Caller ID and answering the phone

In My Humble Opinion
1

We recently got Caller ID for the first time (mostly to screen calls in case it was Mr. S’s old yucky employer wanting him to come in on his night off; now that he has a shiny new job where he’ll want to work as much as possible, it’s kind of unnecessary, but oh well). So it’s kind of a fun new toy, and I like knowing who it is before I pick up.

Sometimes I’ll answer, “Hi, [name],” if I’m sure it’s going to be that person on the other line. Or if it’s my mom, I’ll answer in Spanish (“Hola, como estas?”, which is about the limit of my Spanish) to be funny, the way I do when I call her. I don’t do this to everyone, of course – just my mom and one or two friends – as I think it’s a bit off-putting to have someone upset the expected routine – I say hello, they say “Hi, it’s [name],” and we go from there. I think I would be startled if I called someone and they picked up with “Hi, Scarlett.” Seems a bit obnoxious, because then the conversation (or at least the thought process) gets turned to “ha-ha, you have Caller ID” instead of whatever the hell they called about. And it’s not like it’s such a fancy thing to have, that you need to call attention to it.

And then this morning the dentist’s office called, as they always do to confirm an appointment the next day. I just said hello, and they asked for Mr. S without identifying themselves. Rather than call him from the other end of the house just to say “Yeah, I’ll be there” (and he doesn’t like to talk on the phone anyway), I just said, “Are you calling to confirm his appointment?” “Yes.” “OK, he’ll be there tomorrow at noon.” “OK, thanks, bye.” Saved everyone a bit of time and hassle.

What do the rest of you who have Caller ID do? Do you maintain the fiction that you don’t know who it is, or do you greet the caller by name? Does it bug you if people answer by calling you by name?

I plan to continue just pretending I don’t know who it is until they identify themselves. But I still like to know before I pick up the phone.

2

The only phone I own is a cell phone, so I almost always know who’s calling. If it’s a person, I will assume that they expect that I know who they are when I answer.

Likewise, if I call another person’s cell phone, I assume that they will know it’s me calling and I don’t bother saying who I am.

If I’m calling a landline, I make no such assumptions.

3

I have a bit of a different relationship with the Telephone. I don’t own a cellphone. I don’t spend hours talking to people. My philosophy is;

The Telephone is a Tool, which exists for my Convenience. When it stops being convenient, I stop answering it.

I have both Caller ID and an Answering Machine.

I do not generally answer my phone. Everything goes to the answering machine. People who know me know enough to Leave A Message. If I’m home, available and want to speak to you, I’ll pick up. If I’m in the can, really busy or in a pissy mood, I probably won’t. I’ll get back to you later.

When I’m waiting for a call or just bored, I’ll check the caller ID to see who is calling and decide whether or not to answer based on that. If I do, there is no pretense as to whether or not I know who it is. Most people who know me are at first surprised that I picked up!

Work? I almost never answer the phone when it’s work. Easier to pretend that I wasn’t home or that I was unavailable than to have to come in without notice or deal with questions and issues that can easily wait until my next shift. I hate hate hate standing in my living room, in my castle, having some a-hole annoying me with a superior attitude on my dime. To me that’s like coming into my house with an abusive attitude - I don’t take that shit.

4

Ha! I never thought about starting a thread on this, but it’s something that’s amused me for years. In my house we continue to answer as if we have no idea who might be on the other end. I think decades of conditioning have led to this.

I might, however, occasionally answer immediate family with a different kind of “Well, hello there!” or something, but mostly we just answer the phone as if it was the 1980s still. Of course everyone who I call has caller ID too and they do the same thing.

Ring: Hello?
Me: Hi Barney, how are ya?
Oh, hey good Leaffan. You? (Like he instantly recognized my voice after 5 words…)

5

Well, I do have a bit of a different situation in that I work at home and use the same line for business and personal calls. (I don’t get enough business calls to justify a second line.) So (1) it’s likely that I’m in the middle of something and not happy about the interruption (as today), so it’s usually easier to just pick up the phone than sit and listen to it ring, and (2) it may be a client or potential client calling, so most of the time I do still pick up for “out of area” or what have you, unless I’m really slammed for time, or in a really pissy mood, or whatever.

I don’t spend much time on the phone either. E-mail is a wonderful thing, for both personal and business communication.

6

I have a friend who screens all his calls. He doesn’t have caller ID, but lets his answering machine take all his calls. Everybody who knows him knows that if you call him you’ll get the machine, and you should identify yourself and start leaving a message; if he’s home and wants to talk to you he’ll pick it up. A few times I’ve called and he or his wife have just picked up the phone, which usually confuses me a moment into thinking I accidentally dialed the wrong number…

I have Caller ID, and I almost always check it before answering the phone. If I don’t recognize the number I may or may not answer; generally if it’s a toll free number I let the machine take it. This morning I got a call from Best Buy reminding me that I hadn’t yet used a reward certificate that they had sent me in December, and that I only had until April 5 to use it. :rolleyes:

7

My first exposure to Caller ID was when I was a grad student living in an apartment with up to 3 other women. Because we knew almost no one in common (and barely knew each other), Caller ID was a marvelous tool for figuring out whether the message on the answering machine was likely to be for me or not.

It would never have occured to me to pick up the phone and address the caller by name, partly because I almost never answered the phone next to the Caller ID device, and partly because when recieving calls from my friends, it was not weird for the person calling me not to be the person whose name was on the Caller ID. Most of my grad student friends lived with roommates.

One evening, the phone rang. I did not answer it, because my roommate was home. She was next to the Caller ID, and did not recognize the number, so she didn’t answer. Then we both heard my dad’s voice on the answering machine, and leapt to answer the phone. He was calling from the hospital (Mom had had surgery a few days before, so this was not especially worrying).

8

If I answer a call from one of my buddies, I’ll say, “What’s up, dude?”. If I don’t know who it is, I’ll answer it as, “This is Santo.” I usually don’t refer to them by name when I answer, in case somebody else is using their phone. I’ve found that simply letting somebody know who you are as soon as you answer is both professional, and eliminates some of the rigmarole that happens when initiating a phone conversation.

9

I also only have a cell phone and pretty much always know who is calling. I would never just say the name of the person calling before they introduce themselves, and it freaks me out when other people occasionally do this to me, even though I know perfectly darned well how caller ID works. However - and I actually hadn’t realized this before now, I think I’ve been doing it entirely subconsciously - I do change the way I answer depending on who is calling. If it’s a friend, I answer with a cheerful “Hiya!”. If it’s from work or something serious, I do a formal and stiff “Hello?”. If it’s a number I actually don’t know (strangers! scary!), I answer with a very cautious and intimidated “Ye-e-e-s? Uh… Hello?”, as if whoever is on the other end might whack me over the head at any moment (or, more often, I don’t pick up and go investigate who the number belongs to). If it’s someone I’m pissed at for whatever reason at the moment, I just bark “YES? WHAT?”

Of course, there are also certain very special callers for whom I reserve “Ahoy-oy!”

10

I used to live in a place (L.A.) where most people blocked their caller ID from appearing at the receiving end, so the display box was useless.

Now I live where nobody blocks it, but almost nobody knows the technology exists, either. If I were to answer with, “Hello, Bob,” they would be surprised. (If they are, I tell them I’m psychic and had a feeling they would call.)

So it’s simplier to answer, “Hello,” even though I know who it is. In fact, any ID that is blocked isn’t someone local or anyone I want to talk to, so I don’t answer those at all.

11

Oddly enough, I always just say “hello” on my land line, even though I know exactly who it is, but on my cell, I say, “Hey ____” when it’s a number I recognize (which it always is, just about), and I don’t think I could bring myself to do it an different.

12

I always answer with “Hello” even when the Caller ID indicates the caller, mostly because I’m worried about the following scenario:

Me, answering: “Hey Stan, what’s the plan?”

Stan’s wife: “I’m sorry, this isn’t Stan, this is Theresa. Stan died last night.”

Me: “Uhh…”

I have no reason to fear this - I don’t know a Stan or a Theresa, or have friends who are close to death or anything like that - I just do my best to avoid unlikely yet awkward scenarios.

13

Yep. This is me, to a “T”!

Before I got caller ID, *all * calls went to the machine, and I answered depending on who you were and/or how I felt at the moment and/or what you wanted (I *hate * when people call me and say nothing more than, “Call me!”–great way to ensure that you move to the end of the queue). Now that I have caller ID, I think it’s cool that I can see who’s calling before I decide to pick up (which is still not very often). And if I do answer, even though I know who’s calling, I’ll use my standard “Good morning/afternoon/evening, Mr. [last name] speaking.” Unless I’m feeling lazy, in which case it’s, “Hello?”

It doesn’t freak me out, though, when I call someone and they, because they have caller ID, answer with, “Hey, Li’l Pluck!”

14

This kind of thing, or even not as dramatic is why I’m with Santo Rugger.

I answer (personal lines) “Hello, this is Gwen.”

If I just say “Hello Stan” Theresa still isn’t sure I’m who she wants to talk to. I could be my sister who sounds EXACTLY the same as I do on the phone.

I do not answer calls that ID as UNKNOWN NUMBER or TOLL FREE CALL. If you are a friend of mine and work at a place and call out on their 800# prepare to leave me a message. I will answer PRIVATE CALLER but that can be telemarketers being sneaky.

15

I usually look. Blanks, blocked or unknown callers don’t get answered. Neither do 800 numbers.

And I don’t have an answering machine. I used to, but those things are evil. It gave people that I never wanted to hear from the chance to oblige me to call them back. Screw that.

16

Wow, I’m really surprised by the responses here. As has been noted, almost anyone with a cell has caller ID. It’s fairly common practice among my friends to answer the phone with a “Hi [name], how’s it going?” I could see way back when caller ID was new and cells weren’t very prevalent that having the phone answered that way would surprise me, but now it seems pretty standard to me. Maybe there’s a correlation on this board about how many people dislike cell phones?

And FTR, I’m well out of my teens :slight_smile:

17

I only use my mobile and have never greeted the person calling with anything other than “hello”, nor have I ever been greeted by name. Anything else seems odd.

18

We usually do just “hello” though a few times at first we’d do the greet-by-name thing.

We’ve also go “call intercept” where if it’s an unknown caller, they have to announce their name before it even rings through to us. We got this as a result of a period of hang-up phone calls every day at the same time for several weeks - the phone would ring, the ID said “unknown”, and a mail voice would say “sorry, wrong number” and hang up.

19

I typically answer it the regular way. “Hello”.

The only real reason I would use the ID is to decide if I actually want to answer the phone or not. If it is someone I really don’t want to talk to, I sent them to voice mail. If it is someone I want to talk to, I answer it.

20

I have always gone by my middle name so if a call gets through from someone that asks for me by my first name, I just hang up immediately and walk away. We still get a few telemarketing calls despite being on the Do Not Call List and I also hang up whenever there is the slightest delay in anyone speaking. For others that get through, I just hang up if is a local call from someone that doesn’t appear to know us. I expect legitimate callers to actually call back as a signal that they actually need to speak to someone in the household.

For friends and family, I tend to say that we are busy and we will call them back later. We have two small children and busy lives and I feel really inconvenienced taking calls as they come in regardless of who they are. I am usually busy dealing with a 1 year old and a 5 year old. My wife takes her personal calls right away about 50% of the time. I rarely do and will call back anywhere from 3 hours to 3 days later unless it is an emergency.

I have about 6 ways that people can contact me and the home phone is at the bottom of the list. I don’t like anyone at all using it unless they are calling me to tell me that they died. I view someone trying to reach me by home phone as an extreme privilege and an emergency measure and no one should take that lightly. People tend to get it over time. Voice mail messages only get checked about once a week at most. My mega-corp job requires many different modes of instant communication and I absolutely do not want that at home. I value my solitude and privacy too much for my family.