Like you I am often annoyed by the intrusion of phone calls and messages. But with messages I don’t have to even walk over to the phone to see who it is until it is convenient to do so. When I do get calls I have always made it my practice to think about whether I want to answer it. If I am actively engaged doing something or have no particular desire to talk to the caller at the moment I just let the call go to voice mail. Over the years I have been chastised for this many times. Apparently to some people this is an unforgivable breach of etiquette.
I believe a process server is also involved at some point.
Same here. If it counts, we get unexpected visitors all the time with the neighbor girl coming over and ringing our bell (and vice versa) when she wants to play with our daughters. I guess it happens often enough that I suppose it’s not “unexpected” anymore. We live in a city neighborhood with detached homes, if extra context is needed. I don’t mind it at all, and I’m always happy to entertain The Unexpected Guest. (Or, if I’m not, I just don’t answer the door.) That said, the last time I remember an unannounced friend or family member of mine coming by is probably mid-2000s. Although it’s possible my mom and/or dad have popped by in the meantime, as neither have a cell phone. Now that I think of it, they have within the last 5-7 years.
As for texting before a call – I only do that a small fraction of the time. Maybe 5%? Same with people calling me. It’s rare for anyone to text me before calling me. You always have the option, as has been said, of not picking up.
I’m definitely in the “call or text ahead before coming over” group. But it wasn’t like people would just show up before cell phones, unless they were neighbors. It was accepted that people might want to do a bit of cleaning before having company. You might want to also have a little bit of food for them to nosh on, or conversely want to be finished with any meal, since meals were never at a fixed time.
My uncle has consistently not worried about that too much, being one of the few families who would just come over, but we’ve gotten him to at least call lately. In fact, when he was having plumbing problems after the big freeze, we had to tell him it was okay to come by and get some extra water without calling us first.
Texting before calling is not a really a rule, but I do admit it’s kinda creeped in there for two reasons. I don’t tend to call people while they’re at work, as they can more easily respond to a text, so usually it takes a text to determine we need to talk. And then I’m more likely to text at night, because loved ones will often keep their ringer on at night for me in case I need to get them in an emergency. Texting thus allows me to avoid waking them unnecessarily.
I still might call in other circumstances, though. I do sometimes just call my housemate when he’s out shopping or running errands, as there are times when texts seemed to take longer to make it through, while calls would still go through. Though, lately, texts have been working quickly enough.
It just seems that texting before calling has naturally become a thing in many circumstances, not due to any rules or anyone getting upset, but just practical considerations.
I presume most of us still don’t do it when we need to call for non-personal reasons. If the place has a call center, you obviously don’t text them.
To address the subject line, etiquette evolves but the basic principles are pretty stable. Be considerate of others, observe social conventions so as to avoid improvising and so everyone easily understands your intentions, and curtsy to the queen. The conventions around calling and visiting change but the underlying principle is that a person has the right to decide how to spend their own time, and at any given moment that might not be with you. It is certainly not rude to phone someone without texting first, nor is it rude to let it roll to voicemail if they do.
One related change is that there are a lot less people I would feel free to call, period. “People you text” is a new ring of acquaintance that took up the outer edges of “people you call” and the inner edges of “people you don’t talk to except in person”. I have a lot of work friends I chit chat with via text, but only a few I would call, and even then, only with a specific thing that was too complex to text.
I’ve found it to be generational. I was a journalist in the 1970s and 1980s, and made cold calls to many hundreds of people.
Nowadays I’m a very minor community leader, the kind of guy the neighborhood or college newspaper sometimes calls to get comment on new proposed developments. I find it hilarious that days of negotiation by email often precede the young reporter actually picking up the phone to call me. Frequently they make it clear they’d rather not call at all; could I just email them responses to their questions.
My email sig contains my office phone number, yet they’ll often devote one entire email exchange to asking me what number they should call. And when, exactly? Oh, for God’s sake! If I’m not in the office, I won’t answer. Leave a message. And leave your number. Don’t assume I can see it on some display somehow.
The even older school method was to bang on their door uninvited.
When you have no servant and texting and telephones haven’t been invented yet you bang on their door uninvited and they expect that.
You are right. Does not seem like Odysseus first sent a telegram before showing up chez Eumaeus, who knew how to treat a guest.
I can understand this to a point - and the point where I stop understanding is the point where you have these feelings about the phone ringing but not about receiving a text. I don’t get why a text is less intrusive than a phone - I can turn my ringer off or just answer the phone if it’s inconvenient to answer at that moment just like I can ignore a text until it’s convenient. Someone can leave a voicemail and I can reply by text, if for some reason asynchronous communication is preferable.
I understand that some people just cannot let a phone ring- what I don’t understand is why those people don’t feel equally compelled to read and answer a text.
I am very cautious giving out my phone number. I make certain they understand that I will never answer a call, much preferring text communication. I also make it crystal clear that they are never to give my number to anyone, regardless of the situation, without my ok.
A few years ago I received a call (that I didn’t answer). The voicemail was a long, convoluted “you don’t know me but” tale, explaining that my friend Dave gave her my number for reasons and she really needs to talk with me, she’ll explain more when I call her.
I texted a reply, telling her that Dave must be trying to get into her pants, otherwise he’d never give out my number. Further, I explained I’d be blocking her after sending this message, so don’t bother to reply. And to let Dave know he would be blocked as well and could go to hell.
As far as someone just showing up unannounced, knocking on the door? That’s beyond freaky. If I were home alone I wouldn’t answer. My gf says she’d answer, if only to satisfy her curiosity about who the numb nuts is.
Probably because I’m an old fart who grew up long before mobile phones, people phoning or visiting unannounced doesn’t bother me in the least, they just take the chance that I might not have time to talk to them at that particular moment
That doesn’t really work for some businesses. I’ve called restaurants to order food, and a plumber to replace a busted water heater, without texting first. I was somewhat anxious about doing so. But I’ve always been nervous about calling people, since long before cell phones.
I’ve always been a bit shy about talking on the phone, for some reason. So the “text first” (or even “text instead”) tradition that’s developing is very welcome, from my point of view. I will always hate businesses that don’t let you cancel or unsubscribe or whatever online, but require you to actually call them.
But expectations evolve. At one time, people used to claim that one of the advantages of texting was that, unlike a phone call, it wasn’t an interruption. You could text someone, and it was understood that they didn’t have to deal with it right away. They could continue whatever they were doing at that moment, and then deal with your text when they had time to do so.
I think that expectation is changing, and people are starting to expect texts to be dealt with almost immediately as well. In my experience, you’re starting to see people give you maybe five minutes after getting a text before they start sending follow up “Did you get my text?” texts.
Since switching from a cheapie flip phone to a cheapie smart phone, I tend to text before calling, if I need to call at all. (Personal calls here, of course.) The way I see it, the recipient can deal with the text when it’s convenient, so unless it’s urgent, I’ll say “Call me when you get a chance.” It depends on whether a text exchange or actual conversation is the better means to resolve whatever needs resolution.
So if I’m working out babysitting plans with my daughter, it’s good to have a written record. But if her grandpa is going to have surgery, it’s easier to discuss it the old-fashioned way. Of course, those who don’t text, like my mom and MIL, are accustomed to regular phone calls anyway, so it’s no big deal.
As for me - if I don’t have a number in my contacts and I’m not expecting a call, I won’t answer anyway. If it’s important, I’ll get voicemail. If it’s a scam, I’ve saved myself the aggravation.
In recent years, the only people who knock on my door at random are trying to convert me. It’s obvious who they are and they’re easy to ignore. I did have a guy knock to give me his business card, and I wound up hiring him, so it turns out he was a welcome intrusion. But we live in the boonies, so there’s rarely a knock at the door anyway.
As for me, I won’t show up unannounced. I know my mom hates surprise visits, plus she lives 2 hours away, so I want to know that she’ll be there if I’m coming to see her. Frankly, calling/texting ahead is more for me anyway - I don’t want to waste my time if the person I want to see isn’t home.
None of this applies to businesses for me. I won’t text a restaurant to see if someone can take my take-out order, nor would I text my doctor to say I want to call for an appointment. That’s just silliness to me.
Agree
I have kids in school. I have to take my phone calls, because I don’t know the numbers of everyone in school. Most of the time it’s a robocall, which is annoying. I hang up. If it’s from the school, I have to take the call. Requiring them to text me first isn’t helpful. So I take the calls.
I just dropped in on a friend a few weeks ago. We haven’t seen each other much in a year, we had both had our first shots, and I was literally driving by her house. It was a nice night, we sat six feet apart on her porch, and talked for a bit. But its a very good friend - the type of friend you help in and out of the shower after surgery. The number of people I’d drop in on like that can be counted on my fingers.
That depended on your social circles and where you were. Not everybody had servants, let alone cards.
Among a lot of groups, it did indeed use to be routine to just show up, at least during what your group considered normal visiting hours. People didn’t have to let you in, of course – though very close friends or family might even walk in, calling out as they did so.
I don’t know a lot of people who just show up without calling any longer; but I do know some.
It’s a great advantage of modern phones that one can indeed turn them off; or set them to not ring. A lot of people never do turn them off, though. But you can set them to not ring, and let calls go to voice mail to check when it’s convenient to do so.
I have a flip phone on which it’s very difficult to text. (A non-flip phone wouldn’t survive an average day with me and would be too awkward to carry; the version I’ve got is water and break resistant, and fits in pockets along with tools.) If some specific person tells me not to call them, then I won’t call them; and if they insist on texting, I can do it if I have to. But, in general, I’m going to call – or email. And I do know a number of people who don’t have cell phones (or email) at all; some but not all of them for religious reasons.
One of the reasons I did finally get a cell phone, some years ago, was so that if I was out doing errands and managed to get them done soon enough that there was time left in the day, when I was passing near a friend’s place on the way home I could call them and ask whether it was a good time to come over. I’ve never done it from the driveway, though; I’ll pull over and call from a few blocks away.
– It seems to me that a lot of what’s happened is that we now have a lot of different ways to contact people, and everybody’s got their favorite. Some of the people who have a favorite want everyone else to have the same favorite, or even assume that everyone does; but actually, whatever you pick, there are significant numbers of people who either don’t have it, dislike and don’t check it, or even actively hate it.
My favorite’s still email, which takes the whole issue of different time schedules away (at least aside from the handful of people who think it should be answered Instantly), gives me a clear record of who said what, allows saying anything from a single word to a multiparagraph detailed explanation and displaying it on a large screen, can be checked when I get around to it and easily ignored the rest of the time, and is for me easy to use. Or it would be, if everyone who has it checked it, which they don’t.
Perfection and perfect agreement are I am afraid unavailable to us.
I think part of it is that as “cold calling” becomes more unusual, there is a feeling that if someone is just calling out of the blue, it must be an emergency. If it’s family or friends, I’d be worried someone is hurt of dead. If it is someone at work, it means there is a crisis-worthy question. Otherwise, they’d text.
The only real exceptions are my mom and my sister. But I always take their calls too, just in case.