I don’t mind if my wife interrupts me, usually it has something to do with the call I am making, but sometimes just a routine question (you want potatoes or rice with dinner?) and I ask the person to hold for a sec. But my mother, born 1913 before phones were ubiquitous, would become absolutely incensed if someone tried to interrupt her. The most important person in the world is the one on the other end of the phone call. I never understood the attitude. If she were sitting in the kitchen sharing a cup of coffee with a friend, she could be interrupted. There was something sacred about a phone call.
I was thinking about this last night, and honestly I think that the phone interruptions are just a tiny slice of a whole thing, and caveat: this is anecdotal, but very common among my female circle of friends. Literally everyone in the house sees my husband’s time as totally different from mine. We both work full time from home now. We are both capable adults. Both of us have functioning eyes with fairly okay vision. But my husband can go downstairs and watch TV for hours and no one will interrupt for as long as he wants. So of course he doesn’t care if I pop my head in for 10 seconds.
In contrast, I can hardly finish a thought. If I’m on the phone that is rarely all I’m doing. If I’m not on a work call, I have my wireless earbuds in so I can talk while washing the lunch dishes while making dinner and simultaneously directing homework or maybe I’m leaving a swim practice and picking up my son from cross country or walking through the grocery. That’s what my “free” time looks like, and I’d say that’s true for most women. So piling an interruption on top of that, however short, is pretty annoying.
And don’t get me started on, “Well, you should’ve asked for help if you’re so stressed and busy a tiny interruption annoys you.” I’m already the cruise director of this household, and I tell people what to do for my job; being put in that position at home, too, aggravates the bejeezus out of me.
If my gf is on her phone and I have a quick question, I’ll text it to her and she replies via text. Works well for us.
I don’t like being interrupted by non-emergency questions from my wife when I’m on a work call. But:
I’m not sure how hearing someone say “I’m running to the store” would interrupt a call for 10-30 seconds.
My husband doesn’t make social phone calls. He hates being interrupted on work calls, and cows it as unprofessional if his colleagues notice there’s stuff going on in the house while he’s working. So i rarely interrupt him.
I make social phone calls. And all my coworkers have stuff going on in their homes during the work day. (My boss has two little kids who occasionally interrupt him if they are home.) I don’t mind a quick interruption, like, “I’m going out for a walk” or “I’m running to the drugstore, want anything?”.
I also routinely end social phone calls when my husband puts supper on the table. “Gotta run, supper is starting now.”
Quick interruption is no problem at all.
I have a reverse interruption to ask about. My Wife will make a call to chat with a friend. I’ll just be sitting in the living room doing something. But my Wife needs to walk and pace when she’s on the phone. Doesn’t sound like a big deal, but it’s annoying to me. She’ll start in the kitchen, walk into the living room while talking, go back to the kitchen, and back to living room through the entire call. Back and forth, back and forth.
So I end up hearing maybe one side of a quarter of the conversation. It’s very distracting. But it’s the way she is. She can’t just sit down and talk somewhere.