Nowadays I never hang up. I let them introduce themselves and then put the phone on mute so I can see how far they get into their script before they realise I’m not responding. If they had only checked the TPS list before calling then they wouldn’t be wasting their time.
Friends know and use my first name. Companies I have a relationship with will use my surname. Callers who address me by my wife’s surname are, more often than not, soliciting business.
Maybe it’s the fatigue talking, but it occurs to me that if the caller doesn’t know the callee, the caller really has no way of knowing what manner of information the callee would consider to be good news (or important news).
Still, you claim that you can think of dozens of other possibilities. Could I trouble you to list, perhaps half of one of those dozens?
It occurs to me that they could have gotten through Roots in a single episode, had Levar Burton only adopted your oh-so-sensible plan…
Easy to see why. He didn’t spend sixty years in school to listen to some layperson spouting off a bunch of fancy-schmancy medical terminology.
Yeahhhh, umm… I notice yours doesn’t have a cover sheet…
Mr. X, I’m calling to remind you of your dentist appointment for next Tuesday…
Mr. X, I’m calling to warn you about your bank balance being too low…
Mr. X, I’m calling to tell you your child has been in an accident - he’s fine, but you need to come pick him up…
Mr. X, I’m calling to tell you that your distant cousin has died…
Mr. X, I’m calling to tell you that there’s some unusual activity on your credit card and we need to make sure it’s not stolen*…
Mr. X, I’m calling from the state lost property office about some money you inherited that we just discovered…
*Of course, a call like this could be a phishing scam, so you’d be smart enough not to give out your card number, which they should already know if they’re the credit card company.
They have robot telemarketers now that can have conversations with you. It’s weird.
What we need is a robot to respond to them.
Enough snotnose losers calling you by what they think is your first name, and you get over that feeling fast.
LOL. Except it only works once if you give away the secret.
My wife’s last name is different than mine. If anyone calls and asks for Mr. her name or Mrs. my name I give them a few seconds to determine it isn’t a mistake, which it can be, then give the same reply I give to all telemarketers. Thank-you I’m not interested.(click)
Well, if they are using you first name, you must assume they want to be friendly and will not mind when you ask, “Wh-what are you wearing?”
Good one, For You.
The example that this always reminds me of is J.R.R. Tolkien being disgustedly bemused with people who didn’t know him trying to call him “John.” No one who knew him called him “John,” and he called it out as a ridiculous failed attempt at unwanted familiarity.
(I’m not sure what his actual familiars called him but “Tolkien.” I think he was “Tolkien” to his friends, and “John Ronald” to those in his family for whom there wasn’t a better way of calling him than a personal name. But not “John.”)
I ususally get called by my “title-surname” but I can always tell a solicitor because my surname is usually mispronounced. There are at least three ways to pronounce it, in English, German, or French, but solicitors always find a fourth way.
And the only two people I’ve ever heard pronounce it German fashion were native speakers of German.