to think they're interested, either. But it's a new thing, really, isn't it? People just called you and got on with things in the olden days- none of this pseudo-pally tele-foreplay fannying around, which seems suspiciously 'merkin to me.

One lady called me on an off day, when I really didn't want to tell a stranger "how I was", and I asked her after a strangled pause, how my wellbeing would be relevant to the upcoming conversation. She was unable to come up with a decent response. And my boss really got the shits with me, oddly enough.

If I am having to answer the phone and talk to strangers, I am likely not "fine, thankyou". Therefore you are not only wasting time by rudely asking how I am, but obliging me to either lie, or else inflict an unexpected litany of personal gripes upon you that I'm sure you had no real interest in. If you think that merely asking will make me like you more and give the impression that you care, and that you may therefore be worthy of better service or that I am more likely to buy something from you, I'm not fooled.

So don't.
(lonelybadger, Tue 13 Apr 2010, 7:50, 3 replies)

I'm a journalist
and I do a lot of radio work and one of the first things you're taught is "do not say hello how are you?" when the announcer introducers you because it chews up valuable time. As a consequence when people ask me on the phone how I am I have the same reaction as you. I fucking hate it.
So...
I tell them. In detail. Every time.
Hello, how are you?
I'm really bloody busy actually and getting further and further behind because people just keep calling all day with problems they could easily sort out themselves, useless chit chat or to tell me things I already know. Plus I've got a bloody headache from this office's stupid air conditioning, I really don't want to be here (and so on and so on).
Eventually, people who call you on a regular basis catch on and stop asking.
( difficultchild, Tue 13 Apr 2010, 9:15, closed)

If someone asks me how I am insincerely I simply inform them that
Today, like every day, is one more step in our inexolerable, unavoidable march towards death, that life is pain, and the only respite I have ever found is the black oblivion of alcoholic intoxication.

I pause slightly, and they usually get down to business pretty quickly at the that opportunity.
( Je suis un vagabond is an unfunny, up your own arse middle class knob, Tue 13 Apr 2010, 10:28, closed)

My new fav trick
When a salesman has annoyed me (as most do), and is in the middle of a long-sounding spiel:

"Erm, sorry, can I just cut you off there..?"
"Sur.."
*CLICK*

Sometimes they will call back and say, "Sorry, I think we got cut off"
Leaving you free to answer, "Yes, I cut you off" *click*"
(MrOli is ugly, but in the morning you will be sober, Tue 13 Apr 2010, 10:38, closed)