Oh, dear Og! I wrote “one’s.” Smitten by a pet peeve!
What, you mean like someone who refuses to state his name when he calls? 
This is the most inspiring comment I’ve heard today.
“Your nickel, spill it”???
Hubba hubba.
My biggest phone pet peeve is when I answer the phone in my own house and get “Who am I speaking with?”. Look, fuckface, you called ME. I usually respond with “Who’s calling, please?” before I give them an answer. Most of them don’t like it, but I also don’t appreciate being treated rudely when I answer my own phone.
However, if I’m calling someone else’s home, I fully expect to be asked who’s calling, and I’m certainly not offended by it. You’re a rude motherfucker yourself, corndog. Most of us stopped making prank calls by the time we were eight years old.
Ava
Man, I feel bad about even bothering to answer you. You’re an idiot
OK, I was wrong. You’re a fucking idiot.
OK, You’re a fucking idiot… and a troll.
Bubba
…and you’re not a man
I answer the phone frequently to snot-faced teenage boys hoping to speak to one of mine. If they don’t introduce themselves first they get an extended ‘Courtesy Lecture’ from me, frustrating them no end.
There’s only ONE who still hasn’t got the hint yet. But he’s 14…I’ll give him a bit more time before I refuse to pass on his call anymore.
How old are YOU corndog? :rolleyes:
Well, I have had people ask me if they were calling the sports store at the mall. :eek:
As recently as two weeks ago, I just had someone on the telephone asking if this was the mall. When I said no, she wanted to know if this was SportChek… nope! Then she verified the phone number, which happened to be my phone number! (eek!)
Then, this is what happened back in February:
Then today, there was some idiotic person (evidently with air for brains) who called my place and wanted to speak to me. Fine, no big deal. I believe the approximate conversation went like this:
Him: Hello, may I speak to [Flami]?
Me: Speaking… who is this?
Him: Well, who are you?
Me: What the heck do you mean?
Him: Well, I was wondering what your phone number was.
Me: (getting more than a little testy) Well, who are you?
Him: I asked you who you were first…
Me: Well, YOU called ME… I’d imagine you’d know what my number was. Now, who are you?
Him: This is Greg… and isn’t your number [some number that sounds similar to my number]?
Me: Well… if you dialed it, you should know!
Him: So is this Coast Mountain Sports?
Me: Hell, NO!
click as I hang up quite emphatically
Coast Mountain Sports is this local sports store we have, and I can understand if someone simply dialed a wrong number. (in which case the conversation would ideally have gone like this: “Hello, is this Coast Mountain Sports?” “No, you have the wrong number…” “Oh, Sorry about that… bye!”) But for the conversation to go like THAT is pretty bad… besides, this is a regular-sized apartment! Though it’s roomy, it’s not quite big enough for a major sports store with LOTS of bulky equipment and such…
corndog, grow up. If I get asked who’s calling, I’ll say who it is. It’s not like I have some sort of double identity or something!
F_X
Another one here who thinks the reason corndog won’t say who he is is due to the fact people are purposely avoiding him.
Oh, as for getting offended for call waiting-it’s a necessity in our house. My dad’s a funeral director, who is frequently on call. That way, we can talk on the phone and NOT have to worry about him missing a call from work.
This is probably the worst thing you can do if you call me on the phone. I will be very rude to someone who does this.
I once had a phone number that was very close to the phone number of a local hospital. After months of answering the phone and getting “Could you connect me to room XXX?”, I started answering the phone by saying “Pearl’s Pool Hall.” (I was hoping that would make people realize that they had the wrong number right away.)
It didn’t work. I’d still get “Can you connect me…” calls.
Here’s another good reason to ask who’s calling first. If the person who’se being called is not there, and you tell the caller so, very often they’ll say, “Okay, bye,” and hang up right away. If you’ve found out who they were, at least you can tell the person who called.
As for Mr. “I don’t like to say who I am when I call someone:” what are you going to do if you have to leave a message? What if the person is away, and they call their housemate/family member to find out who called? You won’t be able to reach them, and they won’t be able to reach you. To me there are few telephonic mishaps as irritating as knowing someone was trying to reach me but not knowing who it was.
What REALLY bugs me is not people who dial wrong numbers. We’ve all done it sometime, right? No. It’s the person who calls my number, and I tell them what number they have dialed, and they say that yes, that is the number I have for Martha and I tell them sorry, she must have moved or changed numbers or something because there’s no Martha in this house, and then after five seconds THEY CALL BACK. I’ve had this happen three or four times in a row! I’m perfectly nice the first time around but by the third call I’m answering, “Hello? No, there IS NO MARTHA HERE. QUIT CALLING THIS NUMBER! YOU DIALED IT RIGHT BUT YOU HAVE THE WRONG NUMBER WRITTEN DOWN!!!”
[Amazon Women on the Moon]
Arsenio: Hello? No man, for the last time, ain’t no fuckin’ Thelma here, man!
{pause}
The bitch don’t live here!
{slams down phone}
[/AWotM]
Yeah, that gets old fast.
There was a little old lady in Brooklyn who used to think that our apartment’s phone number was the number to her son’s house.
Every day. Every single damn day.
“Is Martin there?”
“I’m sorry, you have the wrong number.”
“Oh. So Martin’s not there?”
“No,ma’am, you have the wrong number. Martin doesn’t live here.”
I always got the feeling she hung up the phone crying because Martin had moved without telling her.
Ava
Oh, yes.
There is nothing that can flash me from general satisfaction with God’s world to sudden anger quicker than picking up the phone and saying “Hello?”
…and hearing some stranger ask, “Who is this?”
Not even “To whom am I speaking?” Just… “Who is this?”
My invariable response to this is, “Look, bud, YOU called ME. If you don’t KNOW who I am, why did you CALL me?”
Nine times out of ten, the person will suddenly hang up, and I am spared the hassle of an irrelevant conversation with a stranger.
At one point in my life, I got a LOT of calls like that. I later found out that my number was one digit off from the county jail. For some reason, a lot of people don’t seem to have courtesy in mind when calling the county jail.
The way we found OUT that I was one digit off from the county jail was when my aunt called me up, and accidentally got the JAIL, and was quite certain I was having her on, and proceeded to rag on the poor deputy mercilessly. It took several minutes before she realized that she did in fact have a law enforcement department on the honker.
They were kind enough to call ME up shortly thereafter, and we compared notes. Not long after that, I changed my frickin’ phone number.
Telemarketers irritate me, but not a whole lot. Once I realize I have a telemarketer on the horn, I just hang up. It’s not more than a momentary disruption in my life, and I’m doing the telemarketer a favor by sparing him the time he would have wasted on me so he can go find someone who maybe wants his product.
…although there IS one type of telemarketer who drives me bugshit, and for the same reason I have learned to hate those &%$# magazine salesmen.
THE CONVERSATION:
CALLER: Hello, I’m Joe Blow, with (Your Credit Card Company, or Your Bank, or Your Insurance Company), and I’m calling for Mr. Wang-Ka.
WANG-KA: (thinking the caller is calling on a legitimate business matter) Speaking.
CALLER: How are you today?
WANG-KA: Fine, thank you. What can I do for you?
CALLER: Well, we’ve been looking over our records… (conversation is sidetracked in such a way that we get to spend several seconds talking about how long I’ve been a customer, or something pretty much irrelevant)
CALLER:… and you now fall into a service bracket that allows me to offer you this money-saving offer–
WANG-KA: This is a SALES call?
CALLER: No, no, no, sir, we’re not SELLING anything. We’re OFFERING you…(lengthy speech that basically boils down to “give us the right to debit your credit card for $X every month, and we will provide you with thus-and-such-a-service.”)
WANG-KA: You have lied to me. You said you weren’t selling anything. Goodbye.
CALLER: But-- (click)
If you are selling something, have the tiny scrap of courtesy it takes to TELL ME, RIGHT UP FRONT, so I can decide to buy, or instead terminate our conversation and save our mutual time. DO NOT waste my time with doubletalk and crapola!
A few years ago, I began getting odd messages on my machine, from timid-sounding people who seemed to think they had an appointment with me. I also began getting some VERY odd wrong number calls.
I have since discovered that my current phone number is one digit off from the Mental Health Resources Center.
Wonder if they get any of my calls from people who are trying to sell me something?
:rolleyes: Do you expect the “phone jockey” to be psychic? How could she more quickly direct your call to the proper department if she doesn’t know what you want? Seems to me that she answered the phone, listened to your first sentence, knew exactly who you needed to be transferred to, didn’t waste any more of your time, and immediately transferred you.
Sure, she could have interrupted your sentence, but she was probably instructed not to…because, guess what? Most people think that interrupting is rude.
Okay, are you calling a business or a residence when this happens?
If it’s a business, this is the way IT IS DONE. The reason is that it lets the person at the other end know ahead of time who is calling so that they can “pull the file” or whatever else they may need to know to talk with this “client/customer” etc. Or, it lets them know it’s “just their wife/husband/SO” so that they can relax, kick their feet up on their desk etc.
If it’s a residence, similar reasons. The person being called wants to know (if say their roommate or kid has answered the phone) if it is someone whose phone call they’ve been waiting for, or is it a telemarketer etc? Then, the kid/roommate can say “dad/joe, it’s Corndog”. And dad/roommate can then say “oh I was waiting for his call” or “tell him I’ll call him back, I need to finish this XYZ before I talk to him”.
The phone is there for the owner of the PHONE’s convenience, NOT the caller’s.
Answering services are just that, and ONLY that. They are NOT “at ABC hardware”. They’re at THEIR place of business which is likely “XYZ Answering Services” and likely several MILES from “ABC Hardware”.
They answer the phones for a company in order to take INFORMATION and MESSAGES. They are not somehow an extension of that company’s services.
They’re usually not employees of that company, they are contracted to the hardware store and are usually in addition to answering phones for “ABC Hardware” ALSO answering phones for many other companies during THOSE companies’ off hours as well.
How can you have lived and worked as an adult in this country and and NOT know this?
This is a whoosh pitting right? You’ve GOT to be kidding! Have you ever actually been in a parts/hardware store during business hours?
They are constantly getting phone calls and are frequently swamped with walk-in customers as well. You’re not being put on hold because they don’t know the answer, they’re putting you on hold because it’s NOT YOUR TURN YET.
What’s that activity when you cruise around in your boat slowly with your fishing lines trailing behind you?
Hmm. Ah yes- Trolling.
I have absolutely no problem asking/being asked “May I say who is calling, please?” I handle lots of incoming phone calls at work and EVERYONE wants to know ahead of time who’s calling. It’s just habit. Like Canvas stated, that’s HOW IT IS DONE. Welcome to adulthood, corndoggie.
BTW, I’m stealing fuckpretzel and will be using it as my Word of the Month. Thanks Q.E.D.
When I moved to my apt, I was issued the phone number of the Continental Airlines desk at my local airport. A number that was still in service by Continental Airlines except for the short while that I had it. I was getting calls around the clock, it was QUITE a nuisance.
3 am. Ring Ring.
Me: Hello?
Caller: Is this Continental Airlines?
Me: No it isn’t… {before I can finish, they hang up. Ring again}
Me: Hello? {Click} Repeat 4 times.
OR
Around midnight. Ring Ring
Me: Hello?
Older Gentleman Caller: Is this Continental Airlines?
Me: No, you’ve reached a residence, there is a misprint in the phone book {technically it wasn’t a misprint, but that’s the quickest way to explain it.}
Caller: Can you direct me to baggage claim?
Me: Sir, this is NOT the airline desk. This is a residence.
Caller: Well, do you know the correct number?
Me: You can dial 411 and they can provide the 800-number to you.
Caller: {grabbing pencil} 4…1…1 And I ask for who???
Me: That is the number for Information, sir. They can direct you to the correct number.
Caller: You can’t give me the number?
Now WHO doesnt know 411??? Who??? Raise your hand so that I may slap you.
If he’s that old, maybe the number “4” didn’t exist when he was growing up.
Dude, I’m not even sure you live on a known planet.