The phone doesn’t ring at my house. Caller ID and answering machine. As has been stated above, I have a phone for MY convenience. I don’t care whether anyone “likes” it or not. MY phone is none of THEIR business.
I use e-mail as a means of communicating quite a bit when practical. I know of a couple of folks that seem insulted if you suggest such as a viable alternative to telephony. I guess they just don’t “do” e-mail.
I don’t “do” phones.
I’m a better writer than I am a speaker. And I’m chatty as hell here, just check my post count. I just don’t like talking on the phone.
Also, I never know what to say on the phone. My conversations with my girlfriend are usually “How’s work?..Nah, I’m not doing anything much…alright, I’ll let you go, then.” And I LIVE with her.
My dad doesn’t have any problems with answering machines. He’s just convinced that a cell phone is a near necessity as a safety device. I considered this, but I have a phone at home, a phone in my classroom at school and in my office at the University, and a built-in emergency service in my car. Unless I have a serious accident walking to my car, I have all the phone service I need.
My answering machine message: “We are unable to answer the phone. Please leave a message. Thank you for calling.” It’s the message that came with the answering machine.
I always thought my phone was for my conveinience, not the caller’s.
You know, the one friggin time I had an emergency and had my cell phone, the friggin’ thing wouldn’t work. Just sayin’, they’re not always that handy.
I would prefer not to answer the phone. However, my husband’s job demands that he be available most of the time. When he’s out hunting, however, or just fooling around on his farm, I sometimes don’t answer the phone. It will take me some time to reach him, and it’s not guaranteed that I’ll reach him, as his cell phone is not reliable out there, and neither is his landline. I do somewhat worry that my folks will call with Important Medical News (they’re both heart patients, and between them they’ve had nine bypasses). However, we’ve got an answering machine, and my parents will leave a message if it’s that important.
I enjoy the luxury of not answering a phone if, as I said, my husband is out of town. I’ve also trained myself not to answer the phone if it wakes me up, as I WILL carry on a conversation with the other party, and pretty much make sense. However, I won’t remember what I’ve said, or any information that I was told. This caused my mother-in-law to be QUITE pissed at me one time when she’d called me to get a ride home from the mall. I assured her that I’d be there soon, hung up the phone, and went back to sleep. This was finally straightened out when my husband assured her that I ALWAYS did stuff like this when I was awakened by a phone call, and that it was never a good idea to decide that I was going to be the one to give her a ride home unless she’d cleared it with me FIRST.
On a related subject, I frequently don’t answer the door unless I’m expecting someone. The UPS guy always leaves a note saying that he rang but nobody answered, even if I’m home and awake all day (I think that he never rings at all, but that’s a subject for another thread). My inlaws used to have the horrid habit of dropping by without calling first. I quickly adopted the tactic of not answering the door unless I was expecting someone. Really, if people can’t be bothered to call first, I’m not interested in seeing them. And I am particularly not interested in buying magazines or home repair services when they’re sold door-to-door. I will answer the door if I’ve ordered something recently, but I generally have stuff sent to a PO box, or my daughter’s workplace.
My family is all cellphones. Everyone who calls me regularly has his / her own ringtone on my cell, so I can tell without even looking who is calling me. Depending on my mood at the time, I usually just hit “Decline” and send the call to voicemail. My theory is that if it’s important, whoever it is will leave a message. If it’s not, then why worry about it? Everyone who calls me regularly knows to leave a message if I don’t answer, because I otherwise will not return the call. The phone is mine, for my convenience.
It does my heart good to see so many who understand that phones are for the owner’s sake and not everyone else’s.
Home phone goes to answering machine as well–if it’s someone I want to speak with, I’ll pick up when they start to leave a message. If no message is left, it clearly wasn’t all that important, and was most likely some telemarketer or fishy-sounding charity or somesuch.
I do leave my current cellphone on, but the ringer’s always off. Not vibrate, off. I’ll see if I have voicemail on it soon enough.
I would prefer a phone which permits me to program it to bleet for certain numbers, but direct all other calls to the answering machine.
Well, there are three or four people that I never want to talk to – too chatty, or irritating. For them, I put a ringtone that’s nothing but silence on my phone. When they call, my phone rings silently for 30 seconds, then dumps them to voicemail. The only way I know they’re calling is if I see the screen blinking with their name on it. Of course, this doesn’t work for people I don’t know, so I picked a low-volume default ringtone and just ignore any unfamiliar numbers I see.
Like most of you guys I let it ring and the machine answers. Heck, thats why I have a machine. All too often its someone I just dont want to deal with.
In my last job, I used to get a lot of very stupid and/or drunk people calling, especially late at night/early in the morning. One person was very offensive by my inability to help her (hey, I’m a journalist, not a taxi service), especially when I pointed out that she was on her third call to me that night, and I wouldn’t be answering any more calls from her, on account of the phone being there for my convenience.
She spent the next 30 seconds calling me a variety of obscene names, and threatened to come down to my workplace with a gun.
About 10 minutes after that she had a pair of police officers pound on her door so she could spend the rest of the evening in lockup
Do not abuse the phone!
Ah I love you people! I reason that I pay for a phone for my own convenience. And as you all seem to agree, there are times when one simply does not want to talk on the phone. Sadly, there are people who believe that a phone call is a summons, an order, a thing one MUST accept, no matter what.
Example, Celyn gone to bed, still awake snoozily redoing a book, but in a happy ?all comfy and soon able to sleep" mode. It?s around 11.30 pm or midnight, possibly even a bit later. Then my phone rang. Ignored it. Then my mobile rang (yeah, silly of me to have it in bedroom with me, I know) It was a friend who, according to her, had rung my landline phone, and getting no answer, she said, she assumed I was out somewhere, so she then phoned the mobile.
WELL! I don?t think that is much good - after all, if she assumed I was out, isn?t it rude to suppose that I would obviously take a call from her, ignoring whoever I was actually with? She further assumed that I would, of course, get out of bed and go and talk on the phone in the living room. Well, I could have, but why the heck should I? (This was jsut for an ?I am back from the pub chat, nothing important)
How about this for a text message received on my mobile…AH, yees, and that was at on odd night of night, too, IIRC.
?I see you can ignore your mobile AND your real phone. Quelle surprise?
Yes, dear, I can ?ignore? my home phone cos I happen not to be at home, but miles away visitiing parents. I can ?ignore? my mobile cos it is in my bedroom, I was in the living roo, strangely enough talking with my parents, and I did not HEAR it! Either of them! Obviously, she did now know these facts, but that does not, to my mind, lessen the rude presumptuousness of her attitude.
Same person, incidentally, has been to known to phone my house asking if my brother (her boyfirend) is there, and I DO think that rude. Fine if there was some crisis, but to imagine that she should A - track peo0ple down wherever they are, expect their full attention, and B - that I shoujld be ignored because a visitor, who will be back in own house in about 30 mins anyway, has to talk on the phone.
Once again, I LOVE the SDMB for letting me know I am not some lone eccentric who ought to be banished from the world of all right-thinking people!
Just days ago, my brother felt moved to send a text message at 2 in the morning - NOTHING importan - the result breing that I shall now be keeping it switched off until I need it, then I shall have another fit of ?oh but what if anyone should have an accidnet/heart attack, etc? Best leave it on? Then, some other fool will phone at a silly time, then the pattern repeats.
GRRRRRR, I say!
Ah, another memory. A former b/f, another who thought Celyns should be online or on phone 24/7, once figured that he had not heard from me for a couple of days, and sent POLICE to door ?to check if I was all right?. Hmm, sorry, but this is a Celyn that takes ages to get to sleep anyway, and who does not find her mood in any way more relaxed by having to answer the door very late at night, and find policemen there. All sorts of horrible thoughts of accidents crossed my mind. (The former b/f lives in a different town, hence the police rather than driving himself, I suppose. Although I can see a case for saying this was nice of him to show concern, I?m afraid that strikes me as more pushy and a little bit controlling.- not on phone? I?ll show you!
N.B. I bet there are some reading this who wonder why have a phone at all if I take that attitude to them. Well, two things, when I first moved to this flat in a very insalubrious area, it would have worried me, AND my parents, not to know I had access to a phone. As for the mobile, I bought it to give me a feeling of security when out and about, not that I am much. Both machines DO have uses, for which I am grateful, but I shoudl be the boss, not the machines.
btw - I loved the earlier post from someone who answer the phone and sleeptalks!
The telephone is for MY convenience.
It’s that simple. I own the phone. I pay for the service. Why, then, would I wish to be entrapped by people with whom I do not wish to speak at the moment?
I’m not wild about phones to begin with. To me, a phone is a device for speaking with people way far away, like in other cities, or other states. It is useful for arranging meetings with people who live near me, and it is handy for ordering pizza on nights when no one feels like cooking… and this is IT. I’ve never understood those people who seem to go through life chatting with a silver bullet plugged into their ear…
If I am doing something important, I’m not going to answer the damn phone. I boggle at the very idea that there are people who will stop having sex to answer a telephone.
When my relatives want to get hold of me, leave a message. If it is someone I know, and it’s convenient for me, I will pick up.
When the telemarketers and bill collectors want to get hold of me, let THEM buy me a phone, and pay for the service.
Eight years working as a railway clerk where I was answering a phone as much as 80 times in eight hours made me phone-phobic as well, and for the past twenty years I only answer my home phone when I feel like it. Last year I moved to Houston; I didn’t get a land line for six months and then it was only to enable me to get DSL; I never answer the home phone when it rings. Just as well, as in months of use I’ve had maybe four calls total that weren’t wrong numbers or telemarketers. Since I never answer my phone anyway, I haven’t bothered to subscribe to a do-not-call list.
Anyone who I might want to speak to by phone has my cell number. Oddly enough, I don’t mind answering that one, but maybe it’s because I average only one or two incoming calls a day.
Oh, and since this also seems to have turned into a “what’s your message” thread, here’s mine: “At the tone, please leave a message”. Yeah, boring, I know.
I have a friend who screens all her calls, and it drives me absolutely insane. See, she’s prone to depression, and the more depressed she becomes, the more she sits in her house not feeling like answering the phone. The longer she sits there not seeing or talking to anyone, the more depressed she gets. It’s a nasty little cycle, and it’s one that worries me. She’s never to my knowledge been suicidal, but these bouts of depression and self-imposed isolation aren’t good for her. So when she doesn’t answer her phone, I don’t assume she’s not home; I assume that she’s sitting there by herself with all the curtains drawn, too miserable to even pick up the phone. Since she’s in another state and I have an overactive imagination, it doesn’t take long for me to start thinking she’s in the bathtub with a bag over her head, a bellyful of pills, and a pair of slit wrists.
I have a really great system for not talking to people I don’t feel like dealing with–I tell them I don’t feel like talking right now and I’ll catch up with them later. Then I hang up. It’s surprisingly simple and effective.
I used to have a co-worker whose personality was quite “abrasive.” (To put it mildly.) She was overbearing, nasty, very loud, and he had high-heeled shoes that made very loud “Clomp! Clomp! Clomp!” noises on the hardwood floors of our hall (office is in a vintage building.)
She would not only RUN to her phone, but she’d YELL at it to wait for her to get there (…er, I don’t think it really works that way.)
She had the ringer volume as loud as it would go. She’d hear the phone ring from the kitchen, at the other end of the building and (very annoyed) would bellow at the telephone “I’m coming! I’m coming!” as if it was a rude child that she was telling to be patient.
Then she’d run down the hall to her office – CLOMP!CLOMP!CLOMP!CLOMP!
It annoyed the crap out of us. The co-worker right across the hall from her had a mischievious streak. He’d see her leave her office, he’d wait until she got to the other end of the building, and then he’d call her extension sending her running back down the length of the building.
“I’m coming!.. I’M COMING ALREADY!!! Dammit!” CLOMP!CLOMP!CLOMP!CLOMP!
The mischief-maker would hang-up as she got to her door. (He had a great poker-face too, so she never knew if it was him or not.)
Of course, the game caught on around the office.
Needless to day, she got a good workout running up and down the hall. Especially if she’d been particularly nasty to people that week.
(And she really was a most vile human being.)
Hello everyone. I too am a non-phone answerer. I don’t have a specific policy about not answering the phone, but if I’m busy I’m not going to drop what I’m doing and hall ass across the house to pick it up. If I’m in bed and it wakes me up, I won’t answer it. I think this trend started when I was younger…the phone would ring and I’d just carry on doing whatever…my parents would actually yell at me for not answering it, hehe!
I agree with what others have said regarding the appropriate use of a phone. Its meant for making quick contact with somebody - ordering a pizza, or maybe confirming a meeting place/pick-up/drop-off details. I’ll never understand those people who need be constantly “in the loop”, yammering on about who-knows-what.
Of course, the other thing I can’t stand is the classic “what if there’s an emergency?” retort. Well, if there’s an emergency, call the police, not me!
Just recently my mom offered to buy me a cell phone and pay for coverage. I patently refused the offer.
Be aware that in some circle this will mark you as Not A Team Player, and restrict any advancement chances.
Ask me how I know this. On second thought, don’t.