Back when I was a kid with landlines only, there were phone etiquette rules that everyone was supposed to follow. One of them was not to call during “the dinner hour”. I don’t remember when that was but I think it was something like 6 - 7pm. There was another rule not to call after 9pm or before 9am unless it was an emergency.
This obviously differed by family and you could call outside those times if you knew them well and their circumstances. I am not talking about family or close friends though. I am asking about generic rules for people that you don’t know well or people like coworkers that you don’t have an agreement with.
You couldn’t easily turn off landlines. You can turn off cell phones or silence the ringer. Do such rules still exist and what are they? I usually eat dinner after 9pm. What do most people consider the dinner hour?
If your calling a cell, it doesn’t matter. People fondle their phones all through Dinner like, a junkie craving their fix. Wall phones are much more disruptive, not… than people scanning The Sacred Book of the Face.
That was then. This is now. Invisible, implied rules of etiquette have had their day, it’s a new world, do try to keep up.
Then, as now, anyone, at anytime is free to not respond to a ringing phone. See how easy that was? Ringers can be turnered off answering devices can be turned on.
As a result, frighteningly few people really gift a care any more. Well, perhaps some southern matrons clinging to the past, but everyone else has pretty much let it drop, I think.
I work in an insurance call center, and there are actual federal regulations that say we can’t outbound calls before 9am local lime or after 9pm local time.
For me, I try not to call after 6:00PM, regardless. If they’re not eating dinner, they’re probably doing something else that needn’t be interrupted unless there is an emergency. Texting, I’m not so strict about. A text is just a text, and can be addressed whenever. Sure, they can not answer a phone, but it rings annoyingly.
I take public transit a lot, and people have phone conversations at any time of day on the bus, even late at night. It kind of bothers me. I don’t want to hear someone else’s private phone conversation at 11:30 PM, or at any time of day, really.
I think you will find that anyone over the age of 60 (I am) will agree that back in the day there was indeed a dinner hour. Back then, my Dad made it clear to us (four) kids that a telephone call from 6 to 7 p.m. would be answered by him or my Mom. Any call not deemed an emergency would elicit the response “please do not call between 6 and 7, thanks.”
I agree that today’s mobile technology will (or already has) changed this attitude but I still adhere to the 6 to 7 “do not call” structure. And my nightly cutoff for casual calls is 8:30 p.m.
snfaulkner & jz78817: “Don’t call me out of the blue at all ever. Text me first and ask if I’m available to take a call first.”
If someone I knew told me this my response would be that they would never hear from me by telephone again. (And they might like it that way.)
Tempe Jeff: “If your calling a cell, it doesn’t matter. People fondle their phones all through Dinner like, a junkie craving their fix. Wall phones are much more disruptive, not… than people scanning The Sacred Book of the Face.”
I’ll agree with this one.
elbows: “That was then. This is now. Invisible, implied rules of etiquette have had their day, it’s a new world, do try to keep up.”
There is no sunset on polite behavior. The new world still says not to bother people with chit-chat when they might be having dinner – or sleeping. To be sure, it’s a crapshoot when calling is okay. But assuming people have their mobile devices off or voice mail or whatever every time they don’t want to interact is hubris. Sometimes a little thinking is in order.
Wow. That’s a rule that 99.9% of the people in the world are not aware of, so good luck with that. If one of my “friends” gave me those instructions, I’d probably ignore it or just never call. Too much hassle. And how do I know you even got the text? If I need to talk to you, I’m going to call you. If you don’t want to talk to me, don’t answer.
With caller ID, I almost never answer the phone unless I know who is calling me. And if my phone rings and I don’t want to take it, I let it go to voicemail. I never feel like I must answer the phone. Sometimes I will text people back and tell them I will call them later. I might be in a meeting or I just might not feel like talking right now. But even then, that’s not the norm. Voicemail takes care of unwanted calls most of the time.
No, there are still etiquette rules - not everyone has a cellphone and neither I or many of my friends call between 5 and 7 pm, cell or no cell. Call us all old school if you must, but etiquette standards don’t magically not apply anymore because technology has changed. The only thing that has changed is that a lot of people don’t think of anyone but themselves and their instant gratification.
This is decidedly … nonstandard behavior, in my experience. But, who knows, I’m 42 and it’s a brave new world.
To tell the truth, I don’t call much these days, but when I do, I tend to avoid 6 p.m. - 7:30 p.m.-ish, or text first. Any other time during the day, I’ll call. As for people calling me, I don’t give a shit. I have my phone on vibrate permanently, so I’ll answer as I please, anyway.
If I get the text, I’ll respond as soon as I see it. Or as soon as I’m available to see it. If you ignore that rule, I’ll bounce your call and respond with a text asking “what’s up?”. If I deem your reason to call worth a phone call, I’ll then call you back. I never ever check my voicemail.
A text is easy and unintusive enough to see if I’m available, or to even get the info you need from me. Don’t force me to turn down my music or pause a movie or go outside of whatever loud place i’m at just to find out you want to jibber jabber.
I believe phone etiquette has changed for several reasons.
Most/some people are not as formal about meals as in the past.
Cell phones, voice mail and caller ID have changed the phone dynamic immensely.
In the 70’s, before most people had even an answering machine, your choices were answer the phone or not know who was calling or why.
Or you could turn your phone off and never even know someone called.
In the past the rule seemed to be I HAD to answer the phone in case it was an emergency, so if I MUST answer, you MUST have a good reason to demand my attention at regular dinner hours/after 9pm.
With modern technology, you can see who’s calling, you can mute your phone to avoid noise, you can send to voice mail, people can text, tweet,IM etc to let you know what’s up, you can leave an outgoing message eg “eating dinner now, text in case of emergency” and my friend is telling me he has 2 numbers to ring the same phone, one for everyday, one for OMG , different ringtones.
If you sent me such a text, I would re-call you, because (A), you have shown that you are available to answer the phone, and (B), it is many, many, many times easier to exchange information in a couple spoken sentences than by using who knows how many rounds of text messages.