I needed to call a lady I didn’t know last night and I didn’t think about it until 9.45pm – I decided to wait until today.
11.30 is about the cutoff for people I know.
Friends or familiy can call me whenever, I don’t mind being woken up in the middle of the night, I’ll just go back to sleep.
I would rather people who don’t know me did not call after 9pm, or before 10am.
I go to bed around 9 under most circumstances, so I don’t want the phone ringing after that. In fact, the ringer on the phone in my bedroom is turned off. If I don’t hear the phone in the kitchen, I won’t even know if someone is calling.
My inlaws always stay up late - they have no problem with calling as late as 10:30 or 11. They never seem to remember that I go to bed early. It’s hard to be civil when you’re semi-conscious.
Bottom line - unless there’s a death or a terrible accident, I don’t need to know till morning.
I’ve got a 10am-10pm rule. There’s always dispensation for great news/horrible news or if it’s agreed upon previously. (The rules do change if I’m calling someone I know has young’uns.)
I don’t like the phone ringing after 8pm. I also don’t like people calling me before noon on the weekends. Curses to the people that call me at 8am on a freaking Sat.!!!
It depends:
SO - anytime, or no time is too late
Family - 1am
Close friends - 12am
Friends - 10pm
Random and assorted annoying people - leave me alone!
Emergencies excluded as usual
For the most part, I have recieved maybe a half-dozen phone calls in the past three plus years that were actually people I wanted to talk to. Therefore, I have ceased answering the phone entirely.
While I wouldn’t really mind terribly if one of my close friends called late - say 11-12 at night - they never call at all, and now that we have a toddler we’re kinda bushed by that time and usually in bed at 10.
Never before 10 a.m.
For business, never past 8 p.m.
For family/friends, never past 10 p.m.
If the phone rings at 10:30 I’m bitching about my brother before I even pick up. He’s a slow learner.
Strangers shouldn’t call after 8pm, and family and friends shouldn’t call after 10pm unless it’s really important.
On my cell phone: any time. If I forget to turn it off when I go to sleep, that’s my own damn fault.
On my house phone: 9 or 9:30, since there are other people in the house, and they often go to sleep rather early
I’m a lot more likely to do a marketing survey AFTER 9pm. Like most working parents, I spend the hours between 6-9 doing family stuff, dinner, supervising homework, reading stories, etc. After that it’s stuff I can do while talking on the phone (loading dishwasher, doing laundry). (However, since I work in advertising/marketing I usually get ruled-out with the early rule-out question, namely, whether I work in advertising or marketing).
Telemarketers never.
In general I’m much happier when the person on the other end is someone I want to talk to. Who isn’t? In that case, any time’s okay. (My friends know I’d rather talk on the phone than sleep. At least, I’d rather talk to them than sleep.
Strangers, 8pm. Friends / Family, 10pm on weekdays, later on weekends or if we are making plans to go out.
We recently had an ad in our local paper selling a vehicle, and I was really irritated at the people who would call at all hours. 11:30pm is not the time to call about the car, and neither is before 8am on a Sunday! I didn’t think I needed to put acceptable calling hours in the ad, but apparently I was wrong.
Then again, the same people who called at 11:30 were the ones who ended up buying it and picking it up around 3am one night the next week…so I think they just lived in a different time universe.
I’m with Ringo, 8 for strangers, 9 for friends, and 10 for family. Anytime for emergencies. And don’t call me before 8:00am on Saturday and Sunday.
For telemarketers - never.
For close family and friends - 10pm. Anyone else - 9pm. On the weekends, don’t call me before 10:30am.
I generally don’t call friends with young kids after 8. Most other people - 8:30 or 9. And if they have a new baby in the house, I generally won’t call after 7. For close friends with new babies, I just ask them to call me when it’s convenient for them, because I never know when they might be sleeping.
telemarketers and market research people - never
anyone else - according to the importance of the call
8am - 5 pm… I won’t answer - I’m supposed to be at work, so no one I know is calling
5 - 7 pm… All calls answered, even telemarketers
7 - 10 pm… Depends on what I’m doing. Only answered if Caller ID somone I want to talk to
10 pm to 8 am - I will assume that someone has died and answer the phone accordingly. “What?? What’s wrong!!?!?!?”
Midnight. And I like taking surveys. Especially Arbitron.
I won’t make a personal call after 9 p.m. or before noon unless I know the person’s habits. My MIL, for instance, is a serious night owl, so when my kids were babies and developed some worrying (but fortunately always innocent) symptom at 2 a.m. I had no qualms about calling her for advice and reassurance. She was still awake.
For receiving calls… people who know me know that between 9 and 10 p.m. is a good time, since the kids are in bed. After 10 it had better be important, although I’ll make allowances for MIL and her weird circadian rhythms. I go to bed at 11. If you call me after that hour, somebody had better be dead or dying.
Don’t call before noon, don’t call after 3AM. I’m always up around that time, but calling before noon… rest assured that you will get me in the worst possible mood. Ever.
That says it all for me. 